Reviews tagging 'Domestic abuse'

Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë

322 reviews

dark emotional slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: Complicated
Loveable characters: Complicated
Diverse cast of characters: No
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

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challenging dark emotional inspiring mysterious reflective sad tense fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: Complicated
Loveable characters: Complicated
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

WHERE do I even begin? Throws up so many debates and questions and engages in some, while offering others for the reader to answer. Is having a good character something innate, or shaped? Can it be nurtured after being so utterly trampled? I couldn't help but place Heathcliff and Hareton on some axis. Nelly's fondness of the latter and sympathy for the former speak of something, and her plight that Hareton is not as ruined and beyond hope of growth as Heathcliff would've liked him to be, and yet, while Nell doesn't outright voice it, could not the same have applied to Heathcliff? Could a world with more kindness to him have made him a better, happier man?
There's so much more to this, particularly in that every character crafted by Brontë is so full of emotion and motivation, so repulsive and yet so sympathetic. Completely in tune with the human experience.

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challenging dark mysterious tense slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: Complicated
Loveable characters: Complicated
Diverse cast of characters: Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

this book goes crazy in a way that's very difficult to convey if you haven't read it. not a romance, this begins with "what internalized racism/classism does to a mf" and evolves into "two houses full of people who hate each other in increasingly absurd ways." i enjoyed every minute (even if the characters didn't)!

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dark sad tense slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: No
Loveable characters: No
Diverse cast of characters: No
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Unfortunately many call "Wuthering Heights" a love story and many are attracted because of that and end up disappointed and hating the book.

The relationship between Heathcliff and Cathrine is an obsession, a passion, a math between two characters who are monstruos, but not LOVE!

Think about something like "they match each other's freak" but the freak here is there selfishness, monstrosity etc...

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dark tense slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: No
Loveable characters: No
Diverse cast of characters: No
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

     Aside from Emily's writing style and her prose, I didn't like this book or those characters.
     Starting from old Mr. Earnshaw to young Catherine and Edgar, the characters felt immature, entitled, rich, inhuman beings. If Nelly just stopped meddling with everything, this book wouldn'have been so annoying and most of the conflict and plot wouldn't be there. And if the characters just stopped to think for a second about their actions and the consequences, everything would've been easier. I understand that this is intentional and this is how a reader is meant to feel about those characters and to be conflicted with them, not knowing either to sympathize or hate them, which creates this frustration and engagement with the characters, but I don't like annoying literature. I don't mind reading about immoral characters or their inhuman actions and cold manner, but annoying characters are not my cup of tea.
     That being said, this book had strong relationships, definitely toxic, hard emotions and obsession in a raw way. Emily's writing is definitely beautiful and immersive and the isolation she created, how the characters lived so far away from civilization created this air about the story making it feel mystical and eerie and adding to the charm of the setting. He character building and progression is so good and there's a bit of mystery to it, and most of it revolves around Heathcliff, which adds to his character a darker aura, him being this secretive character that we don't understand and all we know about him for sure throughout the book is his dark, vengeance-seeking soul and his obsession with Catherine and the men around her and destroying their lives, and how he died was so fitting. The ending was good.
     Dark, cold and toxic.

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dark emotional reflective sad tense medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Complicated
Diverse cast of characters: No
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

thanks to Kendrick and Heathcliff, i am now trying to fully realize my potential as a hater

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challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: Complicated
Loveable characters: No
Diverse cast of characters: Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Absolute banger but can be overly wordy (which was the style at the time)

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dark tense slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: Complicated
Loveable characters: No
Diverse cast of characters: No
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Expand filter menu Content Warnings
dark emotional sad slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: No
Loveable characters: No
Diverse cast of characters: No
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

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mysterious medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: Complicated
Loveable characters: Complicated
Diverse cast of characters: No
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Enjoyed the supernatural elements, the allusion to mental illness and the role of landscape.

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