Wuthering Heights, Gothic Romance

Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte

Where to begin with this one?  Since I was a teenager, I've had a yearly ritual where I read this novel every November.  Wuthering Heights is by far my all-time favorite novel.  I just finished reading it for about the tenth time and it's just as mesmerizing as the first time.

This is definitely not the feel-good, love story.  It is dark and depressing and should be read in the fall when it is rainy and windy and you can curl up in your favorite chair and get lost in the dark and stormy Yorkshire moors.  This book is an unpolished and devastating epic of childhood playmates who grow into soul mates, is widely regarded as the most original tale of thwarted desire and heartbreak in the English language.  It's very hard to have compassion for the main characters, who despite being passionately in love with one another, adamantly refuse to express that love because of the social barriers. There is a lot of symbolism and at times you have to delve deeper than the surface to understand what's happening. The antagonist in this story is pure, unadulterated evil.