The Alchemist

Author: Paul Coelho

One-sentence summary: A shepherd boy sets out on a personal journey to find his treasure and encounters several people along the way that shape his journey and his understanding of himself and the world.

B.A.D. Girls Book Rating: 8

Our favorite thing about it: The fast-paced and interesting story and the puzzle pieces of the story that end up fitting together in the end.

Our least-favorite thing about it: The part where the main character speaks to the wind and the sun in order to get himself out of a sticky situation.

Main Topics of Discussion: Love, Religion, Destiny, Intuition, Treasures

Our favorite quote: "I'm an old supersticious Arab, and I believe in our proverbs. There's one that says, 'Everything that happens once can never happen again. But everything that happens twice will surely happen a third time.'"

Notes: We began by talking about the story itself and how it did not end up like you might have thought it would. We all liked how there were pieces of information that became important to the shepherd boy on his journey that were learned early on. We also spent some time discussing the weaving of Islam and Christian stories and parables into this book. We all enjoyed that aspect. We thought that where and how the boy finally found his treasure was ironic, but a satisfying ending to his story. Some of us had wondered, because of the tone of the book, if the boy's real treasure would be a physical one or not. We spoke about how the theme of love is apparent in the story and a little bit about how intuition can be correct or deceiving at times.

Memorable Meeting Moments: Celebrating Dara's birthday and the wonderful strawberry dessert Lindsay brought for the occasion!