In Coelho’s novel, a chance encounter leads a young woman on a fantastical journey to the jungles of Costa Rica, where she learns to make peace with a devastating loss.

Scarlett, a young woman whose father has recently died, is wary of other people’s advice when it comes to navigating grief. She would rather face her problems herself than read a book by “some enlightened guru who might be able to fix my crumbling world with his pen and paper.” It’s no surprise, then, that she puts off reading one such book, despite her sister’s assurance that it will help her deal with her complicated feelings. It’s not until she meets Gelena, a mysteriously familiar Russian woman who clutches the same book, that Scarlett begins to suspend her disbelief. When Gelena produces a prepaid plane ticket from her purse and tells Scarlett to visit her in San José, Scarlett uncharacteristically accepts, no questions asked. Two weeks later, she’s greeted in Costa Rica by Gelena’s driver, Ramón, who drives hours into the jungle to a land that, according to the stories Ramón grew up hearing from his grandfather, was once a place of magic, where children ruled and were “Shapeshifters […] each with their own powers.” As Scarlett listens to the story, her wariness turns to curiosity as she remembers the powers she feels she, too, possessed as a child. Like many novels that outline an imagined world that functions far differently from our own (in this case, it could be argued, for the better), this one is mightily impressive in its scope. But the book quickly reveals itself to be the same type of volume Scarlett disregards in the opening pages; to borrow a quote from the foreword, the reader is a “traveler” invited to “be a pilgrim on the paths of this book.” Such language persists throughout the novel, which, together with the inspirational quotes that punctuate it, has the tone of a motivational speech, in which Scarlett is merely an example used to make a point.

Despite the intricacies of its plot, this book serves as a one-size-fits-all guide to navigating grief.