WUTHERING HEIGHTS FOR DUMB DUMBS! | A Beginner’s Reading Guide to Literary Classics

Have you officially jumped on the Wuthering Heights bandwagon yet? If you’re anything like us, reading this classic novel by Emily Brontë for the first time, you may find yourself thinking “WTF!?” on every other page, confused about the point of view, the narrator, the timelines, and the ghosts…? And we get it! So do not fret; we’ve got you! 

Welcome to our newest bonus series where we’re taking deep dives into some of the most beloved classics of our time, kicking it off with Wuthering Heights! We’re just in time for the new and controversial movie written and directed by Emerald Fennell… starring Margo Robbie and Jacob Elordi and marketed as “the greatest love story of all time.” 🤔

We decided that rather than attempt to become overnight experts we would phone a friend! And today Rebecca @novelbakery is here to give us a crash course in Wuthering Heights and provide us with the tips and tricks we need to go into this novel with a leg up. 

Rebecca breaks down the main characters, the setting and timelines, gives us some background on Emily Brontë herself, outlines central themes, and gives us all her advice on how to truly immerse yourself in this story. And then answers the question: Is Wuthering Heights actually a romance? 

Follow Rebecca over  ⁨@NovelBakery⁩ | https://www.instagram.com/novelbakery?igsh=NTc4MTIwNjQ2YQ==

We hope that you enjoy this bonus mini episode, and will join us for our future deep dive into the novel and movies! And don’t forget to go follow @novelbakery for some more amazing bookish and baking content! 

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Check out these author interviews? ⬇️

Penn Cole talks with us about Strong Female Characters, Feminist Themes, and her debut bestselling Spark of the Everflame Series! https://youtu.be/7ukNImyoObw?si=7C3Y9kOUMN4hfcKb

We interviewed Callie Hart all about her NYT Bestseller Quicksilver! Watch it here! https://youtu.be/CED5s7qDBdQ?si=8xtIRO1IzX6Rsld4

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Transcript

Weathering Heights houses the Earshaws and this family is just rough around the edges. I felt like this whole chapter was a fever dream and then I found out it was a fever dream. Just in case you guys didn't know like how bonkers this is ghosts. Buckle up for this book. Like if you haven't caught on already.

Welcome to the Besties in the Books podcast, guys. I'm Liz. And I'm Ashley. And this is Rebecca. Woo. This is our first actual mini episode. If you've been with us for a while, then you know our bonus series used to be called minis and they they there was nothing mini about those 1-hour long episodes. Plus, honestly, honestly. So, hey guys, are you struggling with Withering Heights? Are you having a hard time? Well, enter Rebecca and us to help guide you today with hopefully this little beginners's guide, a little bit of a Withering Heights for dummies, if you will, because we need to talk about this book, but not in spoilery essence yet. All right, we're just kind of dipping your toes in right now. Get in the groove. Yeah, we wanted to be able to bring you guys We heard you. We heard what you guys were saying, first of all, okay, about Withering Heights. It's been floating all over the internet. And basically, this was our first read of um this book as well in anticipation of obviously the new movie coming out and our classics um you know, new series that we've got going on. So, before we wanted to get into actually deep diving this book, we figured that we'd phone a friend. Okay. Yep. So, um as Ashley said, this is Rebecca over at Novel Bakery if you want to go ahead and follow her over there. and she's basically coming on to give us the insight into Withering Heights that maybe as first time readers we just did not necessarily have. Um, so she's more familiar with the material and she's able to give us tips like tips and tricks on how we can digest it a little bit easier instead of just being like confused around every corner. Yeah. Cuz I feel like that can kind of be like the initial reaction um that a lot of us have been having. I mean, I can only speak for myself, but I feel like it's been a common. Yeah, it's pretty common. Um, but before we bring Rebecca officially on to answer our questions and hopefully your questions so that you get can get some help from this guide, we just wanted to say thank you so much for being here. Seriously, thank you guys so much for taking time out of your day and your book and maybe you just cracked open that, you know, beautiful novel by Emily Bronte herself and you're just like, what? and you and you found us. So, welcome. Make sure to like, follow, and subscribe anywhere you like to list podcasts, including YouTube. We're over there and Instagram and Tik Tok. We're besties in the books podcast everywhere. And we even have a fable chat going for this book, which is a spoiler-free way to talk about each chapter and be like, "Okay, now what just happened?" All right, so head over there. That one is Bessie's and the book club, and you can