This novel caused a scandal in the 19th century. In 1857, Flaubert himself was convicted for affront to public decency, the same year Baudelaire was convicted for his book Les Fleurs du Mal. The storyline is simple. It is about a woman who dreams her life and is always disappointed by reality. She escapes her life by cheating on her husband. But Madame Bovary is more than that. It is also about putting the novels on trial, because this woman sees her life only through the novels she reads. Those novels give her wrong ideas about reality. This book is also about putting on trial the whole romanticism, based on the character of Rodolphe, depicted as a vile seducer.It is also a hymn to sincerity, because there are many characters with double personnality, and we really don't want to be like them.There are also wonderful pages to read, like when she goes horse riding with Rodolphe...This novel is wonderful and still to date when compared with all the reality TV shows where people try to seduce at all costs even if they have to forget who they are.