Reviews - Hippie | The StoryGraph

424 reviews for:

Hippie

Paulo Coelho

3.5 AVERAGE

katafalkas's review against another edition

3.75

adventurous medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: N/A

Diverse cast of characters: N/A

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

itscaahhrrie's review against another edition

3.0

Short, interesting, amusing. Paulo Coelho recounts his younger days as a hippie traveling around the world. I didn’t love all of the characters (based on real people) but enjoyed the sentiment behind his experiences.

traceymadeley's review against another edition

4.0

reflective slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Written in the first person from the perspective of the rebel leader Dray Quintero this book is around eighty per cent fighting and action scenes. The problem with this is that without a strong impetus for fighting it lacks purpose. Like 1984, there is a fight for freedom against tyranny, but this book lacks Orwell’s ideological grounding and purpose that forms the backbone of the book.

There are some wonderful elements which in common with good science fiction, just take us beyond the bounds of current technology. The implants in the eyes are frightening, but not beyond augmented reality glasses. The hover bikes have been used in other works and the expanding webbing is a great tactical advantage, along with the sound disrupters. Robot warriors and nanites are a nod to Asimov and drone warfare is already proven.

Due to the large amount of fighting, there is little room for characterisation. The best developed characters are Dray’s family, his daughters, wife and girlfriend. Zion is a constant threat in the background, but we do not know enough about him. Kieran is a much better villain, but even he would benefit from more development.

The exposure and defeat of a tyrant is a fitting ending. There are some nice scenes and where there is more than just violence, such as the hospital and the train, sympathy and reader engagement arise.

oliviasvik's review against another edition

2.0

slow-paced

makaylapoop's review against another edition

3.0

adventurous reflective slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

frenchbretzel's review

4.0

adventurous emotional inspiring reflective fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

menakalda's review against another edition

3.0

Maybe I could have been a fan of this book if I was Brazilian, but as an American who doesn’t speak a word of Portuguese, I didn’t love it. Something’s always lost when books are translated (in this case translated from Portuguese to English), but good translations can create something comparable and with its own charm. This was not a good translation. There were so many paragraphs where I could see there must’ve been poetry back in Portuguese, but it had been lost while transferring over to English. The dialogue often came across as bizarre and unnatural — what sounds normal in Portuguese sounds strange in English, and it felt like the translator didn’t take this into account.

Moreover, the talk about spirituality and Sufism fell flat on me. I’m not superstitious and I don’t really believe in anything that hasn’t been proven by science, but with enough emotion involved, I can will myself to believe in fate and luck and karma and energy from the universe. I once knew a woman who said her hands had healing powers and that the universe is alive through energy, and whenever I was around her, I believed it, because she felt it very openly and conveyed her beliefs with enough passion (she also was once a masseuse, so she kind of did have healing hands in a way; she just didn’t mean it that way). I could believe in - or even just suspend my disbelief and feel — the spiritualism this book discusses if it were conveyed with more passion, but it all feels like it’s just words trying to convey something that’s falling flat. Again, maybe because of the poor translation.