Paulo Coelho - Eleven Minutes

A modern day fable about Maria, a Brazilian girl, going through many awakening experiences from childhood through adolescence and womanhood. She muses about her philosophy on life, happiness, sex, pain, pleasure, morality and love. Above all, she wants to find love, but something always goes wrong in her relationships. The book tells her story, but there are the diary inscriptions in Maria's own words, which are very naive but also mature at the same time. Maria gets on a plane with a man from Switzerland to become a samba dancer, but then eventually she gets involved in prostitution in order to save money to go back to Brazil and buy a farm. Will she realise her dream of finding true love and going back to Brazil or will she choose the soul destroying path of sadomasochistic acts. Will she ever be happy? There are many graphic sex scenes which the reader must decide if this is really necessary. I found the storyline interesting. Some people could even find the book informative, although I don't think that was the intention.