34% of goodreads users gave The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho 5 stars. I’m not sure I listened to the same book as these people read. Maybe there is some deep philosophical meaning that this book contained and my tiny mind just didn’t gasp it. I have no idea. To mean this book “read” like a children’s book. It was not written poorly. The story just didn’t appeal to me. There was nothing that grabbed me. There was no foreshadowing that I wanted to hang out for and see how it went. Therefore, I fall solidly in the only 9% of goodreads users that gave this book a measly 2 stars.