Reviews

Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen

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arcticraspberry's review against another edition

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emotional lighthearted reflective relaxing fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

pravallika_manju's review against another edition

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emotional slow-paced

3.5

emilymknight's review against another edition

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emotional lighthearted slow-paced

4.25

Though Jane Austen is one of the most famous classic authors, my census is that there is a large divide between whether people like or don't like her style of writing. For myself, I feel that I can't completely take one side just yet, having regrettably only read 2 of her novels. Pride and Prejudice was my first experience with her writing, and I thoroughly enjoyed it - so with Sense and Sensibility being the next most rated of her books on GoodReads, I think my standards were just set too high.

Sense and Sensibility was a good novel don't get me wrong. Austen definitely had a good knack for creating complex characters with strong character development - the classic heroes and villains of her romance stories. And I, once again, loved how regular the size of her chapters were - they were short and easily digestible. And while I do find her writing to be interesting and not too dense, the lack of descriptions for me just keep it slightly out of reach so that I can't get get fully absorbed and invested, and when I put the book down, I wasn't itching to keep reading because when I was reading, I was never fully immersed in it. Now, I totally understand that this allows readers to have a lot more freedom in how they choose to imagine the characters and their surroundings, but for me, descriptions could have made it a cosier and more comforting read. There is little to no descriptions of the looks of the characters, the locations, or just any details that would enhance the world we are trying to see into.

The plot itself was interesting, however, it was nothing totally different and exciting - nothing that would, for me, set it apart from other classic romance novels.

"I detest jargon of every kind, and sometimes I have kept my feelings for myself, because I could find no language to describe them in but what was worn and hackneyed out of all sense and meaning."

livmccaughey's review against another edition

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I just didn’t care </3

town_scar's review against another edition

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emotional funny reflective slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

I'm well versed enough in Austen's writing to be able to follow along and understand 90% of what's going on and make up the difference via Googling. So my opinion of it is based on the actual merits, not on a frustration of not following the story.

Because I had zero expectations going into this, I found the pairings at the end to be quite unexpected. Even though it wasn't really encouraged, I kept thinking

Colonel Brandon

would end up with

Elinor

. I didn't like how Austen tried to explain away

the Lucy/Edward pairing.

The entire novel I was made to believe

that his love for Lucy was endless and eternal, etc. so coming to find that the engagement up and ended out of nowhere and he was cool with it and wanted to marry Elinor now made zero sense.

It also felt like it had been so long since we had seen that couple together that I couldn't remember why they were a good fit so I felt very meh when it concluded that way.

I'll definitely need to reread this one in the future. It didn't win my heart over immediately the way P&P did. But I think that could change in time. Or maybe after I watch the film adaptation of S&S I will like the story more.