Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen
Published: April 29th 2003 by Penguin Books (first published 1811)
Genre: Fiction, classic literature
Pages: 409

I’m not going to try and reinvent the wheel here, or try and find new angles or hidden meaning in a book that’s been dissected and reviewed over thousands of times. If I did that, I’m almost certain that I would fail.

What I am going to do is give a 100% honest review of someone reading Jane Austen for the first time, not knowing anything about her books or her style of writing. So here goes…

I started reading this book 3 times. Yes that’s right 3 times. I read about 100 pages and started over. I felt like I was missing something, I should be loving it a 100 pages in right? I mean, everyone loves Jane Austen right???

The first 100 pages, I didn’t get it. At all. It all just felt like a jumbled mess of words and everything was moving too fast to keep track of. And I felt like I was missing some storyline since someone mentioned 3 sisters, but I only knew of Marianne and Elinor.

Now I’m going to assume you know nothing about this book and I’m going to do a little summary. On his deathbed Mr.Dashwood leaves his estate to his firstborn son, but makes him promise to take care of his half sisters. He promises, but his wicked wife convinces him that they don’t need that much. Marianne and Elinor young as they are are senselessly dreaming of love. And love of course they shall find along the way, with sense or without.

Now what was this about 3 sisters. Oh yes, there were three sisters, but the third one is too young so she isn’t mentioned as much. All these men coming and going, who belonged to whom again? Who disapproved of that one again? I’m utterly confused and the drama is still very fast paced. I’m getting better at catching snarky remarks and sarcastic comments. I see why people say that this book is funny now. I want to start over with this perspective.

Again, I’ve read this before and I’m already bored, but the dots are finally connecting and WHY IS THIS BOOK SO MUCH WORK?! Wait, there’s a movie?

*watches movie*

Ok, so that was entertaining, but just imagining reading ALL OF THAT makes my brain want to escape. There was just SO.MUCH.STORY! I felt like the movie lasted forever!

I wish I could say that an overview perspective gave me the urge and wants to pick up the book again, but it didn’t. It did nothing for me. Just the thought of going back to the verbal ping pong of Jane Austen exhausts me.

But as a self proclaimed booknerd, I can’t give up. I’ll finish the book (with time, this can’t be done in a week!) and I’ll attempt her other works also. I’ve read several reviews where people enjoy some of her books and not others, and some that say they needed to grow into them. Maybe I’m not there yet, or maybe I missed my mark completely. There’s no way of knowing. But I assume Ms.Austen would say – I had a rather confusing experience, however, I am not done, nor undone with the enjoyment of the written as of yet, but one day I shall be and it shall be worthwile. (Wild guess, of course.)

This book is free and can be downloaded as I did through the store in ibooks or you can head on over to http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/161 for this one and more free ebooks.