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Okay, so this book taught me not to judge an author by the first book of theirs I read and just because I didn't LOVE The Alchemist doesn't mean I didn't love this (clearly, look at that five-star rating). I had the hardest time putting this book down when it came time to do other things and when I'd pick it up I'd get through a minimum of 10 pages without even having noticed and I think that when I come across a book like that, it's both rare and lovely and I'm definitely going to be reading a lot more of Coelho's writing. It was a smooth read, not easy, but smooth. When things got difficult, I'd take a short pause then proceed by skimming right through them with little trouble. Tender, yes, the writing was tender and supple with my favourite kind of imagery: the sleepy kind. But it's worth mentioning that for a while there my romantic idea of monogamy was tampered with a bit because it seemed foolish to aspire to full-on monogamy if this is the way relationships are supposed to work but then I remembered this is fiction and as much as it could relate to most people, it doesn't relate to all. So there's that. I felt like I should've been more bothered by the conclusion to all of this than I was but Linda went through so much already and I don't mean to excuse her infidelity ('cause it kinda seems like she got both men in the end, to be honest) but the way the author wrote it drew a mix of empathy and compassion from me and it was hard to help from feeling that. I always have mixed feelings about reading about the topic of infidelity, so I'm still a little torn at what to feel.