Written by Jane Austen
Read: November 1—30, 2025
My friends and I are doing the Jane Austen Book Club. We are reading all of Jane Austen’s novels in publish date order. One book each month. Starting in November 2025. Half of these novels are re-reads for me but I read them many years ago.
Our first book is Sense & Sensibility. It has a slower pace to the story. It’s about three girls; Elenor (19), Marianne (17), and Margaret (13) Dashwood, and their mother Mrs. Dashwood (40). They lose the patriarch (and money) of their family and have to begin humble lives with no help from their half brother/step son, who inherits the estate.
This book encompasses the “First Born Daughter” trope. Eleanor is the only one who can bring her Mother and younger sister Marianne’s, head out of the clouds. All while pushing her own emotions to the side. Margaret, says almost nothing the entire novel.
Of course there are romances. The one between Marianne and Colonel Bradford, a love born out of gratitude from kindness and care. The other, between Eleanor and Edward Farris, a will they/ wont’ they, where the characters barely interact.
I liked this book but it was a slow read for me. All of the characters sit and most of them gossip. It made me feel for Eleanor who had all the sense for her entire acquaintance, it seems. She deserved to end up happy. Though the gossipy characters were annoying, Gossip is the main character. All that was found out about Willoughby and Edward Farris came from little conversations.