find that as well as the other monthly book club reads that we have going on. We also have the Played Prisoner series going on and we'll be doing other deep dives on some classics as well coming up in the next few weeks. Yeah, I mean that's super exciting. So, if you guys end up liking this little reading guide, we're also going to be doing it for Pride and Prejudice and Little Women. So, you can keep that in mind moving forward. Um, but before we get into any more, um, we just wanted to officially welcome Rebecca on and we just want to know like what got you into classic literature in general, but into Withering Heights specifically, like awesome. So, first of all, thank you so much for having me. Um, it's great to be here. I would never call myself an expert. I did get my bachelor's in English literature and just kind of always enjoyed reading classics. um from like you know I remember in high school my younger sister being like isn't that like a book you'd be assigned in class and I was like yeah and I'm reading it because I want to um but I never took a class on Heights or any of the Bronte sisters but when I was in college I did read it because I wanted to but then last year um I actually did a readalong on Novel Bakery and so if anyone wants like a deep dive into Weathering Heights those are still sta saved on my page um And what was really fun about it is I actually did it with my husband. He's an English literature professor and we met when we were in undergrad. We had like critical theory and Victorian literature together. Um though another caveat, Victorian literature is not his expertise either. He's more like Shakespeare. Um but between the two, he has like taught classes um in the time period and novels from that time period. So, between the two of us, we did some research and um had a really great time analyzing the book. Yeah, that's awesome. Super fun. Really cool. I love that. Yeah. Either way, you're going to know like so much more than we do. Yeah, 100%. I'm like I feel like any nuggets of info you can give us are going to be so so useful. I hope so. I hope I can be helpful here. I mean, even we just finished reading it a couple days ago and we're like instantly we need to reread it right away. So, you're already light years ahead of us and we appreciate any feedback and any tips and tricks. Anything that we can go over today is going to be useful for sure. So, thank you so much. Let's get into it guys. Narrators, characters, point of views, family trees that I came across that was so helpful to you. Let's break this down because it might be one of the most difficult parts about this book is it's like it's like that, you know, Charlie day in It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia with the board, the conspiracies, and the strings. That's what it feels like constantly reading this book and I love it and I'm here for it, but it's super confusing. Yeah. So, what do you have to say about it? Yeah. So, just like breaking down Weathering Heights. Weathering Heights takes place in the Moors of England. And the moors are this wild untamed area. Just think big open spaces. Think nature. There are bogs. The weather is wild and intense. It can be a dangerous area. And I think that already just kind of opens up what we're getting into with this book. Um, and there are two neighboring I mean neighboring in the sense that they're both out there. I think there's a fair amount of space between them, but there are these two neighboring estates and one of them is Weathering Heights. And this family is kind of rough. Weathering Heights houses the Ernshaws. And this family is just rough around the edges. Uh the young siblings are uh Kathy and Henley. And one day their father comes back from business in the city and brings this boy home with him named Heathcliffe. And they basically adopt him. But some members of the household from the get-go just decide they don't like him. He's bad news. And they treat him really poorly. And then the other estate is Thrust Cross Graange. And that's where the Lintons live and they are a much more refined family. And the story is how all of these characters and families are intertwined. The passions, the jealousies, the obsessive love, the hate, it's all there. And the story is sweeping because part one focuses on this first generation and then part two is the second generation and how they've they're all like burdened with this really awful family history. And so the story, this is I think where it gets kind of confusing for some people. The story opens up during the second generation. We get this kind of random guy named Mr. Lockwood who has come to Weathering Heights. He's kind of a weirdo, too. I laugh cuz it's like literally dude like you cannot mind your own business. And I love that. Yeah. No, he's he's a bizarre character, but he comes to Weathering Heights to rent some property and he's really quick to pick up on how weird everyone is and how weird the place is. And so, one of the maids who has been with the household through both of these generations, her name is Nelly, she tells Lockwood like verbatim