Reviews tagging 'Terminal illness'

Cumbres borrascosas by Emily Brontë

48 reviews

flor_peredo's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious sad slow-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence

Moderate: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body shaming, Bullying, Child death, Death, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Mental illness, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Terminal illness, Toxic relationship, Blood, Grief, Death of parent, Pregnancy, Abandonment, and Classism

diana_skelton's review against another edition

dark tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

Passage I liked: "One time, we were near quarrelling. He said the pleasantest manner of spending a hot July day was lying from morning till evening on a bank of heath in the middle of the moors, with the bees humming dreamily about among the bloom, and the larks singing high up over head, and the blue sky, and bright sun shining steadily and cloudlessly. That was his most perfect idea of heaven's happiness -- mine was rocking in a rustling green tree, with a west wind blowing, and bright white clouds flitting rapidly above; and not only larks, but throstles, and blackbirds, and linnets, and cuckoos pouring out music on every side, and the moors seen at a distance, broken into cool dusky dells; but close by great swells of long grass undulating in the waves to the breeze; and woods and wouding water, and the whole world awake and wild with job. He wanted to be in an ecstasy of peace; I wanted all to sparkle, and dance in a glorious jubilee. I said his heaven would be only half alive, and he said mine would be drunk; I said I should fall asleep in his, and he said he could not breathe in mine, and began to grow very snappish."

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Bullying, Misogyny, Toxic relationship, and Stalking

Minor: Terminal illness and Toxic friendship

All the characters in the first half of the book are irredeemable. In the second half, however, it becomes possible to root for one or two of them.

bashsbooks's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional tense slow-paced

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

5.0

Writing reviews for classics that I like is never easy - I always feel immense pressure to say something profound and original about a work that 1) I enjoyed and 2) so did everyone else. Of course, the trouble with such a well-liked book is that everything profound and original about it has already been said, more or less.

So let me say some basic and trite (but none the less true to how I feel) things about Wuthering Heights.
 
First and foremost, Brontë's toxic, passionate speeches from Heathcliff and Catherine (Sr.) about each other fuck severely. Catherine's "Nelly, I am Heathcliff" confession? Healthcliff's proclamation about the depth of Catherine's affection for him compared to Linton? The "You say I killed you - haunt me, then!" argument? All bangers. Go off, you absolute maniacs. 

Secondly, and speaking of the haunting by Catherine of Heathcliff, the thread of her ghost trying to get into Wuthering Heights throughout the tale is sewn into the story with just enough detail to be compelling without being overwrought - from the early scene Lockhood witnesses all the way to Heathcliff's death under the open window. I especially like the lack of concrete proof of the ghost and the skepticism of the storytellers themselves. 

And now, thirdly, the storytellers and the frame story in general have been fun to turn over in my head. From the beginning, I wondered, why are Lockwood and Nelly our narrators? I think there are dozens of valid answers to this question. Two of my favorites includeto create distance from the narrative to drop details & increase unreliability and to provide perspectives closer to the intended readers. I'm especially obsessed with Nelly Dean and the constant interjections of her opinions into her retelling. 

Something specific to the audiobook version that I listened to - the Spotify version read by Billie Fulford-Brown - is that it was read fantastically. Fulford-Brown clearly had a great handle on the text, reading all the dialogue with accurate emotion. She also gave the characters distinct voices without being over-the-top. Her performance made Brontë's mid-19th century prose much more accessible.

Anyway. There's a lot more I could say about Wuthering Heights - for example, Brontë's descriptions of the moors are a masterclass in thematic use of setting - but I'll cut myself off here, lest I write a whole paper. Let me end by saying it's fucked up that Kate Bush managed to successfully summarize and convey the main storyline of such a complex book in a 4.5-minute song after only watching the last ten minutes of a movie adaptation.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Domestic abuse, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Toxic relationship, Violence, Grief, Death of parent, Alcohol, and Classism

Moderate: Ableism, Alcoholism, Cursing, Racism, Terminal illness, Xenophobia, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Confinement, Racial slurs, and Kidnapping

-Various illnesses are described in detail (some fatal and some not).

asrasher's review against another edition

dark emotional funny mysterious reflective sad medium-paced

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

4.0

intense, absurd, bizarre, but I ended the book with a resounding emotion of "damn, I get why people love this book." 

it takes you on a truly immense character journey spanning 3 generations and 50 years - and doesn't start coming together till the last chapter or so. 

overall, completely worthy of its legendary status. I felt like honestly it could have been longer/more fleshed out at the end, that's my only critique. The wrap up of the younger generations story and the breaking of the cycle of trauma felt possibly like something EB struggled to write, or express. Which to be fair, makes sense.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Animal cruelty, Chronic illness, Confinement, Death, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Mental illness, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Racism, Sexism, Terminal illness, Toxic relationship, Violence, Medical content, Kidnapping, Grief, Medical trauma, Death of parent, Pregnancy, Alcohol, and Classism

Moderate: Incest

3v3rmor3's review against another edition

dark mysterious medium-paced

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

4.75

this book is gonna throw you for a loop if you think it's gonna be a love story.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism, Mental illness, Terminal illness, Toxic relationship, and Violence

acwhit17's review against another edition

adventurous dark reflective tense medium-paced

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

5.0

Fucked up and yet. So compelling. Understand why kate bush was obsessed with it, very shocking for the time period and so good

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Child death, Death, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Mental illness, Physical abuse, Racism, and Toxic relationship

Moderate: Ableism, Addiction, Alcoholism, Bullying, Terminal illness, and Death of parent

Minor: Animal cruelty, Misogyny, Sexism, Abandonment, and Classism

mcmeiss's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious tense medium-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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism, Animal cruelty, Child abuse, Child death, Chronic illness, Death, Domestic abuse, Mental illness, Physical abuse, Sexism, Terminal illness, Torture, Toxic relationship, Violence, Grief, Death of parent, Outing, Gaslighting, Toxic friendship, and Classism

abbyaxj's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious medium-paced

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

3.75

Really enjoyed it, got more and more into it as I went. Not a book I could read when distracted due to the style of writing but gave a wonderful dark story from the 19th century

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Bullying, Chronic illness, Death, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Incest, Terminal illness, Toxic relationship, Violence, Medical content, Kidnapping, Grief, Medical trauma, Death of parent, and Pregnancy

mousecat's review against another edition

challenging dark sad tense medium-paced

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

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Chronic illness, Death, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Incest, Mental illness, Physical abuse, Terminal illness, Toxic relationship, Grief, and Death of parent

Moderate: Animal cruelty

Minor: Alcoholism

m4rtt4's review against another edition

dark emotional sad slow-paced

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

3.25

this differed a lot from my expectations, the gothic stuff was surprising but in a positive way... unlike all the marriages. So much death and almost everyone was an asshole in their own way and the love stories didn't feel believable enough so that I could have cared for the characters.

also you can never make me root for a marriage between CHILDREN that are COUSINS and make it happen multiple times.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Death, Domestic abuse, and Emotional abuse

Moderate: Bullying, Terminal illness, Toxic relationship, Violence, Grief, Death of parent, and Gaslighting