2026 Reading List
3. Throne of Glass Sarah J. Maas
3/5 Reading Sounds: Nowadays / Hot Honey Rag by, Renée Zellweger , Catherine Zeta-Jones & Taye Diggs
2. Pride and Prejudice Jane Austen
5/5 Reading Sounds: Before You Break My Heart by, JADE
In my tenth grade Pre-AP English Lit class, although most of the books on our syllabus didn’t spark much of an interest for me, I remember that Pride and Prejudice by, Jane Austen particularly stood out.
1. Wuthering Heights Emily Brontë
5/5 Reading Sounds: Altar by, Charli xcx
For a while now I have Benn on a journey to read more digital books. I wrote a bit about this last year in my review of Wishing on a Star by, Deborah Gregory. I even specifically talked about trying to read Wuthering Heights on my phone, but it never amounted to much in the way of real progress. Over a year after I downloaded it, the book, I was still only 13% through the book. I was not connecting with the language, specifically, and the story fell flat for me in every way. Not even the impending release of the 2026 movie and associated Charli xcx album was enough to tempt me through the end of the book. When the trailer for the movie was released, I was shocked; it was being marketed like the next smutty fantasy adaptation (minus the fantasy haha). Had I completely misunderstood the tone of the book? My sister told me, yes, I had. Still, I could not get even another percent through the book before the movie eventually came out early this year. I went to see it with my sister, and once again, I was blown away. Weirdly sexual overtones aside, the movie was funny. I don’t think I enjoyed it all that much, but after the credits rolled, I had a few more questions for my sister: How different was the book from the movie? (Very.) Was Catherine that funny in the book? (Yes.) My curiosity was piqued enough to pick it up again, and I finished the rest of the book in two weeks. I am not sure how I missed the humor of the book when I first tried to read it; I feel a bit dumb, like the movie had to give me permission to look for the jokes before I could pick up on them at all. Regardless, I did think the book was very funny. Catherine is the predominant source of humor in the first half of the book, before she dies and her daughter takes over the role of “main character” for the rest. This introduced another source of confusion, though, because the movie shifted the story in such a way that Catherine does appear to be the protagonist, however meager her character arc seems. That made more sense to me in the book, because she died halfway through, and I realized that she definitely is not the protagonist. I was then left to wonder who, if not Catherine or her daughter, because a protagonist cannot only star in half of their novel, right? I narrowed it down to Nelly the narrator or Heathcliff the anti-hero, before finally landing on Heathcliff. Throughout the book he deals with the systemic racist that causes Catherine to say a union to him would “degrade” her. His rags-to-riches storyline and the ultimate way in which he gives up on his life’s devotion to revenge at the very last minute was the most protagonist-y character arc in the whole book. Even with the seeming mobility and influence of Catherine’s character (and that of her daughter), there is no fully realized character arc to point to. I had also heard from various sources that Catherine is “crazy”. But I related to Catherine too much to accept this flippant summary of her character. In a world that is run on social politics and conservative pre-Victorian niceties, Catherine reacted to the bullshit in much the same way I believe that I would respond. She called it out, and largely refused to participate unless she could strong-arm everyone into doing it her way–which she was able to do a surprisingly and inordinately large amount of the time. In this way, the book really did remind me of another fantasy story, Peter Pan. In the same way that Neverland bent to every whim of that prepubescent anti-hero, summoning storms to accommodate his tantrums and summers for his joys, the inhabitants of Wuthering Heights and its surrounding country are very much at the beck and call, it seems, of Catherine Earnshaw. No matter how preposterous her behavior or how inappropriate her etiquette, everyone cannot help but absolutely obsess over her. And she’s so toxic about it, it almost makes me jealous. I definitely enjoyed her half of the book better than that of her daughter.