These novels won't make you cringe

San Diego Reader recommends Jane Eyre 1944.

Jane Eyre was brought to screen by three masters of their crafts: incomparable director Orson Welles; legendary cinematographer George S. Barnes; and co-screenwriter Aldous Huxley. Bronte’s gothic novel has never had a cinematic incarnation like this one. The performances from Joan Fontaine and Welles captivate me every time I watch. Fun fact: This is one of Elizabeth Taylor’s first films. (Rin Ehlers Sheldon)

BBC News Scotland features the screen adaptation of Lewis Grassic Gibbon's novel Sunset Song. Agyness Deyn, who plays the main character, says

"It is right up there with Jane Eyre," says the Lancastrian actress who has taken on the role of Chris Guthrie, a young woman who sees family trauma on a farm in Aberdeenshire merge into global catastrophe as World War One devastates her remote rural village.
Deyn says the novel was "ahead of its time" in how it depicted a strong female character growing into womanhood.
She says: "It is not that popular in England and it should be. I was so moved. It really profoundly affected me." (Steven Brocklehurst)

The Daily O (India) writes about being from the Indian state of Bihar:

“You were born with it. You own it,” he said later. “You have been ridiculed for what you are. They celebrated everything I never had, and now, it is the rise of the anti-hero, the dark man that makes me feel that we have been acknowledged.”
We cheered on.
That vindication made me remember a character I always sought. The dark anti-hero Heathcliff from Wuthering Heights, a novel I read in college many years ago.
“I wish I had light hair and a fair skin, and was dressed, and behaved as well, and had a chance of being as rich as he will be,” Heathcliff had said when he was a young man, and later returned to claim what was denied to him by the way of his colour, and status. He was a migrant. He had been picked up and brought to live in an estate. He lost his love.
So, the greatest anti-hero in literature was dark, and poor, and was scoffed by his lover who looked at the inherent differences between them, and yet couldn't discard him.
“How black and cross you look! How funny and grim... you looked odd. If you wash your face and brush your hair, it will be all right. But you are so dirty,” she had told him.
As a Bihari, we have often been rebuked and ridiculed for what we are. Poor and unsophisticated, and for being the eternal migrant. But victimhood is an easy escape. We learned to fight early on. (Chinki Sinha)

Both Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre are among the the ten scariest Gothic novels and adaptations according to Vertigo 24 (Italy) and Wuthering Heights is one of '10 Romance novels that won’t make you cringe' according to Marie France Asia. On the National Theatre blog, Sue Newby lists eight things you learn from reading Jane Eyre: 

1.Don’t be snooty to Charlotte Brontë (or her little sisters) and think you can get away with it. You (or someone suspiciously like you) will crop up in one of her novels and it won’t make pleasant reading.
2. Next time you take a carriage ride, be sure to leave home with insufficient funds and forget your luggage when you get off. You might have to live as a vagrant for a couple of days, but you will eventually end up on the doorstep of the only (nice) family you have in the world and wind up an heiress. It’s worth the hassle. (Read more)