Reviews tagging 'Chronic illness'

Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë

57 reviews

essiie's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective relaxing slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0


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mousecat's review against another edition

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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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book_bear's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious sad tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Wonderfully dark and intense! I really enjoyed it! 

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lovelymisanthrope's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious reflective sad medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

I picked this up as my continued effort to read more classic literature.
"Wuthering Heights" is the intense love story between Catherine Earnshaw and Heathcliff, and an analysis of what happens when love is denied. Catherine and Heathcliff cannot initially be together, and they both handle this situation in differing ways.
This story was filled with so much passion with a unique look at character development, I now understand why it is so beloved and has maintained its standing as a classic. Catherine's intense love for Heathcliff is nothing short of sobering, while Heathcliff's obsession with Catherine drives him utterly mad. Their story was equal measures beautiful and devastating.
I also quite enjoyed how this story is presented to the reader. Catherine's and Heathcliff's story is told by people from the outside, which gives a unique look at their situation. This type of narrative feels more detached and creates a more objective feel for what is being told.
I really enjoyed this novel, and I think it was the perfect thought-provoking story to kick off my 2024 reading. 

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46jjsg's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional mysterious sad 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

3.0

A book about terrible people doing terrible things in a terrible environment that breeds more terrible people. You truly don't root for a single person in this novel and despite how emotional some scenes can be (/pos)- you never really know any of these characters when everything is account of an account. Unreliable narrators aside- you can't help feel bad for Catherine and Heathcliff... for like a hot minute and then you snap back to reality. Are they victims of circumstance? Sure, but the cycle of abuse continues... which is admittedly one of the themes, but by the end of the novel you're just like damn what a waste of two lives. This is a thought-provoking novel, but you won't feel good at any point of this novel. It's pretty to read, but it can get slow and sometimes just plain confusing (or redundant). 

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nineinchnails's review against another edition

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dark emotional reflective sad tense slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

i wish i could articulate why i liked this so much better but it was a super cathartic read. the prose was beautiful and the characterisation was really good in my opinion. i find it infinitely more interesting and satisfying to read about flawed characters than mary sues or people with shortcomings that get no worse than “i love too hard😔” so this was really enjoyable. i think heathcliffs ethnicity was worked really well into the book and gave a lot of insight into his character. i went into this pretty much blind but expecting it to be more of a romance than it was but i was pleasantly surprised! i think this is a gothic novel, and if that is the case, it was a very good example of one! i might be slightly biased since it’s set in yorkshire (my homeland) and it feels somewhat nostalgic despite being written centuries before i was born.

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wuthrinheights's review against another edition

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dark emotional reflective sad tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

I first read this book a year or two ago, and I now hold two physical copies of it. This is a reread and I still harbor so much love for this story. When I was getting nearer to the ending, I was half glad, half saddened. I was excited to be finished with it so I could go on to read other books but I also didn't want to say goodbye to these characters. Seeing the story spread out for 20 years, I grew attached to them as if I was also a part of the moors. 

Although I do not condone their behaviours, I was still so fascinated and amazed by the intensity of the love held between Catherine and Heathcliff. They were wild and reckless and passionate, which hurt not only each other but the people around them and others that came after them. My favourite parts of the book were their love confessions spoken to Nelly. It was so intense and agonising, it plays so vividly if I were to think back on the book. 

My favourite character was Nelly. Everyone was always dramatic and taken by emotions, but Nelly was always cool and focused. Her deadpan deliveries cracked me up, which gave a lighter tone amidst the gloomy setting of the Heights. She often spoke the truth and would strive to do the right thing, even if her master(s) didn't like to hear it. 

It is still so mind-blowing that despite being written hundreds of years ago, Brontë was able to pen a story that covers abuse running through generational lines, when it probably wasn't that well studied back in those days. Emily was way ahead of her time and it's a shame she never got to see how well her book was loved after the publication. 

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nanc_282's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense fast-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

5.0


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cepbreed's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious tense slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

"Time brought resignation and a melancholy sweeter than common joy."

This is a surprisingly consumable classic that I enjoyed very much! I truly appreciate Brontë's commitment to creating unlikeable characters. Through all of the evil acts and biased narration (provided by Lockwood and Nelly) the characters all emerged as feeling particularly human, Heathcliff specifically. He is made out to be this tragic character, a man filled with so much vitriol, yet he has this magnetism you can't help to be attracted to. The same goes for Hareton. Nelly portrayed him in such a negative light when he was first introduced, but you can't help but find sympathy for those types of characters. That said, and with all of the parallels between them, I  am struggling to understand why I was rooting for Hareton and Cathy (jr) with all of my heart, but couldn't find that same enthusiasm for Heathcliff and Cathy. Hareton and Cathy just had so much cute charm (ignoring the incest). Even when Linton was in the way I struggled to find it convincing at all. That said I don't really think of Wuthering Heights as a classic romance novel. The romance is just shrouded in so many layers of grief, class dynamics, etc. I also was surprisingly satisfied with the ending. Cathy and Hareton getting married and Heathcliff (crazy till the end) is able to end up with his Cathy in a way. I was dissatisfied with the lack of ghosts though. I feel like the first few chapters totally misled us...

The second half of the book was my favorite, I feel like it isn't mentioned enough! And why does nobody talk about the fact that Heathcliff isn't a white man!

Songs: 
  • Ghosts - James Vincent Mcmorrow
  • Knuckle Velvet - Ethel Cain 
  • Wuthering Heights - Kate Bush 
  • Shades of Cool - Lana del Rey  
  • Dark Paradise - Lana del Rey

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readingduckling's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional sad slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

1.75

It's the mother of books about toxic relationships. And I think it's horrible it's marked as one of the romance novels. In my opinion it's at most a dark romance and more thriller because no one seems to have any kind of romantic feelings for one another. 
And on top of that there is a lot of incest in this book, in the third generation of "lovers". I think this is one of the books that you should not publish uncomented anymore. 
But I'm very impressed, that Emily Brontë was able to publish books at that time. 

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