Reviews with content warning for Addiction - Wuthering Heights

I didn't expect this to be as engaging as it was. Obviously classics can be enjoyable, and I've read classics that moved me ( Jane Eyre, for one), but they're usually more serious in tone and with a more sad/ reflective vibe.

Wuthering Heights managed to give off that dreamy, nostalgic vibe we associate so much with the Bronte sisters, but paired it with frankly the juiciest family and relationship drama I've ever read lmao. Seriously, the kardashians have nothing on these characters , and I mean that in the best possible way.

The ammount of toxicity in the relationships and the sheer magnitude of the generational trauma, while not exactly pleasant to read all the time, made for a gripping narrative. There were plenty of moments I actually found pretty funny, just from a "let's see how much of a human disaster this bitch is" perspective. Like a car accident in slow motion: you know shit is about to go down badly but you just can't look away.

The characters themselves were all pretty unlikable, which surprisingly made it fun to read about ( even if I ended up not particularly caring about any of them lol).

On a more serious note, I really liked the writing style ( to be expected) and thought the narrative strategy was clever (a character, being the narrator, telling another character the story) and interesting (obviously it's not unique to this book, but I thought it fit the story particularly well).

One thing that brought the rating down slightly for me was the ending, which gave me mixed feelings.

On the one hand, I couldn't help but feel the satisfaction of what is basically the closest thing to a "happy" ending I think is possible. On the other hand, I thought Heathcliff somehow got off "too easy" (that bastard of monumental proportions certainly deserved more suffering in my opinion) and the romantic plotline kind of came out of nowhere, in a way that didn't feel very believable. Especially considering the backrounds and the previous behaviors of the affected characters . I wasn't exactly disappointed, per se, but there was definitely a meh feeling.

Overall though, I really liked this and enjoyed my time reading it.

Content Warnings

corleone's review

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dark emotional reflective sad tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Content Warnings

ofthewillows's review

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dark emotional hopeful tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Content Warnings

ctama's review

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challenging dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.25

Content Warnings

therobinjoyce's review against another edition

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challenging dark sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? N/A
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

0.25

"𝙃𝙚'𝙨 𝙣𝙤𝙩 𝙖 𝙝𝙪𝙢𝙖𝙣 𝙗𝙚𝙞𝙣𝙜,' 𝙨𝙝𝙚 𝙧𝙚𝙩𝙤𝙧𝙩𝙚𝙙; 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙝𝙚 𝙝𝙖𝙨 𝙣𝙤 𝙘𝙡𝙖𝙞𝙢 𝙤𝙣 𝙢𝙮 𝙘𝙝𝙖𝙧𝙞𝙩𝙮. 𝙄 𝙜𝙖𝙫𝙚 𝙝𝙞𝙢 𝙢𝙮 𝙝𝙚𝙖𝙧𝙩, 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙝𝙚 𝙩𝙤𝙤𝙠 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙥𝙞𝙣𝙘𝙝𝙚𝙙 𝙞𝙩 𝙩𝙤 𝙙𝙚𝙖𝙩𝙝; 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙛𝙡𝙪𝙣𝙜 𝙞𝙩 𝙗𝙖𝙘𝙠 𝙩𝙤 𝙢𝙚. 𝙋𝙚𝙤𝙥𝙡𝙚 𝙛𝙚𝙚𝙡 𝙬𝙞𝙩𝙝 𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙞𝙧 𝙝𝙚𝙖𝙧𝙩𝙨, 𝙀𝙡𝙡𝙚𝙣: 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙨𝙞𝙣𝙘𝙚 𝙝𝙚 𝙝𝙖𝙨 𝙙𝙚𝙨𝙩𝙧𝙤𝙮𝙚𝙙 𝙢𝙞𝙣𝙚, 𝙄 𝙝𝙖𝙫𝙚 𝙣𝙤𝙩 𝙥𝙤𝙬𝙚𝙧 𝙩𝙤 𝙛𝙚𝙚𝙡 𝙛𝙤𝙧 𝙝𝙞𝙢: 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙄 𝙬𝙤𝙪𝙡𝙙 𝙣𝙤𝙩, 𝙩𝙝𝙤𝙪𝙜𝙝 𝙝𝙚 𝙜𝙧𝙤𝙖𝙣𝙚𝙙 𝙛𝙧𝙤𝙢 𝙩𝙝𝙞𝙨 𝙩𝙤 𝙝𝙞𝙨 𝙙𝙮𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙙𝙖𝙮, 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙬𝙚𝙥𝙩 𝙩𝙚𝙖𝙧𝙨 𝙤𝙛 𝙗𝙡𝙤𝙤𝙙 𝙛𝙤𝙧 𝘾𝙖𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙧𝙞𝙣𝙚!"

Wow, where to start. So this WASN'T the lovely gothic romance l was expecting and had been led to believe. Having slogged through this book for the last 6 days I feel as if I need to be contacting some kind of customer service department to after refund for the time I just wasted reading this book.

If I hadn't agreed to Buddy read this with another person I would probably have stopped reading after two or three chapters. The language is difficult, yes but considering the time period in which it was written you can understand why it is so difficult to read. That was the type of language that they use and that was the type of language used in novels and the written work so I can overcome that and look past it and after a while you do stop seeing the different language than what we used today but still the themes and plot of this whole novel in my honest opinion ridiculous and there is no way a book of this calibre would stand should it be released in the modern day.

The entire cast is full of selfish, evil, narcissistic assholes who show no respect to anybody else and with no self-respect at all for themselves. The whole novel is basically a combination of child abuse, over indulgence, emotional abuse, and unrestrained anger issues . None of this is healthy and that is amplified by the fact that almost every single character in this book ends up meeting and timely demise in one form or another.

I can understand why people call it a classic and, I suppose, if you enjoy reading about social classes and interactions between people of different classes and the way the world seemed to work back in those days, then you'd probably have a field trip with this book. But for any normal person, either going into this believing that is a romance or, looking for a nice classic book to read, I would recommend that you pick up something by one of the other Brontë sisters because Wuthering Heights is not enjoyable, not remotely intriguing, nor interesting, and has no other pull to it other than the fact that people have bigger it up for centuries.

That is the only reason this book is still around and still being talked about - because Emily is connected with Charlotte and Anne so the Brontë name stands out and holds her above the rest. And for the fact that this book has been around for centuries so people assume it is a classic and portrays a perfect picture of the world back then. I do not find this to be true and in all honesty, I would never recommend this book to anybody.

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