The Eleven Minutes by Paulo Coelho was one book that educated me. Lessons from Eleven minutes and eleven minutes quotes will always be closed to my heart.Here is "The Eleven Minutes summary and Review "

     The Eleven Minutes Book Summary & Review

The Eleven Minutes Summary | About the Book

Eleven Minutes is the story of a young girl named Maria who leaves her Brazilian home to go to Geneva, Switzerland, in hopes of great adventure and great love. Her situation does not prove to be what she had hoped and she pursues a career in prostitution in order to make money quickly in order to return home. During her time in Switzerland, Maria experiences pain, pleasure, and love and must decide the correct path for her life.

Maria grows up in a small town in the interior of Brazil where folklore, superstitions, and traditional roles for women are woven into the culture. Although she is good at school and always tries to better her situation by reading books, Maria's only goal is to fall in love, marry, and raise a family. Maria has several experiences with young love but her true love never appears, leaving Maria to believe that she is destined to live without that most important element that she believes most people find.

Maria is different from other girls in her town in that she craves adventure, but it is not until she has graduated and has worked two years in a draper's shop that Maria can save enough money for a small vacation. Maria goes to Rio de Janeiro, where she is approached by a Swiss entertainment businessman and is coaxed to fly back to Switzerland with the man and work in his nightclub as a samba dancer. Immediately upon her arrival, Maria learns the truth about the arrangement and will receive much less money that she had hoped, forcing her into a lifestyle much more restricted than the one she had imagined.

When the man discovers that Maria has dated a man she had met at the club, she is fired. Fortunately, the man helps Maria get a generous severance package and Maria is able to live for awhile while she looks for more work. Maria signs up at a modeling agency and meets a client to discuss a fashion show, but Maria ends up sleeping with the man for money. This is the beginning of Maria's career as a prostitute, something she does because it is good money for relatively little investment.

Maria works as a prostitute at a club on a street in Geneva, which is famous for such places. She has many clients and makes a lot of money, which she plans to use to fly back home to Brazil in a year's time. During her time in Geneva, Maria experiences many types of sex, but does not allow her soul to enter into the process. Maria is also introduced to the practice of sadomasochism, which she may have been inclined to pursue had she not met a painter who falls in love with her and convinces Maria that she can find love without physical pain.

Maria falls in love with the painter who, in a wildly romantic gesture, meets Maria at the Paris airport when she is on layover on her trip home to Brazil. Although it is not clear that she will marry the painter, at least Maria has found mutual love, something she thought would elude her all her life. For the first time in a long time, Maria loves with her soul as well as with her body.

The Eleven Minutes Book Review: 

 "At every moment of our lives,we all have one foot in fairy tale and other in abyss" 

Eleven minutes is a story of Maria, a young girl from small town who was convinced that she will never find a true love in her hometown. By chance she comes to a big city(Geneva) to redeem her dreams and also to find her fantasy like love

The reality hits her hard and she is forced to sell her flesh in order to survive at first and for pure physical pleasure later. Throughout her time in geneva she convinces her inner self that unlike other prostitute she will leave this place after making enough money to buy a house in her hometown, although even after making double the money she stays there.Now the motivation and barrier both are "eleven minutes".

This whole dehumanising grind pushes her further away from real love till the time her emotional barriers are tested by a young painter.To choose between dark path she was on and risking everything to find her "inner light" was not a easy decision as writer using his philosophical writing style let you see the emotional and psychological barrier maria goes through and to a level these barriers can make a person go to.

Although most of us won't be able to directly connect with the protagonist but like all Paulo Coelho's book this also is not a story about protagonist ,this is a story about bigger thing.This time story is about "emotional barriers" that we all create in our minds,which are hardest to break even when we know they are killing us from inside. In this book he not only challenges our prejudices but also opens our mind to others prospective. 

I always used to wonder what motivation prostitute could have other then money, this books taught me the motivation is much bigger than money .It is those "eleven minutes".

 I would strongly recommend this to people who are ready to challenge their prejudices. 

Also,Below are my favourite The Eleven Minutes quotes:

                          Quote about love

                     Universe and it's plans

                     Last and my favourite quote: