Customer Reviews

Winner Stands Alone

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In The Winner Stands Alone, highly acclaimed, phenomenal writer Paulo Coelho takes a uniquely different approach delivering an engaging story that offers an insightful display into the astonishing behind-the-scenes life of the Superclass comprising of the incredibly rich and famous. Departing from his usual way of inspirational storytelling, the result is quite invigorating: an eye-opening, rich, and involving novel about wealth, fame, love, and loss.

The ruthless, self-made and extremely wealthy Igor Malev is a man on a mission - to win over the heart of the love of his life, Ewa, who left him for another man. In the glittering universe of the film and fashion world, Igor takes a series of enormously shocking and devastating steps to prove to Ewa that his love for her is as pure and powerful as ever.

One of the major questions explored in this novel is the importance of paying the price for following your dream. Does the winner stand alone? How far are you willing to go to regain a love lost? Is there a limit to such an obsession?

Told just over 24-hour with bold and ambitious characters, this fast-moving page-tuner places the readers in the heart of the breathtaking locales of Cannes, amid the glitz and glamor of Cannes Film Festival where what seems to meet the eyes is just an illusion as the famous and wealthy converges for their annual rendezvous.

In sum, The Winner Stands Alone most definitely is a stand-alone addition to Coelho's inspirational novels. It is close-the-last-page-and-look-at-the-world-differently good.

i have all of his books - and i must be the only person here who did enjoy this one very much.

read it in 2 sittings.

i appreciated the location being set in cannes and felt i was being exposed to how dark and twisted the film industry can be. or at least this particular society/community of people.

A beach read at best, certainly nothing deep. It's not a book I'd recommend to friends because I doubt that any of mine would find value in it.

Perhaps the lackluster characters and storyline are reflective of the author's opinion of what he calls the Superclass and those with fame and beauty?

I'd venture to write more but I was left so utterly uninspired by the book, I have little to say.

Lots of readers follow Coelho's work. There must be some value in it just because of sheer volume, but "Winner Stands Alone" is a stinker. Paulo Coelho gives the reader the moral of the story before it begins. We learn that three main characters miss out on life's lessons. Then he produces a book with FOUR main characters. The characters are two-dimensional. Everything is either the "most beautiful" or the "most expensive." If an author has written 20 books, one would think he'd come up with a deeper, more nuanced vocabulary. I don't buy "poor translation" as an excuse for shallow vocabulary. If Coelho is as successful as he's supposed to be, the publishers could afford competent translators. Every time the story runs into a dead end, Coelho comes up with a new escape through a character's deluded self-discovery. Side stories, like that of the Cannes policeman, simply disappear without resolution. "Winner Stands Alone" is a truly disappointing book.