MOLLY CLARK

It took me a while to crack Wuthering Heights: some classics are easier to read than others. I fell hard for Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë when I was 15, and though I appreciate both books are written by entirely different authors, I was still anticipating similarities. No. This book will rip your heart out and stamp on it. I love an anti-hero: a dark, rugged character that you shouldn't like, with a troubled past and a soft side you can't help but desire. There were moments where Heathcliff could've been that guy, but he never pauses once on his tyrannical path of destroying near enough everyone. Not one moment of contemplation or peace. It's a story of how love can break rather than create a person; it's unyielding power over mind, body and soul. "Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same" Cathy pathetically utters somewhere towards the beginning. She's easily the worst out of the lot, she had everyone in her hands and infuriat...

I strongly associate holidays with a perfect tranquil time to cram in as much reading as possible. Based on this, I usually take books I can't crack with the distractions of daily life abroad with me in the hope that the peace will allow me to finish them, usually thoroughly boring myself in the process. For example, I took Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh and On The Road by Jack Kerouac to the Algarve last year, both of which I'd tried to read previously. I did finish them, with much anger and sadness. I kind of did a similar thing this year on our trip to Barcelona. I took The End of the Affair in my tiny tiny hand luggage because it was thin. However, I didn't account for a 6 hour delay (I'd never flown RyanAir before, I won't make the same mistake twice) and I was scared to touch it in case I finished it before I'd even left Manchester. So I didn't. For the entire holiday. Here I am in the airport proving how short it is  AND THAT'S OKAY...