This contemporary retelling of "Wuthering Heights" was okay but Emily Bronte's classic was so much better! ( )

My Thoughts:

I’m not sure how to put my feelings for this book into a review…

I was constantly frustrated with this book for multiple reasons.

First, there was the made up grammar. That’s right, made up grammar.

There were two points-of-view in The Heights, one was Henry’s, the other Catherine’s. For Henry’s PoV, James used dashes (-) instead of quotes (” “) to show that someone was talking, and two periods (. .) instead of commas (,) when there was a pause. After reading some of the discussion questions at the back of the book, I guess this was meant to show how Henry was deteriorating and didn’t want to draw attention to what people said more than what they thought. Honestly, it just got on my nerves. I think if I had been able to get more into the story, it wouldn’t have bother me as much, but I didn’t (I’ll explain this a bit later).

Another problem I had was that Catherine’s PoV was entirely in italics. Do you have to squint when you read this sentence? Possibly enlarge the page? What about three pages of this? Could you read that? I didn’t think so. It was terribly annoying having to squint to read three to five pages of Catherine’s point-of-view.

As I stated earlier, I had some seriously problems with not just the grammar, but the story as well. Let me just say, right off the bat, I do know that The Heights is a re-imagining of Wuthering Heights, and, no, I have not read Wuthering Heights. Maybe this book is right on with the original, but if so, I’m glad I haven’t attempted to read Wuthering Heights. Here’s how I would explain the story: Extremely stuck-up, crazysauce Catherine is secretly in love with her adoptive brother, Henry, who is also crazysauce and ultra-violent, but secretly loves her too. Catherine’s also ultra-violent brother, Hindley, thinks Henry, a Latino, is not good enough for Catherine so he begins to treat Henry as a slave which causes Henry to become even more violent, Catherine to become even more stuck-up, and everyone to drink some more crazysauce. This book is all depression, angst, yelling, and death.

Apparently, the reader is supposed to be sympathetic to Henry’s situation. Not I. No way. I cannot feel the least bit of sympathy to anyone who uses violence to solve every problem. Nor will I feel sorry for Catherine, who just gets more and more stupid by the page. She has so many opportunities to change Hindley and Henry’s course of action, yet just sits by and watches her family begin to self-destruct. I was terribly depressed and threw the book down in a huff when I was finished reading.

The last problem I had with this book, which may be more because of my personal taste, was the overlap in points-of-view. When the story switches from Henry to Catherine’s point-of-view, it sometimes overlaps. Often, there is no new information in the overlap. I could understand a slight overlap if we got some new insight via Catherine or Henry’s thoughts, but I can’t remember one place where that happened.

I don’t intend to give up on Brian James. I am going to try and pick up Zombie Blondes, or another of his titles, so that I can compare and see if his writing just isn’t my cup of tea, or if I’m not a fan of the destructive romance that is Wuthering Heights.

The Verdict:

Sigh. Books filled to the brim with angst, depression, yelling, and self-destruction are not my cup of tea. ( )