Sense and Sensibility
Ratings535
Average rating3.8
Definitely not my favorite Austen book. I loved Elinor and Marianne, but I was bored throughout and disliked how their relationships panned out in the end. The ending was strange, I disliked how Marianne and the Colonel were thrust together in the last two pages when throughout the whole novel she was really indifferent to him. A good book, but probably one of my least favorite Austen novels.
The storyline was engaging, the writing was incredible, the experience was pleasantly surprising. As this was my first experience with Jane Austen, I can only hope subsequent selections from her works will inspire even greater admiration for the mastery with which this book was written. I sat in awe, repeatedly, as I the parade of Austen's abilities left me wondering why I've ever bothered placing pen to paper. Despite this, I felt inspired all the while to attain such skill. She truly is worthy of the reputation she has held for so long.
If you'd like to read this review on my blog.
.-Part of the Project Austen-.
Rating: 5/5 stars.
Sense and Sensibility is the story of Elinor and Marianne Dashwood, two sisters that find love in different ways. Marianne, eccentric and extroverted. Elinor, quiet and reserved. We see how each's personalities influences the love they expect, and how each suffer's through.
Jane Austen continues to be my favorites author. End of discussion.
This book blew me. It centered around the two north and south poles that were Marianne and Elinor and how each duels on the events that are happening. I'm a person who loves character development, and this was definitely the book for me.
We first have Elinor, whom I can relate the most to. I'm the type of person who's quiet and not keen on putting my feelings out there. I tend to think before I act a lot and tend to lean towards somebody else's happiness instead of mine. And that's exactly what Elinor is. She never did anything in the book that wasn't based on not hurting her mom and sister's feelings. Even if she was incredibly saddened or happy she wouldn't say anything about if she though it could inconvenience somebody else. And every time Marianne did the exact opposite, she would cringe and mentally criticize her. And to have someone that I can relate to so accurately was pretty amazing. There were some things she did that I don't agree with, but most of her behavior was me in a nutshell.
Then we have beautiful Marianne. She's loud and impertinent and she never keeps her thoughts to herself. If she's suffering, the rest of the world suffers with her. You see, as much as she's the complete opposite of me, I found myself agreeing with her so much. And I could relate to her as well. There were things she did that I just had to nod and smile.
Then we have the rest of the characters like their imbecile brother or her ogre of a wife. And the sweet lady who took them under her wing, or she thought she did (can't remember her name, oops). All those characters added the perfect bittersweet feelings when needed.
The overall idea of the story is pretty amazing. Of course, it being a classic and such an old one, the language was kind of difficult for me to keep up at times, specially because English is not my mother language. But once you get hook in it, you read way faster.
I do have to point that around the second part of the book (it's divided in three) it got a little tedious and I found some parts to be unnecessary. But once you get back on the third part it's amazing all over again.
Of course, super in love with Edward (not the sparkly one). Even though he can be quite the idiot for being so slow and such a gentleman, I still forgive him.
Overall, great, amazing, incredible classic by the wonderful Jane Austen who never disappoints me. I really love her stories and the way she writes. Sometimes, I think it's out of this world.
I would recommend this books as much as Pride and Prejudice. You can't just read one Jane Austen and move on. Jane Austen delivers amazingness all over the place.
I can't say that this is over Pride and Prejudice on my favorites, but it's pretty close to it. And I will reread it someday. Not right away, but in the near future.
I read this simply because I'd just finished [b:Persuasion 2156 Persuasion Jane Austen https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1385172413s/2156.jpg 2534720] and this had been sitting on my Kindle for several years without being touched. I've not read or seen an adaption of it before, and I can see I didn't miss out on much. It is obviously Austen's first published work. The minutiae of the social life of teenage girls in the late 18th and early 19th Century is fascinating, but is pretty much the only redeeming feature of this book which lacks depth, going on for far too long and saying not much. While Marianne, the youngest of the two Dashwood sisters, gains sense to moderate her sensibility (after heartbreak), the main character Elinor doesn't appear to gain any sensibility to temper her sense.It wasn't enough to hold my attention for long, until I reached the point where I decided I may as well just get it over with, but it also didn't suck enough to abandon it completely. Disappointing overall but leaves me with only one Austen unread, so I can tick that off the list of things to do before I die.
Sense and Sensibility was Austen's first full novel. It tells the story of the Dashwood girls (Elinor and Marianne) as they search for love and companionship. This book provides an interesting look at how two sisters deal very differently with similar situations of lost love and betrayal. At times I found I very much identified with the more logical and cool headed Elinor, as I am definitely one to think through situations and I try not to let my emotions run wild, especially in a crowded room. At other time, though, I found I could much more identify with the wildly passionate Marianne, who could barely control or hide her true feelings and emotions. In the end both girls come to better understand one another, as they discover the secrets each other has been hiding throughout the course of the novel.
I have to say that while I did very much enjoy reading this book, I didn't enjoy it as much as I have enjoyed the other works of Austen that I have read so far. While there were moments that I could fully identify with the two main heroines, I found that most of the characters in this story were, on the whole, rather annoying. Now, I usually appreciate Austen's ability to write a wide range of characters - but here I felt that anyone who wasn't Elinor or Colonel Brandon was either too dramatic, too silly, or too annoying to feel like an actual person. Everyone almost felt like a caricature of some undesirable trait rather than a character made of varied emotions and feelings. In her later works I feel that Austen has a better balance of the ridiculous and the tragic, and it works much better to create a believable world.
I also have to say that I am not entirely sure how I felt about the ending. While I have no qualms about the male-female pairings at the end of this story, I am not entirely sure I really bought the long drawn-out explanation that Willoughby forces Elinor to hear. It seemed unnecessary and also somewhat unbelievable. I suppose that, in the end, it had little bearing on the outcome of the story, but that serves to make the exchange all the more unnecessary. The ending of this story feels a bit muddled - as though Austen had intended to completely villainize Willoughby, but changed her mind as the story progressed. While I suppose the not-quite-happy endings her characters receive in this story are a bit more realistic than many of the fairy-tale-ish endings in her other novels, the resolutions for these characters felt a bit forced and unexpected, whereas the endings in her other stories feel a bit more earned.
I am not one who often promotes the cinematic version over the book, but I feel that the movie version of Sense and Sensibility featuring Emma Thompson and Kate Winslet is perhaps one of the best adaptations of an Austen novel to the screen. Yes, the movie does somewhat deviate from the published story, but I feel that the film actually tightens up some of the weaker segments, makes some of the story's less credible connections more believable, and the excellent work by all of the actors make the characters feel more complex and nuanced than many of them seem in the book. I absolutely love the movie version of this novel, though I did not love the novel itself quite as much as I expected I would.
In the end, I still really liked this book. I find the works of Jane Austen to be superb, and I really do enjoy reading her stories. While I can nitpick and find flaws in Sense and Sensibility, I still enjoyed it immensely. It might not be my favorite Austen novel, but I am glad I found the time to read such a wonderful piece of classic literature. Hopefully I can find the time to read more of her works in the future (I think my next selection will be Northanger Abbey). In the meantime I highly recommend this book, and any of her other works, to anyone who enjoys reading classics or well written literature.
I honestly don't know what to say about this, my first exposure to Jane Austen (other than it's far overdue).
I don't see the appeal, I don't see why this one has endured. That's not to say I hated it. It's just that I don't get it. Yes, there were amusing turns of phrases here and there, and I can see where it might be seen as a template for romantic comedies since then. But..meh.
yeah not a fan is all i can say to this one as well...Just not my style or topic of read I guess when I was a teenager.