Wuthering Heights

If you claim to be a book lover and you haven't read Wuthering Heights, then shame on you! Go read the Twilight books and be tortured to death.
It is an anathema to have not read this book. For anyone who makes the wild and baseless supposition that Wuthering Heights is going to be another one of the innumerable classics about sappy love stories - boy falling in love with girl, girl rejecting boy, girl falling for a wild oaf, girl being dumped by wild oaf, girl in love with boy, boy and girl live happily ever after (Jane Austen *hint hint*), you could not be more wrong.
In the darkness and maliciousness of the characters and the violence of love, this novel is truly unparalleled by anything written from then till now. Heathcliff is the ultimate anti-hero. He is hateful. He is everything we despise in people - he  is vengeful, selfish, cruel beyond measure. But aren't those just the things that make him the quintessential "bad-ass" guy we girls love so much? In this novel too, the good guy (Edgar Linton) ends up last!
All love stories are not pretty. Some are like the story of Catherine and Heathcliff. They should be together but still they aren't meant to be. They love each other with an intensity and passion that destroys their lives and the lives of those around them. Their love transcends this world. Catherine dies, but Heathcliff lives in the memory of her love, hating her and loving her at the same time. People say theirs is not love. It is some kind of a demonic, ego-maniacal emotion close to hatred and self-destruction. But it certainly isn't love. I say why not? Love makes us do crazy things. Love changes us in ways we do not understand. Love is beautiful but it is also destructive.
Try as I might, I could not like Catherine's character. In my mind, she brings all the ill-fate upon herself and drags poor Heathcliff under the bus with her. Bitch.
But in the end, like most of the novels I fall in love with, I fell in love with the beauty of expression in this novel.

Heathcliff- 

"You teach me now how cruel you've been-cruel and false. Why did you despise me? Why did you betray your own heart, Cathy? I have not one word of comfort. You deserve this. You have killed yourself. Yes, you may kiss me and cry; and wring out my kisses and tears: they'll blight you- they'll damn you. You loved me- then what right had you to leave me? What right- answer me- for the poor fancy you felt for Linton? Because misery, and degradation, and death, and nothing that God or satan could inflict would have parted us, you, of your own will, did it. I have not broken your heart- you have broken it; and in breaking it, you have broken mine. So much the worse for me, that I am strong. Do I want to live? What kind of living will it be when you- oh, God! would you like to live with your soul in the grave?'

'Let me alone. Let me alone', sobbed Catherine. 'If I've done wrong, I'm dying for it. It is enough! You left me too: but I won't upbraid you! I forgive you. Forgive me!'

'It is hard to forgive, and to look at those eyes, and feel those wasted hands', he answered. 'Kiss me again; and don't let me see your eyes! I forgive what you have done to me. I love my murderer- but yours! How can I?'