Reviews tagging 'Abandonment'

Sturmhöhe - Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë

50 reviews

cepbreed's review against another edition

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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Content Warnings

Graphic: Bullying, Child abuse, Death, Mental illness, Grief, Abandonment, and Classism

Moderate: Racism and Terminal illness

Minor: Chronic illness and Pregnancy

impla77's review against another edition

dark mysterious 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

3.25

Not only is Heathcliff a dick, he’s also extremely annoying

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Confinement, Domestic abuse, Mental illness, Physical abuse, Toxic relationship, Kidnapping, and Abandonment

issyd23's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful inspiring mysterious reflective sad 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

5.0

Holy fucking shit this nocked my socks off! The prose are phenomenal & moving. Not bad for a virgin with no friends who died at 30 from TB 5🪦

Joanne Froggatt also fucking slayed the audiobook 5🪦

NB Nelly doesn’t get paid enough to deal with all the BS from the Lintons + Earnshaws - get a better employer girl! 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Ableism, Animal cruelty, Body horror, Bullying, Child abuse, Child death, Chronic illness, Confinement, Cursing, Death, Domestic abuse, Eating disorder, Emotional abuse, Incest, Infidelity, Mental illness, Misogyny, Panic attacks/disorders, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Rape, Self harm, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Slavery, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Terminal illness, Torture, Toxic relationship, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Blood, Kidnapping, Grief, Suicide attempt, Death of parent, Murder, Pregnancy, Gaslighting, Toxic friendship, Abandonment, and Classism

books_because_why_not's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious sad 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? It's complicated

2.75

 To start off, I found the characters in this book to be insufferable. They were interesting, but awful people. I only liked two characters in the entire book, but they were not even the main character. It is fine to have characters who have flaws, but many of the characters were just terrible and had hardly any redeeming quality. At least, I want one main character to be likable, that’s all I ask. 

Also, this book put me in a really bad reading slump. I started this book in Early 2022 and finally got around to finishing it midway through 2023.The writing is very flowery and hard to understand in the present day. I had to look up summaries for chapters because I could not follow along. Brontë uses eye dialect (basically writing words misspelled to show how they were literally spoken) to convey Joseph’s yorkshire accent. This, however, made reading any of Joseph's dialogue absolutely unreadable. 

The story was fine I guess. It did not really capture me as a reader because it was kind of slow going. Many people describe this book as a romance, but I felt like this is not true to what I read. A lot of times character’s were physically assaulting each other. In my opinion, this story is more about Heathcliff’s revenge rather than a love story.

I really did not like this book and if you have similar tastes as me, I would avoid this book. I’m not saying “Wuthering Heights” is awful, it is considered a classic after all. It is just not my cup of tea and is the worst book I have read this year.

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Content Warnings

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

Minor: Alcoholism, Animal cruelty, and Abandonment

tammykuffo's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense medium-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? N/A

4.0

Everyone is miserable 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism, Bullying, Child abuse, Child death, Death, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Incest, Mental illness, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Racism, Sexism, Suicidal thoughts, Terminal illness, Toxic relationship, Violence, Xenophobia, Dementia, Kidnapping, Grief, Suicide attempt, Gaslighting, Toxic friendship, Abandonment, and Classism

contrapasso's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional funny reflective sad tense 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

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Ableism, Animal death, Child abuse, Death, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Incest, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Racism, Self harm, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Toxic relationship, Violence, Death of parent, Abandonment, and Classism

birtelesemann's review against another edition

dark emotional tense medium-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

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Bullying, Child abuse, Cursing, Death, Emotional abuse, Death of parent, and Abandonment

maryy19's review

adventurous emotional mysterious sad 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

4.25

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Child abuse, Death, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Incest, Mental illness, Misogyny, Terminal illness, Toxic relationship, Death of parent, Abandonment, and Classism

Minor: Body shaming, Fatphobia, and Racism

heather_dowell's review against another edition

dark slow-paced

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

2.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Death, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Mental illness, Physical abuse, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Toxic relationship, Violence, Kidnapping, Grief, Death of parent, Toxic friendship, and Abandonment

cultbyproxy's review against another edition

dark emotional 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

4.0

wuthering heights by emily brontë was my first introduction into the literary world that is the brontë sisters and i could have hoped for no better meeting. 

this novel is a dark illustration of the thin line between love and hate and how rage can become one’s undoing. we follow heathcliff and catherine in their life story as each inflicts unspeakable heartbreak on the other and miscommunication leads to a chess game of vengeance unleashed on their descendants. 

“… they may bury me twelve feet deep, and throw the church down over me, but i won’t rest till you are with me.”

the perfect illustration of this novel for me would be invisible string by taylor swift, the notion that heathcliff and catherine are tethered to one another by their childhood infatuation turned obsession and a “love” that is destined to be their undoing. with the world against them, and eventually them against each other, we see how misery creates company. how heathcliff’s revenge plot becomes a complex chess game that catalyses everyone’s downfall, even his own. 

i have not broken your heart — you have broken it; and in breaking it, you have broken mine.

is the entire premise of their story, as each character’s actions directly lead to their own unhappiness. vengeance runs thick and cold, like a raving river, fuelled by uncontained rage and unaddressed emotion; each victim by circumstance lives long enough to become a villain by choice. 

the only character that i was rooting for from the moment of their introduction to their very end was hareton, and his story i find joy in. the perfect way of changing course and allowing history to not repeat itself, to put an end to a generational tale of manipulation and i find it to be brontë’s slim offering of an apology for an entire tale of hate and agony. 

“it was a strange way of killing: not by inches, but by fractions and hairbreadths,”

p.s. thank you for the birthday gift marcíano 🤍 i pray our story does not suffer the same fate as heathcliff and catherine. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Emotional abuse, Incest, Toxic relationship, Grief, and Death of parent

Moderate: Bullying, Confinement, Misogyny, and Physical abuse

Minor: Ableism, Alcoholism, and Abandonment