this whole huge history of these families. Um, and so again, that's where it gets a little confusing because we're getting it kind of like this two-layered. We're getting the story from Nelly, but we're being told the story through Mr. Lockwood and we're jumping back and forth in time. Mhm. I feel like Ashley told me to look up a family tree and that was super helpful too, just to see the breakdown. Like literally sometimes it helps me to like visualize it a little bit easier. It's very like you know when you're like watching or reading Game of Thrones and you have to check the family tree like all the time. That's how I felt. I was like, I have to look at this like every five minutes. Yeah, absolutely. And if you're watching the YouTube video right now, cuz we are over on YouTube, I will put the family tree on the screen so that you guys can visualize it because once we found that, it was like, oh my goodness, even the names to my brain are so similar. We've got repetitive names like literally with generations, but even just like in my brain, Heathcliffe and Lockwood, I don't know, they're both natury with a cliff and a wood. So it all is like it's a conundrum to me. Well, and you have Catherine and Kathy like hello. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. And then you have different narrators and a narrator shift. And it's not how maybe if you're a fantasy reader, they'll say like at the beginning of the chapter who this point of view is from. You're not getting that. So you're getting Lockwood's point of view and then there's a shift still Lockwood but it's mostly told through Nelly like she said. So you get a narrator shift and then a little bit more later. So, Mhm. Do you have one piece of advice for someone new to this book who's thinking about reading it for the first time? Yeah, I would have a couple piece of pieces of advice. I think the first goes along with just what we were saying, like look up a family tree. Also, um I think as readers, like we really don't want our spoilers and we want everything to be a surprise, but I think sometimes with classics, don't be afraid to go read a summary. Maybe even maybe not the newer movie, but Weathering Heights is a good example of this. Some Yeah, I was going to say some classics. I would say watch the movie first. I don't know that there's really been a Weathering Heights adaptation that is helpful for that, but read a summary. Maybe you just need a couple chapters, maybe the first quarter of the book. Maybe it'll be a much better experience if you're reading a summary before every single chapter. Like, just get your footing. Especially because this one does kind of change between times, between characters that are hard to follow. Um, I think the pacing can be a little touch and go sometimes with Weathering Heights, you know? Like you get these like really crazy chapters. We're just like, "Oh my gosh." Like it like I I don't know about you, but like I would have these moments where I was like, I can't believe I'm I think we get this idea that like people a long time ago were very proper and I'm like these people are not proper. What is happening? Totally. So I think Yeah. Yes. Yes. And so I think like a summary can be really helpful. Mhm. Um and just like where whatever you need. Um and then my other piece of advice is just like buckle up. Buckle up for this book. Like if you haven't caught on already, I I don't know why it gets this reputation as being this lovely love story. Like even the movie's tagline is the greatest love story of all time. Like I I I think you're going to have a a very strange experience if that's the idea you're going in with. Um I've been talking about just with the movie coming out, I've been talking about Weather Knights on my stories a little more and someone messaged me and said it's a great love story. Like Hamlet and Oilia are a great love story. Like tragic and toxic, you know? Um so yeah, just like be prepared. Like this book actually gets pretty dark. It gets wild. It gets heavy. Um yeah. Yeah. I mean it definitely I mean if the fable if you go into our fable chat you will see that me and Ashley are like wait this is not what we expected like where are we right now like what is this place I think one of the things that I commented was like I felt like this whole chapter was a fever dream and then I found out it was a fever dream so hey if that doesn't sum up the vibe chaotic is like my vibe the entire time you know there's some there's some you know different stuff going on there but guys not I don't even know if this will prepare you guys you because you're like thinking like you said classic literature oh kind of lyd and flowery and I speaking on the movie the first reactions that I was hearing from it as somebody who just read the book completely blind Liz you didn't really know anything about it either right I didn't know I didn't know nothing and the reactions were like oh this looks so wild and unhinged and crazy and I don't know if they did a good job of that that's the only discord that I heard at first and then I started reading the book and I'm