Reviews tagging 'Suicide'

Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert

78 reviews

sad tense fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: Complicated
Loveable characters: Complicated
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

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emotional reflective sad tense slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: No
Loveable characters: No
Diverse cast of characters: Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Expand filter menu Content Warnings
emotional reflective slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: Complicated
Loveable characters: Complicated
Diverse cast of characters: No
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

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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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

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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sad slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: Complicated
Loveable characters: Complicated
Diverse cast of characters: No
Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

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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Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

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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challenging dark reflective slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: Complicated
Loveable characters: No
Diverse cast of characters: No
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Expand filter menu Content Warnings
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

Expand filter menu Content Warnings
challenging emotional reflective slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: Complicated
Loveable characters: Complicated
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

[…] 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. 

Expand filter menu Content Warnings
dark emotional sad medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: Complicated
Loveable characters: Complicated
Diverse cast of characters: No
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Expand filter menu Content Warnings