Rating: 
Summary: A truly excellent novel, a classic
Review: Anyone who calls this book boring is probably not giving it a chance. This novel is truly excellent, and stacks up well against other great 19th century novels.
Rating:
Summary: Still luscious after all these years
Review: 150 years on, this reads as freshly as anything published this year. The point, surely, is not whether Emma Bovary is a good woman, or a bad mother, as some reviewers seem to think. What we get is a woman who is entirely human. Her ultimately fatal desires are believable, her weaknesses as common today as they ever were.A post-modern Emma Bovary would divorce, take the kid, and juggle childcare with a career in casting or magazine journalism. Flaubert's heroine had no such options. Her dreams manifested themselves in the futile search for a transforming love - a goal as seductive today as ever. Just as Cervantes wrote "Don Quixote" in part as satire on the literary tastes of the day, Flaubert takes aim at the unrealistic romance novels of his time. His antidote is a story of such realism we recognise every character and every human foible. The sexual descriptions, while not explicit in a modern sense, are still remarkably frank, their power transparent. The author most similar, in my view, is Flaubert's English contemporary Thomas Hardy. I am a huge fan of Hardy, but none of his heroes, not Jude nor the Mayor of Casterbridge nor even Tess comes to us as intimately as the beautiful, ardent, bored and ultimately wasted Emma B.
Rating:
Summary: Beautifully written, provacative story...
Review: I wish I HAD been required to have read this book in school, because I would have been able to discuss it with others who had read it. There's a lot going on here, with vivid characters (my favorite is actually the pharmacist) who are very human. I'm not sure who the people are who don't like this book. One doesn't have to endorse the heroine's activities; I certainly don't. Highly recommended for those who like great literature, and complex, ambiguous characters. For those who like books that are described as "good reads" there's plenty of Sidney Sheldon and Tom Clancey out there (not that there's anything wrong with such books -- if you think they're real literature, though, refrain from reviewing authors such as Flaubert).
Rating:
Summary: A Woman's Pain
Review: A wonderful study on the female condition: her loves, her passions, her fears and her inner, silent sufferings.
Rating: 
Summary: Madame Bovary
Review: This is a pretty good book. It is a satire about the absurdity of people. It is also about how reading corrupts people. Flaubert uses very inovative writing for his time. The narrator is all but invisable, there is no editorializing; the reader can make his/her own opinions and judgements about the characters. All the narration takes place from inside the characters' minds rather than from the outside. It is a dark comedy that reads like a soup opera.
Rating: 
Summary: Horrible Woman
Review: My lasting impression of Emma Bovary is that of a spoiled brat. When she and Charles first marry she is rather happy. But as the story progresses she becomes more displeased with her husband and life. I understand that French women of her day did not exactly have many opportunities outside of the home. However, this lack of opportunity can never excuse Emma Bovary's behavior and lack of care for her family. Flaubert would have us believe that none of what Emma has done has really been her fault. She is just a victim of society. Not true. Many women in similar circumstances did not act as Emma Bovary did. They instead worked to improve their lot in life. The fight for equality of any oppressed group is a long and arduous battle. People like Emma Bovary tend to set back the progress of that struggle. Her husband Charles suffered the same fate as many men in his position do. His wife blamed him for her unhappiness and she never once told him of her displeasure expecting him to be able to read her mind. When he was unable to so, she would become even more depressed. But she never once talked to her husband about her unhappiness. Her treatment of Charles, while callous, can be accepted because he is a grown man. However, her handling of her daughter is what really turned me against Madame Bovary. Once you bring a child into the world you have an obligation to care for her regardless of your own situation. Emma was too immature and self-involved to care much for her child. In the end I found myself rooting for everyone in the story so long as their benefit was to Emma's detriment.
Rating: 
Summary: THIS IS THE MOST AWFUL BOOK EVER WRITTEN!
Review: When the Bill of Rights was written, cruel and unusual punishment was banned. The cruel and unusual punishment invisioned was not as cruel and unusual as being forced to read this book!
Rating:
Summary: extremely good! wonderful writing on flauberts part
Review: i loved madame bovary because it had so much detail about the unimportant things, but they were the things i wanted to know. this book was very interesting because it gave all the aspects of emmas life, from what fruit rodolphe sent her, to what color flowers she was holding.
Rating:
Summary: recommended (not required!)
Review: "This was an awful book and no one with...the courage to have a different opinion could admit otherwise." I hope most of us can see that this sentence contradicts itself. (It appears that a lot of people are being made to read "Madame bovary" and greatly resent it. This circumstance is not Gustave Flaubert's or "Madame Bovary"'s fault.) I happen to have thoroughly enjoyed this book. My opinion of it I admit (how very courageous of me) is different from some opinions of it (see below) and approximately the same as others--I suppose. I read it in English translation (that of Karl Marx's daughter). No doubt the French language version is better, but not all of can shamelessly boast of residing in Angers. (On the other hand, it is said that the reason the French are so taken with Edgar Allen Poe is that the French translations of his stories improve upon the English originals--there's no accounting for Jerry Lewis.)
Rating:
Summary: BORING?????
Review: Yes, everyone is entitled to their own opinion and just because something is considered a classic doesn't necessarily mean one has to like it. We aren't robots. What appalls me however, is how often I hear many young people and adults for that matter, using the word boring when reviewing a book. I am so grateful that my parents didn't allow me to use that word without a reprimand. My mother, a voracious reader, always told me "David, if you're bored your're boring". I always got on the defensive when told this. As I grew older I began to understand what she meant. On a planet with so many books to read and so many ways of looking at what the books are saying, how can anyone ever be bored? If a book doesn't interest you, put it aside and don't read it, but please, never call it boring.
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