like, well, hey, this pretty is pretty wild and unhinged and crazy. Now, we've seen more trailers and more hyping up this love story and the drama and all of the now the things that we know to look out for of things that maybe weren't good choices for Hollywood to make and discrediting some, you know, classism and racism that were going on within the book. So, we'll see what happens with that when the movie comes out. But, yeah, guys, buckle up. It is unhinged. And just to touch on one of your um you know tips and tricks or suggestions as well, it's like I was telling Ashley, um I actually would read a chapter and then I would read the spark notes and the chapter analysis for every chapter afterwards and that was so useful and yeah, like I don't have a subscription or anything and I was able to do that with the whole book just from like sparknotes.com. So yeah, that was super super useful because yeah, sometimes it's like uh did this literally happen or was this like a metaphor? Yeah. You know what I mean? Mhm. So yeah, I would definitely highly suggest that. Yeah, I completely agree. When Liz told me that trick, I immediately hopped on there and it really helped because even the way that they're speaking is different than how our dialect is nowadays. And there's even somebody in there who has a very I don't know the proper term for it then, but it would feel like like a like a deep southern country accent for us here in the States would be their version of that in English. So, it's even written that way and I'm like I it's I have no idea what this person is saying. So, having that Spark Notes even as that tool was super helpful. One other tip and trick I'll save for later you guys. So stay tuned because I have a very useful one that I'll discuss at the end. Yeah, I think I know what you're going to say. So yeah. Yeah. Let's set the scene with a little bit more context. So who was Emily Bronte and what was going on socially during that time period that she wrote Withering Heights and is it relevant? Yeah. So, um I don't think that we need to like do like a history lesson or a biography about an author every time you read a classic, but I will say learning about Emily Bronte is like fascinating and how much of her life lines up with the things in Weathering Heights and how much her biography influences that story. Um which is also a little disturbing when you know what story is. Um, but yeah, so really interesting. Emily Bronte was born in 1818. She was the fifth of six children. So there were two older sisters and then Charlotte, if you're familiar, Charlotte wrote Janeire. Um, and then you have Branwell, the only boy. Then you get Emily and then you get Ann who was also a published author at the time. So I mean like for that time period to have three women in this family to be published authors and like books that we still read today that are remembered, I think that's amazing. Um, and so then when Emily was 2 years old, and like quick note, I believe firmly we should respect our female authors by referring to them either as their last name or their full name, but we're talking about three authors in the same family. So, I'm going to I'm going to refer to her as Emily sometime, but all the respect to our female authors. Um, but yeah, when Emily was two years old, the family moves to what is basically the setting of Weathering Heights. like the manor behind their house was like Weathering Heights. Um, and so then when she was three, her mother passed away and then when Emily was six, she and her sisters were sent away to this horrible boarding school. Like if you've read Janeire, again, written by Charlotte, it's like straight out of the boarding school from Janeire. Um, and the two oldest sisters caught tuberculosis there and died. And so the rest of the siblings returned home to be educated by the father and the aunt. and these four younger siblings would all write fictional stories and they even created this fictional world and all their stories took place in this fictional world. Um but then at 17, Emily went away to school. She didn't stay long um cuz she was homesick and then later Charlotte and Emily went together to Belgium to get educated cuz they wanted to come home and open up their own school. Um but Emily struggles the whole time with homesickness anytime she's away. But again, we kind of get this reflection on Weathering Heights. Um, when Charlotte and Emily return home, they can't get any students to come to their school because they're so remote. And that is such a thing in the novel, like these people are just isolated. Um, so then in 1844, Emily is 26 and Charlotte finds some of basically goes snooping through things and finds some of Emily's poems. And after a lot of convincing, they decide to find a publisher for a collection of both Emily and Ann's poems. It's a lot of work. It's very difficult, but they do find a publisher. It doesn't get a lot of attention, but any attention it does get is actually for Emily's poems. Um, and despite how difficult that whole process was, and again, like it wasn't like a raging success, these sisters