My reading of this book undoubtedly suffered because it was a high school English class read in 7th form when I had an insufferably pretentious teacher who was judgmental about the books that I liked. I'm betting I'll like this better on re-reading, but that teacher can still suck it.

I'm a big fan of Jane Austen so I picked this up expecting a similar feeling. But while I have always genuinely liked Austen's characters, I absolutely LOATHED both of the main characters in this book, and it made it difficult for me to invest in the story. I know you're meant to hate them, but even so the intensity with which I hated those two and their ridiculous behaviour completely undermined my interest in the actual story. Bronte did a good job of building coherent, complex, realistic characters....they were just awful.