Reviews tagging 'Suicide'

Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert

47 reviews

glorgona's review against another edition

emotional reflective sad tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Mental illness, Medical trauma, Medical content, Injury/Injury detail, Misogyny, Classism, Infidelity, Vomit, Suicide, Suicide attempt, Death, Abandonment, Toxic relationship, Suicidal thoughts, Religious bigotry, Panic attacks/disorders, Death of parent, and Blood

m4rtt4's review against another edition

emotional reflective slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

There's something magnetic about Emma Bovary — I can't say that I liked her, yet still I couldn't help rooting for her no matter what she did. Considering when this novel was written, she sure is an exceptional female protagonist, the OG Material Girl and even practices the gaslight-gatekeep-girlboss agenda, but if only her decisions had solely been based on her twisted mind and not on her "female fragility"!! I hated how so many of her traits were just explained by her sex, as if being a woman automatically makes one weak, stupid and gullible — I despise you, historical misogynists. 

since Emma was such an exceptional heroine, I expected her to do something brave like run away or get a divorce, but nah.. it fucking sucks that the only acceptable plotlines for historical heroines are all related to marriage — if it's a happy one, then they live happily ever after, and if it's an unhappy one (like Emma's), the woman must die.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Grief, Infidelity, Medical content, Death, Suicide, Misogyny, Sexism, and Suicide attempt

Moderate: Ableism and Classism

mmefish's review against another edition

emotional funny sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Sublime. Everything is overly dramatic and miserable, in the best tradition of 19th century classic literature, but at the same time refreshingly realistic and ironic.

As for Emma, she's never questioned herself to find out if she loved him. Love, she believed, must come suddenly, with great thunderclaps and bolts of lightning, —a hurricane from heaven that drops down on your life, overturns it, tears away your will like a leaf, and carries your whole heart off with it into the abyss. She did not know that the rain forms lakes on the terraces of houses when the drainpipes are blocked, and thus she would have lived on feeling quite safe, had she not suddenly discovered a crack in the wall.

Then, growing calmer, she came to see that she had probably disparaged him unjustly. But vilifying those we love always detaches us from them a little. We should not touch our idols: their holding will remain on our hands.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Ableism, Death, Medical content, Suicide, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Vomit, Grief, and Suicidal thoughts

Minor: Racial slurs, Antisemitism, and Child abuse

hiddeninbooks's review against another edition

sad slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.75

Stimulating read, with interesting language.

I wish the first Madam Bovary hadn't been so quickly and neatly killed off. I think the doctor's emotional affair is treated softly relative to the two affairs of his second wife, quickly overshadowed by the first Madam Bovary's lack of forthrightness with regards to the mortgages on her properties, and all of it set aside as she conveniently dies shortly thereafter. Were the first Madam Bovary to live, it would have left the doctor longer to contend with being in the position his second wife finds herself in. 

The fact that the doctor dies of a broken heart, while his second wife, the presumably titular Madam Bovary, dies from suicide, and all the disgrace therein, again points to their disjointed treatment. I also wish that there might have been some sort of reflective comment on the fact that Madam Bovary underwent a minor (though perhaps not experienced as such given the time period) sexual assault by a man she sought aid from just prior to her suicide.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Body horror, Suicide, and Medical trauma

Moderate: Sexual assault

Minor: Child abuse, Death of parent, Pregnancy, and Racial slurs

saintmaud's review against another edition

• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

emma is so beautiful, so sensuous, so hungry, so french..  flaubert's writing is wondrous, almost cinematic; his use of different techniques in the narrative was so marvelous to read, i need more.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Death, Death of parent, Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, and Suicide

Moderate: Vomit

aiyam's review against another edition

challenging dark reflective slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Grief, Infidelity, Death, Suicide, and Mental illness

Moderate: Racial slurs

vincef's review against another edition

dark emotional reflective sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Injury/Injury detail, Death, Blood, Toxic relationship, Toxic friendship, Suicide attempt, Suicidal thoughts, Sexual content, Religious bigotry, Misogyny, Classism, Suicide, Sexism, Racial slurs, Murder, Emotional abuse, Death of parent, Mental illness, Infidelity, and Ableism

Moderate: Medical trauma, Medical content, and Gaslighting

Minor: Pregnancy

ru_th's review against another edition

challenging emotional reflective slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

[…] der Gedanke, dass ihr Kind ein männliches Wesen sein werde, war eine Art zukünftige Rache für ihre ganze eigene Ohnmacht in der Vergangenheit. Ein Mann ist wenigstens frei; er kann Leidenschaften und Länder erkunden, Hindernisse überwinden und kostet das fernste Glück. Eine Frau aber ist ständig eingeschränkt. Passiv und nachgiebig zugleich, hat sie gegen sich die Schwäche ihres Fleisches und die Abhängigkeit vom Gesetz. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Infidelity and Suicide

Moderate: Medical trauma and Injury/Injury detail

nachtvlucht's review against another edition

dark emotional sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Infidelity, Suicide, Gore, and Grief

Moderate: Medical content, Medical trauma, Sexism, and Sexual content

Minor: Child abuse

mollmccaff's review

challenging dark emotional reflective sad

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Infidelity, Death, Injury/Injury detail, Suicide, Grief, and Vomit

Moderate: Suicide attempt, Classism, Sexual content, and Abandonment

Minor: Racial slurs, Eating disorder, and Death of parent