I have to say something. I feel very odd having read this and now writing the review of it without the first hand experience of its inspiration Wuthering Heights to back me up. I'm sure it bothers very few of the other people who have read You Make Me, but it bothers me. I like to be able to read a retelling of a classic and make those literary comparisons and judge how well it reworked the original novel and to what extent it differed (as all retellings have to a bit). I like to pride myself on being able to do that. I think all book nerds do. I have to tell you that not having that is not a good feeling (even though I do have a copy of Wuthering Heights. I just have no time and more entertaining things to read.).

So now that I've exposed my inner book snob, I'll actually talk about You Make Me. It's a fairly good read. I liked Cat and Heath, and their relationship was exactly the kind of toxic and yet all consuming passionate romantic affair I love in my fiction (and hope to avoid in my personal life). There was plenty of drama, which I did admit to my friend on the phone the other day I secretly like because to quote myself, "Sadness is inherently more interesting than happiness." Geesh, what a future English teacher I am. This book hit every one of my fairly good new adult romance requirements. Even the smut was kept to a minimum (thank God! My corneas have been crying at the words I've been reading lately in some of these things. Sex is scary! I'm not sure I want to have it. Ever.) but was still steamy.

So you're probably saying, "What's the problem?" Well, that tiny voice inside my head is reminding me this book's ranking and review might be different if I had actually read Wuthering Heights, and yes, it probably would be. I could've discussed all the similarities and differences and made a probably pretentious judgment on this new adult retelling of a book whose author would probably faint if she read any of You Make Me's smut scenes, but that's not what I did.

Of course, this brings me to a few intriguing questions that really have nothing to do with whether or not I recommend this book (which I do, by the way). How much does a retelling or reworking of a novel owe to the original, and how fair is it to hold a novel written today to a classic beloved for years with scholars dedicated to it? Is this a system of setting authors up to fail in our judgmental eyes? And really, why do we read retelling and reworkings of our favorite novels?

If anyone wants to start discussing these questions, I'm game. And yes, I do recommend!