My full review of Adèle is up now on Keeping Up With The Penguins.

I’ve seen Adèle described as a “modern-day Madame Bovary”, which works for the most part as a parallel, except that as I remember it, Flaubert’s protagonist was, in some small measure, understandable. Emma was raging against the patriarchy, against the oppressive society and marriage into which she was bound, and heck – she liked a drink, at least. She had fun. Adèle (the book and the character) is completely humourless, completely anhedonic, and it’s hard to see what she even gets out of the addiction that has wholly consumed her. Of course, that’s the point, but… as a reader, I wished I’d had some kind of “in” with her character. It would have made Adèle a story, rather than just a commentary on power.