Book Review: The Witch of Portobello by Paulo Coelho
The Book: The Witch of Portobello by Paulo Coelho
Source: This was a book club pick
My Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️ (see my review on Goodreads)
Confession: I’d never heard of this book, nor paid much attention to Paulo Coelho, before it came up as the first pick in a new local witchy book club. I was pleasantly surprised when right off the bat I was intrigued by the narrative approach — learning about a witch who recently died, all through interviews of people who knew her. Right away I was sucked into the theme and wished I’d had a physical or ebook copy in which to highlight passages. The observations and commentary on life, on women, and witchy figures, was interesting and relevant to me.
I decided to pick this one up from the library on audio and was surprised by the range of the narrator! She did ALL the voices, although I have to admit that there were a couple of characters who I got mixed up for a very long time until I realized they were two different people (oops), and then it made more sense. Anyway, I think the overall approach was interesting and served the aim of mystifying Athena. I have to admit that after a bit of time, the story began to drag for me. Some bits were interesting (like when she was learning calligraphy), and some bits were surprisingly synchronous with themes in my life, but other bits were frustrating.
I had a lot of questions left unanswered (partially due to the narrative style, but I suspect that was also an easy way out for the storytelling). I was really disappointed by some of the relationships or lack of relationships. I wanted interviews with some people in Athena’s life that I never got. I thought certain parts were too male-centric and wanted them to be more woman-focused, especially for a book about the power of the Divine Feminine.
I read the whole thing and I enjoyed some of it, but I don’t know if I would read it again, or if I will read any more books by this author. It makes me kind of sad to admit that I was glad when it was over, and not thrilled with the way it ended.