all decided that they wanted to write and publish their own novels. Um, and they published under male pseudonyms. And surprisingly, Emily and Ann sell their books first. And Charlotte's Janeire, which was like ended up being the best received of all of them, she struggled to sell it for a while. But Weathering Heights was very poorly received. People were just horrified by these characters and the circumstances. Like, they really didn't like Heath C. I mean, I thought I even thought about that cuz I was like, if this is shocking to us now. Yeah. Imagine like how shocking that would be. Yeah. Crazy. Yeah. Yeah. But there's just so many biographical influences. Like apparently grandma, the older the the brother had claimed to have seen the ghost of one of their older sisters who had died and there are ghosts that are going to come up in Weathering Heights. And it sounds like her brother Branwell and her father were like very emotionally volatile. M one of the intros to my copy of Weathering Heights uh says that accounts of the stormy rantings of both grandma and the father remind easily of Heathcliff's extreme desperate suicidal threats which if you haven't caught on now to what kind of book you're about to read with mothering heights like so yeah like really really heavy stuff at home. Um the father carried a loaded gun with him everywhere and they were concerned as he's getting older he was losing his eyesight. they were concerned he was going to hurt someone, so he taught Emily to shoot for him. And again, it just it definitely sounds like the violence, the upheaval, the unstableness you get in Weathering Heights. Um, that's fascinating. And so, oh my gosh, even though Yeah. Even though their h their home just didn't sound like a very good place, Emily always felt homesick for it, which I thought was was interesting. Um, but Charlotte writes later introductions, like the later editions to Weathering Heights, and she shares how Weathering Heights is just this direct reflection of how Emily was a homebred country girl. And she describes um Emily as as being an observer, like she was sounds like she was an invert introvert. She didn't participate, but she observed a lot. And we get those observations in Weathering Heights and the characters and the scenery. And so, Weathering Heights was published in 1848. That same year, Branwell drank and drugged himself to death and he dies at the age of 31. Again, the same year, only 3 months after Branwell's death, Emily dies of tuberculosis at the age of 30. And then only a few months after that, Anne dies at the age of 29. Charlotte passes in 1855 at the age of 39. So, just like a really tragic family history, really heavy stuff. Um, and then it's not until 2 years after the publication of Weathering Heights that the first positive review of the book is published. Um, like people just were really horrified by the story. And um, it's funny because it's kind of a backhanded positive review. This reviewer is convinced that Charlotte Bronte wrote both Weathering Heights and Janeire. Um, even though in multiple editions of both Janeire and Weathering Heights, Charlotte keeps trying to debunk this and be like, "I didn't write Weathering Heights." Um, but he thinks that he has good things to say about like the writing and the scenery and all that, but he does say that he thinks that uh, Weathering Heights is an immature first draft for Janeire. And he also just like goes off on Heathcliff like the man shouldn't even exist. like that character should not have ever have been written. And it's funny because he he talks about him almost like he's a failed hero. And I just think that's a funny way to talk about Heath Cliff at all because I mean I feel like Heath Cliff's a villain, you know, like so I just think it's funny that that's that would be the perception at all. But yeah, so that's that's kind of a a brief summary of her life and kind of the reception of Weathering Heights. That's like fascinating to me. Oh, it's like Yeah, just in case you guys didn't know like how bonkers this is. I love how we're like there's ghosts in here. Like Heath Cliff is a villain. Like you guys don't even know. Like I had no idea about any of this. Um yeah, just and the themes are really interesting too. So to build off of that, what would you say like the most important central themes to this story to kind of like look out for would be? Yeah. So, like I said, I think uh I think kind of that darkness in Emily's life is really reflective of kind of the themes we get in the book. And I think the ones to look out for are generational trauma, revenge, obsession, jealousy, and isolation. I I really think the isolation is so important and has so much bearing on these characters. Um, so you mentioned that you're going to be discussing Pride and Prejudice. And when I was rereading it last year, um, Weathering Heights last year, I just couldn't stop comparing Bronte to Jane Austin because in Austin's novels, it's community is so important in how those communities come together and support each other. And Bronte's the complete opposite. These people are so