Madame Bovary is the debut novel of French writer Gustave Flaubert, published in 1856. The character lives beyond her means in order to escape the banalities and emptiness of provincial life. When the novel was first serialized in La Revue de Paris between 1 October 1856 and 15 December 1856, public prosecutors attacked the novel for obscenity. The resulting trial in January 1857 made the story notorious. After Flaubert’s acquittal on 7 February 1857, Madame Bovary became a bestseller in April 1857 when it was published in two volumes. A seminal work of literary realism, the novel is now considered Flaubert’s masterpiece, and one of the most influential literary works in history.
The Therapist
B.A. Paris
This is B.A. Paris’s fifth book and the fifth one I’ve read. BRING ME BACK was a disaster as far as I was concerned, so I was curious where Paris would go with this one. Psychological thrillers are my absolute favorite books to read. When the storyline involves an actual mental health professional, it piques my curiosity even more. There are so many dark avenues to navigate when talking about characters who explore other people’s minds.
In This book, however, there was a bit of mirror play. Overall, I believe Paris was really expressing the narrative of boundaries and that came through in different plot lines and in several of the dynamics of the characters. I found this book to be extremely consumable, with enough going on that I was continuously interested and relatively satisfied with the book as a whole.
The biggest problem that I have with the writing is that I really felt Paris was again over-explaining, re-hashing too much, Internal dialogue mimicking external dialogue. It creates unnecessary lulls and times where I’m rolling my eyes screaming, “get on with it already.”
Paranoia is often an annoying personality trait to play out with a character while reading a book. And on the opposite side of the spectrum, avoidance of red flags and general apathetic regard for the truth and obvious signs are even more annoying. Paris possibly pushed it to the limit from time to time during this book.
Overall, super entertaining!
Four Stars
So glad I was able to get my hands on an early copy thanks to @netgalley and #macmillanaudio
Check out #netgalley for your advanced copy; request today!
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