That book club where everyone hated 'The Alchemist' made me reconsider it

I trashed that book for years after reading it in high school. But hearing 6 different people explain why it worked for them last Tuesday made me grab a copy from the library and now I get the hype.

2 comments

2 Comments

robinson.paul1mo ago

My buddy Jake swore by that book for like a decade. He said he read it on a bus in Peru and it changed how he saw everything. Then last year his girlfriend read it and called it "empty spiritual slogans" and he got all weird about it. Now he just says it's okay but won't recommend it to anyone. Funny how one bad review can mess with your whole memory of a thing.

averym821mo ago

Used to have a whole shelf of books like that, ones I swore changed my life. Then I went back and read one a few years later and it was basically just motivational posters in paragraph form. Realized I'd put all this meaning into it because I was in a certain headspace at the time, not because the book was actually deep. Once someone close to me pointed out the holes, I couldn't unsee them either. Your buddy's story hits close to home. Makes you wonder how much of what we love is just timing and nostalgia wrapping around something average.