The Alchemist

Outside of water for Elephants, The Alchemist was the most enjoyable book I read this year that was related to this class. The book is the basic story of a young boy who is following his dreams to buried treasure. This is over simplifying the book to say the least. Although, it sounds simple, it is written simply, and it is relatively short at 160 pages, I feel it has a place in the reading now course load. I feel like this would be a good book for either after Happiness or at the very end of the semester. What makes this book good is that it is very though provoking and the whole story is a metaphor to follow your dreams. Each test the boy goes through along his path of finding buried treasure can be talked about in a class discussion. That said, if you were to put this story in the beginning of the year it would be good for breaking the ice into class discussion. The way this book is written it is easy to understand the characters and connect with them like you were to know them in real life. I feel this is because the author did not get to caught up in names and you only hear the actual names of people like 3 times through out the whole story. This seemed to make it easier to instantly get to know the characters. I feel this is a technique that was used effectively and should be used by more authors because it is very useful to the reader. All in all, I am glad to have read this book because it was fun, fast, and really had a good message.