See this excellent book: Highly Irregular: Why Tough, Through, and Dough Don't Rhyme and Other Oddities of the English Language

It details the historical reasons why English is completely broken in terms of spelling and pronunciation. It makes sense of why it’s such a mess. Light read, kinda fun (said the history nerd who loves language).

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/55332395-highly-irregula...