Book · 1988
The Alchemist
by Paulo Coelho
A shepherd sells his flock to chase a recurring dream of treasure buried near Egypt's pyramids.
What does Reddit think of The Alchemist?
The Alchemist shows up 176 times across three tracked subs over seven years, and r/suggestmeabook accounts for 167 of those on its own. This is a book people ask about, not one people organically praise. The reception splits hard. One high-upvoted comment (↑66) files it next to Siddhartha, Utopia, and 1984 as philosophical parable, treating the fable format as the point. Everything else on r/suggestmeabook runs the other direction: "garbage" (↑62), "terrible" (↑52), "pretty fucking awful" (↑51). r/printSF, where it turns up as a stretch inclusion in fantasy-adjacent lists, calls it "self-help garbage fantasy" that "sold way too many copies" (↑43). r/Fantasy is harshest — one thread ranks it the single worst book of the year, below even Peter F. Hamilton's Exodus (↑39), another says its author would get "fist-fight[ed]" over the book's new-age influence (↑32). Mentions peaked in 2019 and 2020, cooled hard by 2022, and never fully stopped: 14 in 2025 alone.
Community feedback & reader fit
Themes
- · The Personal Legend as either sincere spiritual guidance or hollow self-help slogan
- · A shepherd's treasure quest structured like a religious parable
- · Brevity and simplicity read as depth by some, thinness by others
- · New Age philosophy repackaged as universal wisdom
Common praise
- + One highly upvoted r/suggestmeabook commenter (↑66) puts it in the same list as Siddhartha, Utopia, and 1984, treating it as parable rather than self-help filler.
- + It keeps resurfacing in fresh recommendation threads years after publication, with 14 mentions logged in 2025 alone and the most recent hit dated December 31.
Common criticism
- − Multiple r/suggestmeabook threads call it flatly bad, with one commenter writing it's simply "garbage" (↑62) and another calling it "pretty fucking awful" (↑51).
- − r/printSF dismisses it as "self-help garbage fantasy" that "sold way too many copies," only counting it as fantasy on a technicality (↑43).
- − r/Fantasy's "best and worst of the year" thread puts it at #1 on the worst list, worse than Peter F. Hamilton's Exodus and a Claremont X-Men omnibus (↑39).
- − Another r/Fantasy commenter calls it "so pretentious, snobby and downright pathetic" and blames it for a lot of new-age culture, adding it "probably has a not-insignificant body count" (↑32).
Who it's for
Pick this up if you want a quick, fable-shaped read that treats destiny and self-belief as literal treasure maps; some readers file it next to Siddhartha and take the allegory at face value. If you hang out on r/printSF or r/Fantasy, though, the data says you'll probably hate it: those crowds call it self-help dressed as fiction and rank it below an X-Men omnibus in worst-of-year lists. Readers curious why it topped bestseller lists for decades might still want to see it firsthand, so long as they show up expecting a parable rather than a plot. It works best as a two-hour gift purchase, not a book you'll want to defend in a discussion thread.
Mentions over time
Top subreddits
Which Reddit comments matter for The Alchemist?
Top-upvoted quotes across the subreddits where this book is mentioned. Click through to read the full thread.
““Philosophical Literature”; all the below titles are parables, stories, or other narratives (not philosphy essays). I tried to include both Western and Eastern thought. B: The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho. Utopia, Thomas More. 1984, George Orwell V: The Republic, Plato. Siddhartha, He…
“The Alchemist - Paulo Coelho This book is garbage. If it was published and some people liked it as an esoteric self-help book with pseudo-depth, I would have been okay with it. However, it is greatly successful and many people recommend it. For me, this is a book friend red flag. If anyone likes…
“The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho. Reason? It is terrible.
“The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho was pretty f****** awful imo.
“The Alchemist, by Paulo Coelho. I wanted to read it to see why it is one of the books that sold more copies in the world, and I still don't know why. It just didn't get me.
“It's a stretch, but if you count it as fantasy, Paulo Coehlo's self-help garbage fantasy The Alchemist has sold way too many copies.
“Best: 1. The Lions of Al-Rassan - Guy Gavriel Kay 2. Swamp Thing - Alan Moore 3. This Inevitable Ruin - Matt Dinniman Worst: 1. The Alchemist - Paulo Coelho 2. Exodus - Peter F. Hamilton 3. The Uncanny X-Men Vol. 2 Omnibus - Chris Claremont
“> The Alchemist - Paulo Coelho - This was so pretentious, snobby and downright pathetic that I would fist-fight Coelho if I ever saw him. This book is so strongly responsible for a lot of new age crap nowadays. It probably has a not-insignificant body count.
Convinced? Pick up The Alchemist
Readers also mention
Books that share discussion threads with The Alchemist — counted from the comments, not curated.
The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet
Becky Chambers
A ragtag crew takes a multi-year tunneling job to punch a wormhole through space and mostly just has to get along with each other for the ride.
Neuromancer
William Gibson
A burned-out hacker banned from cyberspace takes one last job to breach the AI that might already own a piece of him.
The Three-Body Problem
Liu Cixin
A Chinese radio astronomer's decades-old reply to an alien signal puts Earth on a collision course with an invasion fleet centuries out.
Hyperion
Dan Simmons
Seven pilgrims journey toward a monster that grants one wish and kills everyone else, and each tells the story of why they came.
Children of Time
Adrian Tchaikovsky
A terraforming experiment goes wrong, a nanovirus lands on spiders instead of monkeys, and evolution builds a civilization nobody planned for.
The Alchemist — frequently asked
Does Reddit actually like The Alchemist?+
Not on the subs tracked here. The one exception is a comment grouping it with Siddhartha and 1984 as serious parable (↑66), but that's the outlier, not the trend.
Why does The Alchemist keep showing up on r/suggestmeabook if people don't like it?+
Because it's a default answer to "what should I read next," not a personal favorite. It logged 167 of its 176 total mentions there, spread from 2019 through a hit as recent as December 31, 2025 — people bring it up to warn others as often as to recommend it.
Is The Alchemist actually fantasy or science fiction?+
Barely. r/printSF only counts it "if you count it as fantasy," filing it in with a shrug as "self-help garbage fantasy" that "sold way too many copies" (↑43). It gets 5 mentions there and 4 on r/Fantasy, dwarfed by its 167 on r/suggestmeabook, where it's discussed as general fiction, not genre.
Is The Alchemist worth reading despite the backlash?+
Depends what you want from it. If you want the parable to work as intended, one high-upvoted comment (↑66) treats it as legitimate philosophical literature alongside Siddhartha and 1984. If you want plot or craft, r/Fantasy and r/printSF are unanimous that it doesn't deliver, ranking it below an X-Men omnibus in one worst-of-year post (↑39).