For a romance I found this surprisingly enjoyable. Emma marries Charles Bovary but quickly finds herself bored with him and begins a series of affairs with other men.

This book has everything I hate: romance, marriage troubles, affairs, and an annoying main character, yet for some reason I kind of liked it. I probably wouldn't read it again, but it wasn't bad while I did read it. ( )

In the intro to this book, the editor discusses Flaubert's passion for writing and his desire to have every sentence and word perfect so that he often spent days reworking a single paragraph. The work paid obviously paid off because he has succeed in creating a book so full of amazing imagery and sheer beauty of words that I was continually astounded. I don't know whether to pity or hate Emma. I certainly pity Charles and dislike Rodolphe. However, everyone seems to have a little of Emma's personality in them by wanting the things you do not or cannot have. A timeless, classic book with captivating writing - the scene where she eats the arsenic with her bare hands while they are having dinner in the other room - just amazing. That's all I can say.A couple of my favorite quotes:"A demand for money, being of all the winds that blow upon love, the coldest and most destructive.""We must not touch our idols. The gilt sticks to our fingers." ( )

Poor Emma Bovary! She wants an exciting life with instant gratification from her husband, her friends, and, not finding that--turns to lovers in a novel which survived a trial about its morality. Actually, the outline could be just about any romance novel novel today set in a "historical" period, but at its time, Flaubert was defying convention to show a life which should have been perfect--and was so very flawed. ( )

The language is beautiful in this book. And, unlike Lady whosey-whatsit's Lover, which I hated, the sexuality in this novel is subtle and tense and much more well done. It's a book about appreciating where you are and what you have, and the happiness that can come from unconditional love...and the misery that comes from pride and willfulness. ( )

Straight out i have to say that Emma is the most selfish, self-centered, delusional, manipulative, corrupt, pathetic protagonist i've ever come across. The plot is practically the template for what we know today as telenovelas, cheap entertainment and totally inane. Nothing in this book would shock us modern readers, but i do imagine the scandal it made when it was first published in the 1850s. BUT, Flaubert writes brilliantly, able to evoke clarity, depth and feeling in few words, weaving a narrative that is fast-paced but not hurried, and effectively developing characters who, while deplorable most times, rightly portray human tendencies. It is one of those rare books where the farther u get on with the story, the stupider and more histrionic the characters seem to get, but u keep on because the writing is simply flawless. ( )