alone. They have no help. And and it just has it really has such an important bearing on the story. Yeah. The shining comes to mind. You know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah. Well, the weather plays a really big role in this novel. And honestly, like listen, I can't stand wind, so I get it. I'd be going crazy, too, if I was getting freaking lashed constantly with all this crazy weather. Yeah. But it creates just such a like such it sets the scene and the vibe and the tone in such a for me enjoyable way because it was so easy to picture and like feel, you know what I mean? And that isolation and that's funny they compare it to, you know, the community of Pride and Prejudice versus the isolation of Withering Heights. But both are still relevant today and both were relevant then that you do have families that were isolated and it's like going a little bit stir crazy. You know, her family all passing from these illnesses that now we have vaccines for or we have her immunity and how easily things could be, you know, a common cold can take people out back then. It makes people live fast and hard and, you know, cuz they die young sometimes, you know. It's crazy. Yeah. And and that's Yeah. That was another thing I noticed in the book is um with like out getting into details like people would get sick and then these characters would be sick for like months. And I just realized like that probably like was a bit of her experience. Like she had family members die of illnesses. Like people just don't recover from illnesses back then. and they were laid low for a long time. It's kind of terrifying or just things that we wouldn't even think about. Like I feel like in the fable chat we were cracking up because it's like you know Lockwood's gone for a night or whatever in the beginning of the book and his whole staff assumes that he's just perished. You know what I mean? Yeah. Well, he's dead. Like oh wow. Like geez. Okay. Like way to jump to conclusions but I guess that would happen a lot you know. I mean exactly. Yeah. I guess a lot. So, hey. Yeah. Especially on the moors, I think people could get lost again. Like there were like bogs. The weather could change so quickly. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Mhm. Like it could be a perfectly sunny day, then it's not, you know. Oh, man. Crazy. What genre is this book, would you say? Yeah. So, not a romance. And if if people want to come like debate that with me, we can we can do it politely. I promise. Maybe we'll try. But yeah, it's and I Yeah, it's funny how it has that reputation. But um it's actually a Gothic and I think looking out for those Gothic, like when we talk about themes, look out for the Gothic themes. It's actually really fascinating. So, um some of the conventions of a Gothic novel are a castle. We don't have a castle, but we have a very creepy estate. A woman in distress, a tyrannical man praying on women. I mean, it's like check check, right? Overall emotion. I mean, Catherine and Heathcliff are the definition of over raw emotion for boating, which I think comes a lot with like we were talking the setting and the weather. Um, an atmosphere of suspense or terror. And the last one is language of devilry, which shows up all over the place, especially when Heathcliffe is being described. always with Heath Cliff. I wouldn't just say go through your Gothic conventions and see how neatly the book fits into that, even though it does, which is wild. It really does like fit all of those. Um, but I think where Weathering Heights gets so interesting because I think I think if you go into Weathering Heights thinking you're going to read the greatest love story of all time, I kind of hope you walk away a little disturbed and disappointed by that. Like, that's not what I thought I was going to get. But if you approach it from like this Gothic perspective, knowing kind of what these themes are, it's such a fascinating book, especially to see how Bronte kind of turns some of these conventions on their head, pushes the boundaries on some of these conventions. So like we get multiple women in distress in this book. Um, and I would say Katherine Ernshaw at the top of that list. Um, but I think Catherine becomes a much more interesting character to me because I mean on the surface Katherine's just a horrendous person and a total brat. like you know like no redeeming qualities. But when you start to think of her as like a woman in distress and how maybe she uses and manipulates that position when you know as a woman in that time period who maybe didn't have that much power and she's utilizing it or how she pushes against that uh I don't know start like still don't necessarily like Catherine but maybe a little bit of respect and she just becomes so much more interesting. So yeah, I I wouldn't call it a romance and but but yeah, I just think it it just it's such a fascinating story when you can look at it more in depth than just a love story. And that's what's disappointing about the tagline of the movie is I think there's so many aspects of Weathering Height that are fascinating and reducing it to a love story when I feel like it's not really. I could see that for sure. I mean, obviously I haven't seen the movie and we haven't watched the old movie yet. We plan to do that soon. Which to be fair, part of me kind of hopes that they're like tricking audiences and everyone's going to go in there and be like, mind blown and like actually they're going to take on some really heavy topics. But we'll see. We'll see. That's my like hope is that I heard somebody recently say um maybe they're just rage baiting us to get like people into the theaters. And I hope so because like movie sales are down. making our favorite books into movie adop

