12 nov 2025

If I had to describe this story in one word it would be tormented. I'm still reeling from this read, wow! My edition literally falls apart and I had to staple the pages together, so for my birthday next week I'm going to buy a collector's edition because I already want to reread it.

It has risen to be my favourite book of all time. I had to read the first 90 pages twice because: everyone has the same names, and is referred to differently depending on who is narrating which makes it an absolute nightmare to know what's going on. Combined with the old language I don't think it's beginner friendly at all but it's so worth it. I felt like Charlie from Always Sunny while trying to construct the family tree.

But once I got the hang of the structure of the story and who was who, I was completely sucked in and I can't get back out. The summary makes the story seem straightforward but it's everything but. Every page my mind was blown in a different direction. The language is magic once you get into the flow of it, no sentence feels redundant or out of place and there are passages that I just had to read a couple of times over because they were so visceral and raw. I can't think of a single thing I didn't like except maybe that, some scenes are described so compactly that they become vague, but the information is all there, you just have to dig it out of the words which is also fun once you start to recognize when it's necessary to pay a little more attention to the wording.

Don't expect a romance, I would even go as far to say that it's not tragic because it's too violent and cruel for that. I would call Achilles and Patroclus love tragic, not this... it's miserable, shocking and vengeful. And they're all crazy with pain. I think everyone has emotions or thoughts like these at some point in their lives which makes it even cathartic in a way. It's like the characters all embody some type of the most negative and raw nature of humans and here they're all thrown in together. I think it's bold and revolutionary (not just for its time, but yet!) for that reason. There's a lot of abuse and it's not hinted at but described in detail. The descriptions are very matter of fact as if it's normal.

Maliha_reads' review on storygraph is this and I think that's extremely fitting: "Wuthering Heights isn’t a love story, it’s a feral howl into the void. It grabs you by the collar, drags you across the moors, and leaves you breathless, bruised, and strangely grateful. This isn’t a cozy read. It’s a visceral experience. The moors are alive. The emotions are volcanic. The prose is poetic and piercing. Brontë doesn’t offer comfort, she offers catharsis."

I couldn't say it better myself and fully agree, it's really full of pain. If I have to put all the passages here that I love then it will be way too long, so I picked a popular one but with the first part, which I don't understand is left out so often:

"May she wake in torment!" he cried, with frightful vehemence, stamping his foot, and groaning in a sudden paroxysm of ungovernable passion. "Why, she's a liar to the end! Where is she? Not there - not in heaven - not perished - where? Oh! You said you cared nothing for my sufferings. And I pray one prayer - I repeat it till my tongue stiffens - Catherine Earnshaw, may you not rest as long as I am living! You said I killed you - haunt me then! The murdered do haunt their murderers. I believe - I know that ghosts have wandered the earth. Be with me always - take any form - drive me mad! Only do not leave me in this abyss, where I cannot find you! Oh, God! It is unutterable! I cannot live without my life! I cannot live without my soul!"

And he really can't, he's from that moment destroying everything and everyone around him including himself until his very end and you're a witness to all of it. The healing only starts with Hareton and Catherine and it's all the way at the end and I wish we had more of it. Fantastic story!