I have heard a lot about this story an couldn’t wait anymore to get to it.

Emma Bovary is a woman who can’t sit still and settle down. It’s a story about adultery and emptiness in Madame Bovary’s life and how despite it all her husband sticks by her side and loves her.

In the beginning, the reader feels the story is going to focus on Charles, as he is all we hear about, until he meets Emma and suddenly the book takes a turn and we find the true meaning of the title.

It really is a piece of work and Flaubert does a magnificent job creating this character in Bovary that is unexpected and likable despite her faults.

What could I possibly say about Madame Bovary that has not already been said? However, having read both this and the Norton edition, I would point out that the Steegmuller translation is infinitely better.

Madame Bovary is just one of those novels that will eternally be considered a classic, in both French and English. The precision of language, the well-developed characters...this is a novel worth reading many times over.

It's rare that I hate a main character and simultaneously really like the book, but that's the case for this book. Seeing the world through such a selfish person's eyes as Madame Bovary the way Flaubert writes it was a wonderful experience. ( )

This is a classic that reads like a contemporary novel. I won't get into the plot since there are already a million reviews that do so, but I will say how much I enjoyed this book. The characters are all seriously flawed, and many of them are not the least bit likeable, but they are honest and realistic and worthy of both sympathy and contempt. Even if you hate them, you are still interested in what happens to them.

Fantastic book! ( )