I can't say that one specific book has ever changed my life. Instead, let me say that each book I read changes me in its own way. Each chapter, each paragraph, each word affects me, and makes me think a slightly differently. There were some remarkable readings, though. One of them - or the first, if I can say that - was a novel called "Poil de Carrote", by Jules Renard. It is weird that I read this book by the age of six or seven, and it was definitely the first "adult" book I've read - and even weirder that it is a book about growing up, about innocence and family. It made me look into life with different eyes. Of course I didn't understand all the drama in the book (but when I read it again, a year ago, I did), but it made me feel happy about the life I had, since the booked portrayed things that didn't happen anymore - or shouldn't.
The second remarkable book in my life was "Insomnia", by Marcelo Carneiro da Cunha. Marketed toward young teenagers, the book tells the story of Claudia, a girl who lost her mother when she was a baby and basically takes care of her father, a clumsy scientist, while trying to organize her own life - or love life, more specifically. I read this book when I was eleven, and the strength and will power of the main character inspired me and shaped me as a woman and as a human being.
The third book was "Love in the Time of Cholera", by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Some say this book is about the triumph of true love, some argue that it's about gullibility and excessive romanticism. Personally, I believe it's about love as something so strong, so real and tangible that it can be compared to a disease - like the cholera.
The fourth and last book that I think it's worth mentioning here was Roque de Barros Laraia's "Culture: An Anthropological Concept". This book changed the way I see society, myself and my own culture and others'. I realize now how we are so influenced, how we are so impregnated by our culture - he mentions culture as eye glasses we have to take off if we want to understand the unknown, the strange, the other.
Maybe because I started reading so early, maybe becaus I always like reading, but all my life books have made me reflect and rethink my habits, my customs and my values.