Reviews tagging 'Child abuse'

Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë

221 reviews

dancerforlife0545's review against another edition

dark emotional reflective sad slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• 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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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Suicide, and Death of parent

Moderate: Domestic abuse and Antisemitism

thorney's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious sad tense slow-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

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Bullying, Child abuse, Death, Domestic abuse, Incest, Mental illness, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Toxic relationship, Violence, Grief, and Schizophrenia/Psychosis

Moderate: Torture

misuki's review against another edition

challenging dark sad tense slow-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

1.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Physical abuse, and Xenophobia

mossgarden's review against another edition

dark emotional 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

2.0

I'm sure when given the proper time and care to review this book and its themes it would be quite the literary work but sadly I didn't find myself enjoying it. The character's are constantly threatening murder or suicide and while that's exciting I never felt like there was much follow through on those threats to make the book exciting. The long time period the story takes place over is also draining to the reader, and I feel like if it had focused more on Catherine haunting the narrative and had more scenes like Mr. Lockwood's nightmare of her at the very beginning it would've been very haunting and truly entertaining. If you're going to read this I also don't recommend the audiobook, a little to easy to get lost in what they're trying to say and unless you are great at understanding Scottish accents or can speak Scots you are going to miss out on whatever the Scottish character is saying. I don't even know who he was because every time that accent was put on my brain stuttered trying to parse it out. Scots is truly a different language and anyone who says it's a dialect is wrong. Spanish and Italian speakers can understand each other better than a Scots and English speaker can.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Child abuse

Minor: Violence

kimveach's review against another edition

dark reflective sad tense slow-paced

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

3.0

I assumed this novel was a romance, but it was a tale of class, obsession, and revenge.  While I can appreciate this classic, I didn't enjoy it.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Bullying, Child abuse, Chronic illness, Confinement, Death, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Suicidal thoughts, Toxic relationship, Violence, Grief, Death of parent, Pregnancy, Abandonment, and Classism

goodolnicole's review against another edition

dark sad tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Confinement, Death, Emotional abuse, Toxic relationship, Grief, Death of parent, and Toxic friendship

Minor: Child abuse, Incest, and Physical abuse

terrortwilight's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense slow-paced

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

3.75

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Content Warnings

Minor: Child abuse, Death of parent, and Classism

luca_18's review against another edition

dark mysterious 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? Yes

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Child abuse, Death, and Death of parent

woweewhoa's review against another edition

dark reflective sad slow-paced

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

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, and Toxic relationship

Moderate: Death, Incest, and Death of parent

yourbookishbff's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense slow-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

Wuthering Heights is a stunning, claustrophobic nightmare of a gothic novel that I appreciate more in my 30s than I did in my teens. I went into this with little memory of the plot - the entirety of my recollection of my senior-year English essay on the subject was “everyone’s awful.” But two of my childhood besties were game for an impromptu buddy (re)read, and there is nothing quite like revisiting a book you didn’t understand on your first read and realizing it’s actually more horrifying than you previously understood (as a parent, the generational cycle of abuse and the childhood trauma wrought by severe isolation, confinement and emotional manipulation color the story for me, now). 

Also on this read, I was more interested in the structure and style. The use of two unreliable narrators is so brilliantly done, where Mr. Lockwood’s diary-style narrative depends entirely on an abbreviated version of Nelly Dean’s narrative, which depends entirely on her retelling of events that happened to other people nearly three decades ago. The layers of bias between us and the events of the story create a feeling of always viewing the action through a fun-house mirror, with the melodrama rendered farcical and the broodiness of the characters and the moors deepening into supernatural terror. 

Ultimately, who but an isolated and introverted young woman confined to the English moors, writing under an alias, defying the strictures of her zealous Christian family members could have written a story even her own sister would later caution is maybe too dark? (Charlotte’s posthumous introduction to the novel is overly apologetic and explanatory to a degree that I really dislike, but her note that her sister’s writing was “moorish, and wild, and knotty as a root of heath” is perfectly said). 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Alcoholism, Child abuse, Death, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Incest, Mental illness, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Toxic relationship, Violence, Grief, and Gaslighting

Moderate: Racial slurs, Racism, and Death of parent

Minor: Pregnancy