and so maybe that's why they're going to go but then the us you know who are maybe a little more critical of it are going to go because we're going to see what did they do you know so hey hopefully because I definitely have seen some movies recently even the housemmaid for instance where it was sold to like my husband for instance in a totally different way than you know what I knew of it reading it. So I'm hoping that's what's going on is they're just trying to cast their net larger to reach a larger audience, you know, cuz if they say gothic tragedy on Valentine's Day, you know, people might not go see it. So we'll fingers crossed. I mean, this this episode will be out now, so you guys let us know how you liked it. But we'll see. I feel like if they failed to include any of the dark elements of this book, it would really just I'd be like, is this even the book then? Like cuz the whole book is so dark. Yeah. I would just really I would struggle with that, you know? Well, and I think it was also really groundbreaking. I don't think Emily Bronte was like trying to break boundaries by depicting abuse, but I think just the fact that she addressed it was groundbreaking for the time period. I think that's why people were so upset by it. Like you just didn't talk about these things and she did and it sounds like she may have lived them as well. And so so yeah, I just think we we're losing a if if they don't we don't we like you said we don't know what the movie's going to do but if if they don't address those things we're losing a lot of that I think. Yeah. And even so you mentioned you know with Katherine basically she's a multi-dimensional character. you know, when we first read, we're quick to pass judgments on different characters. And to me, especially with the the retellings of their story through the eyes of the the maid and the neighbor and all of this, it we can remind ourselves when we're reading these characters that they are multi-dimensional and you're getting some of their history. You're getting Catherine and what she's going through and a little bit of what she's telling the people that are narrating her life now. And you're getting the things that Heathcliffe has even had to deal with and why he becomes the way that he becomes. Not to justify either of these characters choices, but we're getting some of that with what we love now in the books that we read where people are not just black and white. you know, we have full well-rounded people that have come from different places and these are their responses to that and their characteristics and their family lineage and everything that plays a role into that. Yeah. And then I also think like it's interesting to remember that we're all getting this from Nelly the maid. And like and it's it's hard not to wonder like how her complicated relationship with some of these characters might be impacting how she's depicting them, you know? Um cuz she's one of the people from the get-go that decides Heathcliffe is no good. And whether or not she actually has evidence of that, at least early on is debatable, you know? And so like how does that impact the story? It's just Yeah, there's just Yeah, the Weathering Heights is not my favorite book to read if I'm being honest. Like I don't like the characters. They're all just horrible and it's like I don't get the joy from it that I do from like rereading Pride and Prejudice. But I feel like I can talk about Weathering Heights for like weeks on end. I just feel like there's so much to unpack with it. And I that for me is like where its value lies. It's such an interesting story. Yeah, there's a lot of layers. That's why it's like what Ashley was saying where we just finished reading it a couple days ago and I'm like, I already want to dive back in and reread it because I didn't even really think about the fact that like Nelly could be a completely unreliable narrator until I finished it and I was like, wait. Yeah. Yeah. There's like this big like light bulb went on and I was like, oh no, I need to reread this. Like thinking about it through that. Absolutely. Yeah. She's like the definition in my mind now of like unreliable narrator because like you said, how many people once you make up their mind when you're retelling a story like just thinking about your day-to-day, it's like how does it get how do things get little morphed and twisted and what you can see? So, I love that because this book, whatever the reviews were, whatever