Sense and Sensibility question

Emma.
I really can't stand Emma.She just gets on my nerves.I know many people think Emma is Austen's masterpiece.I am not one of those people.

Have you read Mansfield Park?

I think I'm one of the few people who likes Mansfield Park. Maybe I only like it because of wicked Henry and Mary Crawford, but I also enjoy Fanny's languid and gentle aunt, who might reward Fanny with a pug puppy. She's one of Austen's fun comic confections.

Northanger Abbey is an amusing read, but it doesn't rise to the level of her other novels.

Call me crazy but Mansfield might be my favorite after P&P. Fanny is no Lizzy, but that's okay. She was raised as a charity case by relations who made a point to distinguish her as such. But as shy and insecure as she is about her place in the world, she proves to have a very strong center when it comes to her personal convictions and gut instincts. That being said, both she and Edmund tend to be judgy mcjudgersons to almost everyone who crosses their paths, but no one is perfect.

My least favorite, to answer your question, is Persuasion. Now there's a character who comes across almost feeble-minded. I also disliked the romantic interest. I can't remember either of the characters' names. Thankfully that was a short one.

I didn't really like Northanger Abbey. I just couldn't relate to e heroine. After that Mansfield Park...I love the rest :)

I love all of Austen's books (my top 2 are Pride and Prejudice and Emma). I think that Northanger Abbey is probably the weakest (of a strong author), but it is also a departure from her regular style as she ventured into gothic territory.

I definately do no hate any austen book. Sandition was finished by others so I wonder how it really would have turned out once she fretted over it and actually finished it. Northanger Abbey would be next to sandition at the bottom of my fav.

agree. Mansfield Park. Finishing it was a nightmare

Mansfield Park has been the worst for me. I could barely finish it. Next on the list is Northanger Abbey. Hope it's better. Really liked Pride and Prejudice as well as Sense and Sensibility. Emma left me lukewarm.

Lady Susan

My least favorite is probably Sense and Sensibility. I didn't like the guys in it. (Though I really like the way Austen writes the end. It's a redeeming point.)The only one I haven't read or watched a movie about is Northanger Abbey.

Mansfield Park, Northanger Abbey and Persuasion did not seem to resonate with me like Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice and Emma did. I don't hate the books but I have only read them one time and don't plan to reread. Sorry Jane!

Lopita wrote: "Sense and Sensibility......I really hate it
it's so boring and drove me crazy cause every time I opened it I forgot the names of the people in it if the heroine .. it's a dead end"

I have to say this was a hard read for me. After trudging through the first 3 chapters, I kind of gave up. =(

Well I like them all, but Northanger Abbey got on my nerves the most. Catherine was so... ridiculous. I also find Emma hard to read, but that's mainly because I watched the movies before I read the book and the book moves a lot slower than any of the movie adaptions.

So far for me it's Emma because I just cannot get into it at all. I loved Pride and Prejudice. I enjoyed Sense and Sensibility, and I liked Persuasion. But, I've been stuck on Emma for a while now. I've put it aside to read several other books, but I do hope to try to finish it. I haven't read Mansfield Park or Northanger Abbey yet.

When I first read the Austen novels at age twelve or so, I really disliked Persuasion. Now I understand it a great deal more, and I think my least favorite is Northanger Abbey, simply because the romance seems a bit predictable and shallow. For heaven's sake, Tilney only fell in love with Catherine because she loved him! And really, it seemed she only loved him because he was the most interesting man she had been exposed to in her short life. It was definitely my least favorite romance in an Austen novel. (Plus I have an extreme dislike of the Thorpes. *shudder*)

I read Emma last and it took me the longest to read. I would not say I hated it, but I just did not want to read about her and her bossy ways, even if she did think she was doing good by bossing people around. I have to wonder, I see that many people dislike Fanny or Anne because of their lack of backbone, do you also dislike Harriet? I know she is young, but close to Anne when she was persuaded not to marry Wentworth, and Fanny was around 17 wasn't she? Just curious.

Mansfield Park. I finished it and thanked God it was over!

I've only actually read P&P and S&S so far ... but I've watched all movies, and to me Northanger Abbey was the worst ... it seemed to have no plot!

i know some of you will think i'm nuts but my fave is Mansfield Park. Fanny might have a shy, timid demeanor about her but her morals and values are really strong and she follows her heart no matter what. she's not phased by the phony characters around her...

answering the question though.... i really never liked Emma. she just comes across a little too bratty and pushy for me... and to mention a little too judgmental.

I think it depends at what point in your life you read these books, because each one is written for a different age group. When I read Northanger Abbey as a teen, I thought it was hilarious, when I read it again mid-twenty not so much. The opposite goes for Persuasion, which I found okay as a teen but loved after having lived for a while.

I personally liked Mansfield Park the least of the finished novels, because I just could not get into why Fanny likes Edmund, but who knows what happens if I read it again.

