Rating: 
Summary: Keep in mind I bought this for a class
Review: I bought this for a class, otherwise I would be in my easy chair channel surfing. But regardless, with all the books I had to read for the class this one I really got into. It did help that where lots of sex and the guy losing his....well you will have to read to find out what happens to him. Tip it's the store owner.
So for someone who doesn't care much for reading I give it 4stars.
Rating: 
Summary: the most powerful, moving book i've ever read
Review: I cannot write a better summary than has already been provided by other reviewers, so I'll just say that this work had a profound effect on me. The heart-wrenching plot is delivered in rich, dense descriptive language which is extremely effective in drawing the reader into the misery and absence of hope experienced by Zola's characters. But do not let the sadness of the story keep you from reading it! It is a phenomenal masterpiece of literature, and few works give such candid looks at the darker sides of humanity.
Rating: 
Summary: Please! Out of self-respect... do not read this book!
Review: I had to read this book for my 9th grade history class. OK, it shows the society back then... But it is long, boring and disgusting. Please save your time and money. Are you really interested in descriptions of a man's "dead virility" being ripped off?
Rating:
Summary: an excellent portrayal of this time in history
Review: I read this book after watching the movie in my Modern European History class. At the time, we were studying that particular era in France. I loved the movie, and if I hadn't seen it, I don't think I would have been able to read the book. The story of Germinal is about the struggles of the working class in a coalfield of France during a time when industry was taking over. Lives were changing, and this class suffered greatly. The Maheus are the family that is the main focus of the story (the struggle). Etienne Lantier is a young man who comes to the coalfield searching for a job. He represents the guiding force throughout the novel. A complicated mass of events are occuring, and Zola does a great job making it sound realistic. By the end of the novel, few have survived, but that adds to the reality of the story. I love his writing style, which is illuminated by imagery and stunning metaphors. I found Germinal difficult to read, so if you don't read a lot of these types of books I recommend that you watch the movie first- you'll follow it a lot better. I found it hard keeping focus on the main theme in the midst of all the characters and happenings. But all in all, it is a classic and I would suggest it to anyone interested in european historical literature.
Rating:
Summary: I loved it!
Review: I read this book one summer at a pool and was so engrossed that I failed to notice anything around me! It is a superb human interest story about how miners were forced to work in dangerous conditions facing black lung to earn a meager living to buy food. If you enjoyed The Grapes of Wrath or Upton Sinclair's The Jungle you will truely enjoy this book!
Rating:
Summary: I stayed up late to finish it, and then couldn't go to sleep
Review: I started Germinal on my lunch break yesterday afternoon, and fininshed it in the small hours of the morning today. The story that the book tells is in a way horrible, but I found myself unwilling to close the book and forget about it. Nearly every event in the book is so horrifyingly plausible that I find myself thinking that perhaps Zola was the true creator of the dark world known (undeservedly?) as Greeneland. Perhaps most importantly, however, this book gave me the experience of the suppressed that teachers failed to achieve in high school when we read The Grapes of Wrath and The Jungle.
Rating:
Summary: It is not a fiction, it is true
Review: I think the suffering and hunger of the miners in Germinal are still found in many regions of our modern world. The people of Irak and the palestinians are the miners of the 20th century while mainly the United States and Israel fills magnificently the role of the Company. I think that the "Human rights" declaration is a joke when there are still people for whom injustice, suffering, pobrety and hunger is "Boring" (like for that reader from California). Although Zola denies that this book is a call for revolution, Germinal fills this job. It moves you more than any other book......
Rating: 
Summary: Not light reading
Review: I was assigned this book as part of a French Fiction in Film class at IUPUI back in 1994 (read the books, write the papers, then--maybe--watch the movie). The version I read was the original French, but later I read the translation. This book is, by no means, a light reader for a Sunday afternoon. The themes are complicated, the vocabulary is archaic, and the general feeling after reading is not a happy one. Still, it's a good book. Some other readers have referred to it as a work of art, but I wouldn't quite go THAT far. If you're not quite up on your 19th century mining lingo, you might want to get a primer before reading this book. The central themes about human nature and desire are fairly accurate, if somewhat French (by this I mean, "Oh, what a deezaster our lives are! how shall we ever overcome zees traaagedy...I'VE GOT IT, FRANCOIS! National Socialism!). Other than these minor issues, a good book.
Rating:
Summary: Prepare to be overwhelmed, transfixed and destroyed...
Review: I was sorry to finish this book. A weekend spent in bed with tonsilitis turned into a weekend never to be forgotten. I was overwhelmed by the bitter beauty of Germinal, transfixed by it's vivid imagery and destroyed by the harsh realism of the character's pitiful yet determined existence. Very much in the Dickens mode, Zola's writing cannot help but move you.
Rating:
Summary: pionerring classic of social reporting
Review: In addition to their renowned pievishness, the French are expert pessimists. Indeed, they have raised pride, scorn, and sarcasm to such high art. But they were also great pioneers, from the political caricatures of Daumier to modernism. Germinal was one of the first truly excellent muckraker novels, exploring the complex tableau of oppressed workers in early industrial society. THough there is some excessive melodrama in the characters, they open a world that few would be able to know without direct experience. We should never forget how new this was, how much of a pioneer Zola was. It is a huge success. But the novel also stands very well on its own. The writing is austerely beautiful, textured to feel as dusty and cold as the mines themselves. THere are realistic good guys and bad guys, highly complex characters who enter into difficult fights, who were types that Zola largely invented and that have been copied many many times. On every page, I wanted to find out what would happen to them, how they grew or died, where they were from. I hoped for them, pitied them, and hated them and even wept from them in the climactic ending when a glimmer of humanity transcended the class struggle for just a moment. I was fascinated and repelled by the world Zola recreates, which has been my reaction to French culture throughout my contact with it for the last 34 years!
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