their sales were originally, it gets people talking about all of these things and we're still here doing it today. What is that almost 200 years later? That's pretty crazy. Yeah, that is really crazy. I mean, just the fact that she could call out things like what you're saying as far as like abuse, generational trauma, and stuff like that, whether she was like intentionally like cognizant of that choice or just telling a story, you know, is like remarkable to me, too. Like, wow. Yeah, definitely. So, do you have any other like as we wrap this uh you know little phone a friend episode up, do you have any other just little tips and tricks that you wanted to share with us? Um just in general, any other things that we might have missed? Just a small one and it's just like look to the text. Like it it can be interesting to learn the history behind a book, the biography, etc. of the author, but let the text speak, you know? Like if if you're going in maybe you read it at 14, you're like, "No, it was the greatest love story ever told." You know, like that was true. You know, like for the textual evidence. Yeah, it does. It does. You know, and like where where's the evidence for that and and maybe you'll find evidence cuz that's like there are Heathcliffe and Kathy unfortunately have some really great declarations of love, these like oneliners that people like to pull out and you're like, "Oh, that is romantic." until you put it into context of like everything else that's happening on the page and you're like, "Oh." So, yeah. Well, see, I feel like without getting into too many details, you know, that's something I I think that's one of the reasons why this book resonated so much with me and I loved it so much because those things aren't mutually exclusive, right? It's like you can be toxic and abusive and also madly in love at the same time. Yeah.

So, well, so yeah, I think that was probably my favorite part about this. But you're totally right. It's like you went I went into it thinking one thing and I came out thinking something completely different. Yeah. So, what about you, Ash? You said you had one more tip and trick to share with the group. So yeah, we talked about read read a quick little the little blurb on the book, right? We talked about that. Liz talked about, you know, spark notes if you're struggling, you know. And then my last tip is immersive reading, especially with the dialect that is going on for these times. So I was really struggling to physically only read this book. And if you don't know what immersive reading is, now it has a name, immersive reading. Liz used to call it your subtitle hack. that one day you were like, I wish this audio book had subtitles. And it's like, wait, I could read the book. And then if there's time, you can listen to the audio whilst physically reading the book. So that's what I did. Anytime I felt like I was struggling to get into the dialogue and or issues maybe with the different dialects and stuff, that's when I popped in that audio book. And if you have audio and Kindle synced up, it'll literally take you to the page that it is. So you guys, if you're struggling with this, any classics, anything in general that you're struggling, try that immersive reading hack because it made a world of difference for me personally. Absolutely. And I know that there's so many different versions, too. And I was actually able to download um an one of the versions on Audible for free. So, hey. Yeah. Mhm. You guys, let us know in the comments, though. If you're an avid reader reader of Withering Heights or you just read it for the first time, if you have any more tips and tricks to help people in their reading journey with this, please drop it in the comments below. We would love to hear it. Sharing is caring. We hope this mini episode was helpful and a good little reading guide for you to help crack open this amazing classic novel. maybe watching the movie, maybe, you know, take a little peek at our deep dive that we'll have coming up in the next couple weeks, fully diving into this book in a complete spoilery way. So, this was our more spoiler-free episode. First 15 minutes of every episode is spoilerfree, but then we're getting into it. So, you got some time to finish your read. And make sure as well to go follow Rebecca over at Novel Bakery on Instagram for some amazing bookish and baking content. Thank you so much, Rebecca, for joining us today. Thank you for having me. You don't call yourself an expert, but dude, you just unloaded a lot of knowledge on me. So, hey, true. So much expert in my book. Same. Make sure to like, follow, and subscribe anywhere you like to listen for your podcast, including at YouTube. We'll be having some more friends joining us in these little phone friend segments because we are diving into some more classics that Liz and I haven't read, and then one that'll be a reread for Liz. So, you can make sure to also follow us on Instagram and Tik Tok. Besties in the Books podcast everywhere. And you guys, we'll see you next Tuesday and Friday. That's true. And Friday. Yep. Bye. All right, you guys. Bye.