P.S. You should really read the The Mysteries of Udolpho, before reading Northanger Abbey. Makes it much more fun and the puns are easier to understand. It would be the equal of an author poking fun at vampire-novels today.

My least favorite was Emma then Sense & Sensibility. I read all of Austen's books when I was 18, and am in the process of re-reading them 8 years later, but I could not get through these two. I remember loving Mansfield Park and Northanger Abbey, and look forward to reading them again.

Mansfield Park in my least favourite Austen book because Fanny Price really felt like a Mary Sue character and I couldn't really connect with her or relate to her in any way.

I have to say that Emma is my least favorite. It was one of the funnier books and probably would have been one of my favorite if Emma herself wasn't actually in it...

Strangely enough, Emma is my favourite heroine out of all the Austen novels. I somehow find her spoiled, Clueless ways endearing. She does grow and realize her flaws at the end, and thoroughly learns her lesson.

I didn't really like Mansfield Park - lacked the romance of the others (though in general im not a big romance fan) and I didn't like Fanny, she bothered me. Also, I thought Edmund lacked depth and was kind of a useless guy in general, ya he could be nice sometimes, but so clueless to. The other secondary characters were pretty good though. I enjoyed Henry, and I liked that Fanny went home at one point.

Sense and Sensibility isn't great but I still enjoyed it more or less.

Emma I loved, but I found Harriet annoying.

Pride and Prejudice my second favorite book.

Persuasion and Northanger Abbey I didn't read yet.

I guess it'd have to be Persuasion... I really dislike weak leading ladies and Anne Elliot is so over the top in her timidity and weakness. I know that many have the same opinion of Fanny from M.P., but her timidity is more understandable since she WAS a poor relation who was living off her uncle's charity, so she was bound to be insecure. Anne Elliot however had no excuse; granted, her father and sister were bullies, but she had absolutely no backbone! She let everybody step over her, up to the point of almost losing the love of her life. No, I definitely don't like her and her constant whining...

I'm on this one with Lauren, I don't hate any Austen book but I must admit that Mansfield Park was a really slow book...it took me three months to get to the last page!

Mansfield Park and Northanger Abbey. Not that i can call it much of a 'hate' though. Just didn't enjoy them as much as the others.

I don't hate any Austen book, but the one I had trouble finishing was Emma.

I don't hate any of her books, but Emma was the most difficult for me as well because her charcter really annoyed me.

Sense and Sensibility, though I think the movie version is the best Austen-based movie I've ever seen. S&S doesn't let us into the characters heads as well as some of her other books and the story suffers for it.

I had a lot of difficulty with Mansfield Park until I realized it's not a romance. It's an old-fashioned version of "chick lit". The story is about the strength of a girl's determination to do what she feels is right when all around her wants her to live the life they think she should...even those she dearly loves. As a result, it's much more realistic than P&P, S&S or Emma and therefore more difficult to read. I think so, anyway. That said, once I let go of the romance angle, I really enjoyed watching weak, can-barely-get-out-a-sentence-without-a-whisper Fanny hold her own.

(Have yet to read Northanger Abbey or finish Persuasion...just so you know.)

Sense and Sensibility put me to sleep! It was awful. Never have finished it.

I would say it was a tie between Mansfield Park and Northanger Abbey, though I may dislike Northanger Abbey just a bit more.

I grew to like Mansfield Park, but I never got into Persuasion. I thought it was okay, but it wasn't my favorite of hers. I don't think I would read it again.

I really couldn't stand Mansfield Park. It lacked Austen's usual humor and was filled with fickle, weak-minded characters. I mean, for secondary characters that may be fine, but a spineless hero is never ok.

Northanger Abbey. It's not that I hate it or anything, but I had to struggle to finish the book. I think Jane Austen is brilliant and that it is a book worth reading. But I couldn't get over Catherine Morland as a heroine in the story. She's so naive. And she lacks something more. I really don't understand how Henry fell in love with her.

The first time I read Sense and Sensibility, I thought the first half was extremely boring, but I kept reading, and I found the second half very engaging. Somehow the second time I read it, I loved every page.
Jane Austen is one of the most re-readable authors I have ever come across.

I did not like Mansfield Park...second would be Persuasion

Probably S&S. Second Mansfield Park, which was fine until I got to the end. I didn't like that Edward 'suddenly' realizes his love for Fanny (in the last page!)

I hate to pick one, but Mansfield Park doesn't have any character I really connected to, so...

Sense and Sensibility - the book. Is that odd? My problem was that I'd seen Emma Thompson's movie before I tried to read the book, and the two were so very different, I couldn't get into the book.

If we disqualify that answer, then I'd say Persuasion.

Northanger Abbey should not have been released. From internal evidence (the speed with which it was concluded) it wasn't finished, and I think it started out as a bit of a romp for Miss Austen as a reaction to novels like The Mysteries of Udolpho.

Northanger Abbey. :P And Mansfield Park.