Sentimental Education

by Gustave Flaubert

First published 2004

In the stifling French provinces of the 1840s, Emma Bovary suffocates inside her marriage to a mediocre country doctor. Hungry for romance and elegance beyond her mundane existence, she begins a dangerous series of affairs, borrowing money and selling possessions to finance her fantasies of glamour. Each lover promises escape, each encounter reveals another layer of disappointment. As her debts mount and her reputation crumbles, Emma spirals toward a devastating confrontation with the harsh realities of her choices. Her desperate pursuit of passion will exact a brutal, irreversible price. A searing portrait of romantic delusion and social constraint, where personal desire crashes against provincial judgment.

Genres: fiction, romance, 19th-century

Vibes: atmospheric, intimate, thought-provoking

Tropes: unreliable-narrator

Setting: France

Period: 19th-Century

460 pages · Paperback · Alliance Entertainment

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