Rating: 
Summary: A Beautiful Story of Love
Review: With each book I read by Paulo Coelho, I come to admire his works of wisdom, of love and of hope even more. Each book is a gem! I could not write down the quotes fast enough from this book! This book will leave you joyful as well as hopeful in this most romantic tale.Pilar is confronted with facing herself - either she embraces her love or she walks away from it in the form of her childhood friend, who has misgivings about entering the seminary, due to his enduring love for her. She encounters the feminine face and force of God, which desires her to open up to love. Likewise, her seminarian is facing the battle of choosing between love and God. Both characters encounter challenges of the heart and find that they can have the best of both worlds - of love and of God. This is NOT a pushy or preachy religious book, but a book, which imparts the feminine and masculine aspects of God in our lives amidst the deep love of a man and a woman have for each other. "The previous day, the world had made sense, even without love's presence. But now we needed each other in order to see the true brilliance of things (88)." "But love is always new. Regardless of whether we love once, twice, or a dozen times in our life, we always face a brand-new situation. Love can consign us to hell or to paradise, but it always takes us somewhere. We simply have to accept it, because it is what nourishes our existence. If we reject it, we die of hunger, because we lack the courage to stretch out a hand and pluck the fruit from the branches of the tree of life. We have to take love where we find it, even it that means hours, days, weeks of disappointment and sadness. The moment we begin to seek love, love begins to seek us. And to save us. (79)" Coelho, the eternal optimist, shows us once again the power of love and of God's love in our lives. This book is a quick read and it is one of Coelho's best! A great love story!
Rating: 
Summary: A spiritually beautiful novel
Review: This book is beautiful, not only for those who have had a distant love, but for any of those people who dream, who live, and to those who also love. It is a story of the undying kind of love we all long to attain, it is spiritually uplifting at times and very heart warming at others. I say to all- Read this book!
Rating:
Summary: Spirituality
Review: I am not a writer myself, as my review will clearly show, but I must say this. This was a truly excellent book, and I've already recommended it to 4 other people. It is true that it does get very religious, and some people have docked it for that. I must ask this though, why can't they step back and see it as general spirituality? I for one don't believe in organized religion, but couldn't put this book down. I feel that says something for the quality of the book, and for the meaning it gives. I wish that everyone could read this book, and not get hung up on simple things.
Rating:
Summary: Read it outloud for the best experience!
Review: I found this book at the information counter of a book store while purchasing Einstein's Dreams. I picked it up and read the back cover and decided to purchase it. That afternoon I was riding the metro in Washington, D.C. and was captured so securely by the opening pages that I began to read it out loud! I am still captivated by the story through the relationahip between the lead characters and the metaphysical/religious sense to living. Often times we, humans, fail to see the cooling nature of spirituality; the feminine face of God as Coelho puts it. There are aspects of spiritually that span all the world's religions and Coelho is successful to point out the commonalities of all. The love story is beautiful and Coelho is successful in describing the essential struggle of Love and Life through the protagonist, Pilar. Love and Life are two of the three quests that humans try to find the answers for. (Death being the third) I feel that Paulo Coehlo has both entertained me and helped me to look deep into my soul for the answers to my life. A wonderful Love story that should be read out loud.
Rating:
Summary: By The River Peidra, I Sat Down and Wept
Review: Stunning book. I am not a normal reader of such metaphysical works but was caught by the title and curiosity. The book's author impecibly reveals his views of life and love and their true value and meaning. It was a pleasure to read about two lost loves from childhood who reunite as adults in search of "love" in their life. Not your typical love story. My favorite line is on page 148;"Break the glass, please - and free us from all these damned rules, from needing to find an explanation for everything, from doing only what others approve of." That sums up the meaning of the story. Love has no rules, requires no ones approval,is a precious gift and to experience that "magic moment" some people will wait a lifetime for.
Rating: 
Summary: Not Good at All!!!!
Review: Paulo Coelho books beside being cheap reading and not a great literary work they sound the same and feel the same. If you are beach reader, lazy reader and don't care about the quatlity this is a book for you. I disliked it!!!!!!
Rating: 
Summary: It's a start...
Review: I read the Alchemist and I really liked it, so I figured this book would be another moving experience. I was disappointed a third of the way in, and remained that way for the rest of the book. I never once felt attached to either of the characters. The love that unfolds in the story seems a bit empty. These people are apparently connected through a lovely childhood, but *why* is their bond so special? The book says little more than "they had a lovely childhood together" and we're expected to just take the author's word for it. It's the same with her transformation in the days she spends with him. Her life is changed by his influence, but why? Did it really only take a change of scenery? Has she really never thought of some of the things he's discovered? Could she have just fallen in love with anyone who brought her out of her banal existence? I felt like as these events were happening, I wasn't being brought along for the ride. I was merely taking the author's word for it and reading a summarization. Their love meant nothing to me because I couldn't see why she wanted him over anyone else, and vice versa. Without real purpose and depth, love stories like this become fluff. I think with twice the content and detail, I would have felt much more of a connection to the material. I like a lot of the things Coelho has to say (it's still a better story than I could write) and I'm definitely going to read the rest of his books -- this one just wasn't for me.
Rating:
Summary: Love that worht everything
Review: Daniel Lozada-Montebello Adult School,Montebello Ca.
Love is a need of every human,we were created to love and to be loved as a human we have a strong desire to be love,we have the necesity of being loved in a special way, this story is about a young couple that found each other once again after a long separation, their encounter brought some feelings that they had when they were younger, during that separation they try to find the real love, they know that they had something in common but they didn't know what was that but it was something powerful and special that it had to be discovered in specific time and specific circumstances, the separation helped them to understand that there is just one specific person for each one of us. They learned that the real love can't be substitude by any other feeling or material things and they learned the real love is not something that comes so easy, they have to fight and persevere in order to find it. They made many mistakes but and the end of the story they knew that the real love have to be cultivated.
Rating:
Summary: In the name of the love
Review: Yanina Mussio:Montebello Adult School,Montebello CA.
The Story about two lovers that fought hard in order to be together, the circunstances and the differences that they had tried to separated them even the time and the distance was against them, their furture as a couple looked uncertain. Even they were friends from the childhood and the love that they felt to each other they had to take different ways in their lives, but after a long separation onece again they were together and it was the time to fight for the real love, a love that worth everything, the wait,the suffer and the patience. Love that can overcome any circunstance and bring together all the feelings and mixed them to create a love that will persevere for the rest of the life.
Rating:
Summary: BY THE RIVER PIEDRA I SAT DOWN &WEPT
Review: In my personal opinion, I love this story because they find the way to be together and fight to accomplish their goals. Most of all, I love their determination to not give up and start a new life if Great Mother would not agree. They were afraid to chage the way of their life. Great Mother agreed to give them a second chance and they were so happy because they would be serving to God and at the same time they can be together as a couple, in this life we have to fight for our love or dreams.
|
