The Winner Stands Alone: A Novel (P.S.)

My first Coelho book - I enjoyed the beginning of it, I enjoyed the characters, the setting, etc. He writes very well - easy to read. Just not sure the book "works." I am looking forward to reading other books by him.

Still halfway through the book and plowing through the pages I have learned that it gripped me, I would never have come this far if it did not. So far I am caught into the stories of each characters and I'm intrigued on how this will end. Looking forward.

This book is full of bitterness. It is like Paulo Coelho suffered a great disappointment in life and is now expressing it on his book. It is sad to see someone turning into a cynic and bitter man that believes the world is full of greed and trickery. If you are a cynic yourself, enjoy. I pass. Could not finish the book after having read more than half.

This book is full of bitterness. It is like Paulo Coelho suffered a great disappointment in life and is now expressing it on his book. It is sad to see someone turning into a cynic and bitter man that believes the world is full of greed and trickery. If you are a cynic yourself, enjoy. I pass. Could not finish the book after having read more than half.

I have never reviewed anything on the store before but I'm sooo angry after wasting my time reading this book; I had to! I am a HUGE Paulo Coelho fan! I have all of his books; even duplicates of some in Spanish because I'm bilingual. I have bought and given copies of the Alchemist away to friends and family because I felt it was so profound. When I saw this book, I grabbed it due to WHO wrote it; after struggling and pushing myself to finish this book to see if it ever got any better, I was left utterly and completely PO'ed after reading the last page. Unbelievable. SKIP this book! I refuse to believe Paulo Coelho wrote this! But, there is his name on the cover!

Here comes another absolutely disastrous book by a renouned, famous and well regarded novelist. It seems to be happening time after time. Their fame goes to their head and they feel they can get away with printing any kind of stupid garbage that comes to their mind. The best argument against the falacy of fame and fortune is for this book to have ever been written and published. Maybe that was the point Coehlo was trying to make. However, I did feel cheated and robbed. Not only what I paid for this silly book but the time that I spent trying to get through it. A TOTAL AND ABSOLUTE WASTE OF TIME. And to think this is becoming another best seller... WELL PLEASE BEWARE!!! You were duly warned. DON'T READ THIS BOOK!!! PLEASE.

Celebrities, cameras, exquisite banquets, fashion. And than there's reality. In his most controversial book to date, Coelho investigates the contemporary world of celebrity and what is hidden underneath the façade. Set during twenty-four hours at the Cannes Film Festival, we are introduced to a culturally diverse set of characters--the dangerous Russian entrepreneur Igor who destroys lives in a bid to win back his now-married ex-wife Ewa, a driven young Italian actress Gabriela whose destiny drastically changes twice in one day, an African teenager Jasmine set to sign her first major modeling contract but secretly torn between her career and her love for another woman, and Ewa's fabulously rich Middle Eastern fashion-designer husband Hamid who is blissfully unaware of Igor's plans until it is too late. Along the way, Coelho showcases various members of the show-business hierarchy such as its naïve and exploited starlets, professional workaholics who are hostages to their own ambitions, and Superclass celebrities who have made it to the top but are secretly terrified of fading into obscurity at any moment. Yet, Coelho's newest offering isn't only a critical look into the makings of modern society dominated by pop culture, but also a tragic love story of a serial killer leading to a shocking outcome which is surprisingly foreshadowed by the book's title. Igor's journey for vengeance forever alters not only Igor's and Ewa's lives, but also the fate of the people Igor meets along the way like the innocent street-vendor Olivia, the superstar movie distributor, the aspiring movie-maker Maureen, and the unnamed troubled actor simply referenced to as the Star along with the Director of his new film. Interspersed throughout the story are curious factual aspects of the industry as well as Coelho's signature analysis of the celebrity-obsessed culture where both the audience and the celebrities are revealed to be victims of the system. There are also interesting tidbits about famous people like Coco Chanel (apparently she had a very negative childhood and underwent a string of wealthy lovers before she became the famous fashion designer we know today), as well as introspective reflections on fame, fashion, jewelry, and money among other topics. The eloquently described stars are revealed to be just as unhappy as the very audience they cater to, trapped into contractual freedom-less lives not much better than the standard nine-to-five--with their luxurious lifestyles a well-masked lie and self-esteem only as high or low as their latest career performance. Overall, I enjoyed Coelho's fluid writing and in particular his descriptive inclusions of various character viewpoints and industry revelations. Through his book, I feel that Coelho has given celebrity-ism a realistic new meaning--one not widely explored in the otherwise star-struck magazines or TV shows. With this new book, Coelho has left behind his ancient parables like "The Alchemist" and "The Devil and Miss Prym", and shifted to the present while appreciatively retaining his characteristic philosophical outlook on life and destiny, successfully depicting a plot filled with tension right up until the last page. Even if the winner does stand alone, I bet everyone wants to be that winner.

Paulo Coelho's new book, The Winner Stands Alone, was a read that I had to fight myself not to put down not because it was so good, but because it was as dark as these reviews / sentiments confirm.

As I plowed through the darkness, just to honor my commitment to finish what I start, I kept wondering why the writer of something as magical as The Alchemist would write something so heavily into the dark side of the force.

As soon as I finished the book I started reading Coelho's The Valkyries for the second time. The characters in this book are on a quest to speak with and see their angels.

The Valkyries made me realize that part of our quest is to be comfortable in both the light and the dark without being consumed by the darkness. Being afraid of the dark only gives it more power.

Mid way through the book, as I was about to chuck it, I would give it a rating of 1, for the reasons that I have stated, I'm giving it a 5.

Sadly page after page in The Winner Stands Alone is full of bitterness and sadness with no redeeming features.
The characters are not well developed, especially the women that appear as helpless and totally dependent on
the men in their lives. I expected more from this author.

Smug, condescending, pompous, shallow, repetitive, preachy, dull, flat, tendentious, pointless, drenched in cliché, riddled with stereotypes, devoid of wit, irony or insight, contemptuous of the characters (and hence of the readers)...this book covers all bases in terms of what not to do when telling a story. The central mystery is how an author capable of such godawful, self-satisfied piffle managed to sell one hundred million books: a mystery better left unexplored because of its implications about the intelligence of the book-buying public. Terrible beyond campy, a torture to read: my personal candidate for Worst Book of the Century.

After enjoying almost every book from Coelho I was "forcing" myself to finish this book, it is as presumptuous as empty. I always learn from his books, but this one was too obvious and lacked his magical touch, He didn't developed many of the characters and there were mostly no surprises.

I will wait for the next one, Paulo will come back.

A failure intent to a crime novel. A vicious attack to the "superclass". Coelho tries to give a profound insight of ambition and fame, in a very critical and bitter way failing miserably. I did not like it.

Having been to the Cannes Film Festival for many years, and still planning to go to next year's even after reading Paulo Coelho's latest opus, I found the book to be true to the Cannes life. While the characters may be fictitious, the Cannes cinemarati will recognize familiar figures of the Cannes cinema circus. As always a pleasant read, a page turner that inspires. Highly recommended.

Nowdays is an excellent topic.I like the general contex.It's a good book for everyone,men,women,teens...
Actually it should be obligatory reading at high school,for this new empity heads generation