Are we intrinsically good or are we evil? A stranger arrives
                    in a remote mountain village with a reward of gold, and sets
                    the villagers a morality test in order to find the answer
                    to the ultimate question of humanity?
                   

Synopsis.
                    A
                    parable of good and evil . The stranger is haunted by a tragic
                    past and arrives in the little village carrying a fortune
                    in gold and accompanied by the devil. He confronts the youngest
                    person of the village, the Chantal Prym of the title with
                    his proposition. A test - the villagers must commit an evil
                    act, a murder, to receive the reward - the gold. The test
                    is to prove or unprove his thesis that "given the right
                    set of circumstances every human being on this earth would
                    be willing to commit evil". Chantal must decide to tell
                    the village of the awful test, and fight her own temptation
                    to simply take the gold and escape the stifling village. The
                    tension builds as she and the villagers decide their actions
                    and Coelho skillfully keeps the final outcome totally hidden
                    until the end.

Opinion
                    A
                    tense, clever novel, which debates the grander moral questions
                    of life. Like a fable or parable in its style (fables seem
                    to be in vogue) - don’t bother going here if you demand realism
                    and believability in your reading. This is closer to the magic
                    realist tradition and reflects the Latin American background
                    of the author. Characters have visions, speak to the dead
                    and devils and angels bicker at their shoulders. But the plot
                    is simple and gripping. The single question - "will they
                    or won’t they?" - holds you right to the end. Coelho
                    is a master storyteller and handles the underlying moral subject
                    matter with ease, yet the question remains complex, and there
                    is no simplistic answers.

The
                    response to this book from our bookclub has so far been very
                    positive, so much so that we are going back to read an earlier
                    novel of Coelho’s - The Alchemist, which sold over 30 million
                    copies worldwide.

GUYS COME ON. BORROW? Or hindi, bibilin ko na lang.

ANG COOOOOOL. CHANTAL YUNG NAME NUNG CHARACTER! :)) Tapos hindi ko pa alam yun ah. I REALLY REALLY WANT THIS NOW. :((