Rating: 
Summary: not to put you off reading the book...
Review: While certainly a must read for established Austen fans I would not recommend Sense and Sensibility to a first time Jane Austen reader. The story drags on incredibly until the last third of the book. Once there, the story is over too fast, making it difficult to quite empathise with the characters' decisions.
Rating: 
Summary: Good
Review: Sense and Sensibility can sometimes get long and hard to understand in some parts, but all in all it is a very good book and worthy of your checking it out, especially if you have read other Austen books and liked them. Watch the movie too.
Rating: 
Summary: Marvelous
Review: What happened to me when I first began reading this novel was that at first try I put it back on the shelf because I thought it was dreadfully dull. Little did I know that I just was not ready to read such a classic, much less a Jane Austen piece. But when I decided to give it another chance I realized that I almost passed such a great opportunity to expose myself to how a novel should be. Sense and Sensibility's twisted plot was a treat, and although the movie was somewhat truthful to the text, I still enjoyed the novel much more. I recommend this novel to people who are ready to face Austen's sometimes frusttrating vocabulary, but trust me, you'll be reaping benefits and will love to read this novel again and again!
Rating:
Summary: Sense and Sensibility
Review: Sense and Sensibility is an excellent book. When I started it I really did not know what to expect, and was pleasantly surprised. I will say though that this book is hard to get through at times, due to the old language used. But if you stay with the book, it will be worth it. The characters are wonderful, and you will find yourself wanting them to be happy. The Dashwood family gives a "girl power" message that makes it even easier to enjoy. Also, this book is easy to relate to, for everyone has known a Maryanne or Elinor before, maybe you are like one of them. I could identify with Maryanne, because I am involved in everything (and love it all) and I know I share my feelings too much. Although this book will be enjoyed more by young females, anyone would like it, for it also has a lot of humor in it used to display the dramatic situations the Dashwood sisters keep finding themselves in. The book became even more enjoyable when I saw the movie, seeing this amazing book acted out was great. I believe all of Jane Austen's books are worth reading, this one especially!
Rating:
Summary: Superb
Review: Sense and Sensibility is a remarkable novel. Ostensibly a social comedy centered on romance, this book is really an unusually acute description and analysis of the collision of Enlightenment rationalism (Sense) with the Romantic ideas of the early 19th century (Sensibility). Austen uses the romantic entanglements of 2 sisters to present these contrasting views of life. This is a remarkable way of showing how ideas permeate and influence the life of society as a whole. The plotting, laden with clever irony, is brilliant, and the characters are drawn with Austen's usual insight.
Rating:
Summary: Austen's first book was a promise of better things to come
Review: "Sense and Sensibility" is not as interesting or engrossing a book as Austen's later works; some of the characters are boring, the plot is not especially interesting, nor is the ending altogther satisfying (Marianne and Colonel Brandon are surely one of the oddest of odd couples). But it's a very good book, promising much better to come, a promise which was abundantly fulfilled in "Pride and Prejudice". Marianne's histrionics drove me up the wall. It took a while for me to realize that Marianne is meant as a caricature; that Austen thinks her as ridiculous as she appears to the reader. Witness Marianne's rhapsodizing about the fallen leaves at Norwood and Elinor cutting her short with her observation that "not everybody shares your passion for dead leaves." Elinor is the more sympathetic and likeable of the two sisters and Austen clearly identifies with her; Elinor's calm, rational sense and balance promises much better for happiness than Marianne's overblown romanticism. We can see in this first book the emergence of an awesomely talented writer.
Rating:
Summary: A really nice story but Austen seemed to drag on a bit...
Review: SENSE AND SENSIBILITY is a story about two sisters, Elinor and Marianne Dashwood, who are as different as night and day. Elinor represents "sense" - thoughtful, considerate and calm, while Marianne is "sensibility": wild, emotional, and talented. The story opens with the death of Old Mr. Dashwood, who leaves his estate to his nephew Mr. Dashwood (the father of Elinor and Marianne). Mr. Dashwood is about to die as well; he passes the estate to his son by his first wife, John Dashwood. Unfortunately, he has nothing of value to leave his second wife and their three daughters (Elinor, 19-years-old; Marianne, 17; and Margaret, 13), though he does manage to get John Dashwood to promise to look after them. But John Dashwood's selfish wife, Fanny, convinces him to give very little. And so, Mrs. Dashwood moves them to Barton, where they live humbly in a cottage on her distant cousin, Sir John Middleton's, land.Before their move, Elinor had met and fallen in love with Fanny's younger brother Edward Ferrars. But Fanny and Mrs. Ferrars are much too snobby to let their relationship prevail. When they moved to the countryside, the two are further separated. Meanwhile, Marianne's romances are just blossoming in Barton. She gains the admiration of Colonel Brandon, but she prefers young, dashing Willoughby, who helps her home one day when she fell and twisted her ankle. This however proves disastrous, as Willoughby abandons Marianne for wealthy Miss Sophia Grey after a long, intimate friendship. Elinor is also suffering from love-loss. She discovers that Edward had been engaged for four years to Miss Lucy Steele, a distant relative of Mrs. Jennings (Sir John Middleton's mother-in-law). At this point, "sense" and "sensibility" seem to coincide and we learn that we must have both "sense" and "sensibility" in a balanced, corroborated manner to have a truly blissful life. The story is very interesting and entertaining, though Austen tended to drone a lot between events. In my opinion, she spent too much time trying to convey Elinor's judgement during parties and other social gatherings (which was wayyyy too often). On the whole, this was a wonderful book, full of fun and surprises (especially at the end!). I highly recommend this book to people at or above the age of 14 (which is how old I am, and I'm telling you it was a bit of a stretch for me - or maybe it was just that I was a little impatient to get my AR reading points). My only advice is have patience, prepare for a lot of rereading (things can get kinda confusing - there were a little too many characters for my comfort), and to watch the movie (fabulous!) afterward. Enjoy!
Rating:
Summary: Great book but falls under Austin's Pride and Prejudice
Review: This was a great novel telling of the secretive and not so secretive anguish of two sisters. Love and broken hearts play a large role in the plot, and, at times, it is a little much. You really feel your heart going out to the two sisters, feeling their pain. This is an extraordinary story. However, after reading Pride and Prejudice before this one I was a little dissapointed. None the less, this is a must read for anyone who enjoys stories of english society, stories of love, and other Jane Austin novels.
Rating:
Summary: What a wonderful book!
Review: Austen's "Sense and Sensibility", I read every page with sheer delight. Although one of Austen's earlier works,her wit and evocative story telling nevertheless shone through. Concerning her characters, each one, from the caricature to the heroine, kept me amused, entralled and enraptured. Although not everyone would share my excitement for this book, I don't care, because I can fully relate to both Marrianne and Elinor's plight, feeling poignancy for Elinor's hidden love and jealousy for Marrianne's passionate relationship with Willoughby.Definitely one of favourites.
Rating: 
Summary: Jane Austen was a writer of her time...not this one.
Review: Jane Austen wrote about what women in her time lived through. Marriage and society. Unfortuantly, in present times those subjects can become tedious after the 400th page. If you are not up to an extremely slow book, do not read Sense and Sensibility.
|
