Book Review: Sense and Sensibility, Jane Austen

Sense and Sensibility Book Review

This is my review of Jane Austen’s novel, Sense and Sensibility, originally published in 1811. Over two hundred years later this book is still beloved, and paints the vivid picture of society, human relationships, and love in regency England. 

Book of 2026: 1

My rating: 4

Started reading: 6 December 2025

Finished reading: 20 January 2026

Sense and Sensibility - The Blurb:

Marianne Dashwood wears her heart on her sleeve, and when she falls in love with the dashing but unsuitable John Willoughby she ignores her sister Elinor’s warning that her impulsive behaviour leaves her open to gossip and innuendo. Meanwhile, Elinor, always sensitive to social convention, is struggling to conceal her own romantic disappointment, even from those closest to her. Through their parallel experience of love - and its threatened loss - the sisters learn that sense must mix with sensibility if they are to find personal happiness in a society where status and money govern the rules of love.

My review of Sense and Sensibility:

This has forever been a firm favourite because of the 1995 film by Ms Emma Thompson. Colonel Brandon pacing around asking for a TASK, I see you. However, I cheekily had never actually read it. 

On an adventure to visit London bookshops, I stumbled across a delightful edition in Judd Books and thus, began reading. I switched to audiobook after not too long because I had two books on the go and I typically like to have one for physical reading and one via audiobook. That way, I get to pick my reading based on what I’m up to, rather than by what I want to read at the time, if that makes sense. This is a very long winded way of saying that I’ve finally read/listened to Sense and Sensibility and I am more in love with these women than ever before. 

The Dashwood sisters display a remarkably wonderful combined countenance; I picture Austen writing them each as a representative and reflection of the most admirable qualities within women. Where Marianne is fiercely honest and feeling, Elinor is reserved and considered, whilst Margaret is boisterous and uncomplicated, and Mrs Dashwood is enthusiastic and encouraging. Our male counterparts however, represent lessons. Colonel Brandon is teaching patience, Willoughby a lesson in the corruption of selfishness, and Edward one in the woes of deception. 

I think Pride and Prejudice has more meat to it, but there are some beautifully honest moments between Marianne and Elinor that, as a sister, cannot be ignored. My sister and I were our own source of entertainment, companionship, hysteria, delusion, all of it. To have a sister to look up to, to measure yourself against, to be inspired by, to make fun of, to cry with, to laugh with. It’s all so beautiful. I can’t help but compare the way Emma Woodhouse (in Emma) is described when I look at Elinor, Marianne, Margaret, let alone Lizzy, Jane, and the rest. How lonely it must be to live without the companionship of girlhood. 

It’s easy to read texts from this period, and before, and since, and see how utterly powerless it is to be a woman. Austen touches on it multiple times, but it’s also so evident that the strength these strong female characters have comes from their feminine qualities. Elinor’s discretion, concealed heartache, Marianne’s fearless expression, are all the way my friends behave. They are ways I behave, how I long to behave. 

Reading Austen doesn’t feel like you’re stuck visiting the past, it feels like she’s projected her characters, her voice, right into the present. It’s beautiful to read. It’s overwhelming how lifelike Mrs Jennings is, how many of her I’ve met. How many wonderfully loud and annoying and caring and passionate women I’ve rolled my eyes at and been in awe of all at once. Our protagonists are lifelike, they spring off the page and you see them fully as they appear before you. 

I am loving my foray back into the 19th century, because it is revealing an awful lot about the 21st one. I see myself in Elinor, succumbing to correct, proper behaviour. To yearn and not ask. To put other people before myself and expect that’s my lot. I see my younger self in Margaret, awkward and adventurous and saying the wrong thing and uncomfortable and excited. I see myself in Marianne, an avid reader, an explorer of feeling, a tremendous flirt in the very best way. I also see the parts of each of them that I like and dislike about myself. 

Austen’s women are real, they’re multifaceted, and I don’t wish to suggest the three sisters together make one full woman, but I want to look into why each of them is so different and so brilliantly equipped to whip us up into a frenzy as we read. If we were always quiet and reserved and softly spoken and considerate, we wouldn’t know the passion of crying on your way out of the club because the person you pinned your hopes on dumped you in the most brutal way. If we were always outspoken and noisy and overly eager, we’d never get that sweet moment when the person we didn’t know enough about surprises us with something unexpected. If we were always adventurous and honest, we’d never get to experience the sweet calm and peace of a cosy evening in. If we were always afraid to speak sternly to the people who are rude to us, we’d never show ourselves that we know our true value and have a qualifying moment of self-acceptance. 

I’ve not written a long winded review in a while, and I’m enjoying this rambling that pours out of my fingertips as I recall the reading experience of my second Austen read. It’s obviously a tale of societal value and female subservience and it’s also a witty commentary on the upper classes and it’s a sensationalist tale of romance and wit and family and all that.  

What I mean is, it isn’t just the men who can be cruel and unfeeling towards our female characters. We have women ousted from their homes without any real consideration because of the lack of agency women have, ironically by a woman exhibiting a certain degree of subservient-switcheroo-authority over her husband. We get the particularly cruel female character in the descriptions of her mother, Mrs Ferrars. We have the unsubtle, sometimes poking-fun-to-the-level-of-cruelty in Mrs Jennings. We have the self-righteous Miss Lucy Steele who we’re obliged against except for the fact she doesn’t really have much choice in her situation either. These female characters are messy and all over the shop. They show the pitiful state of womanhood, and where they should band together they oftentimes compete for the unobtainable satisfaction of beating each other down. 

On the other hand, our men aren’t much better. They’re honourable and polite and hospitable, but they aren’t saints. We have the mature-in-years Colonel pining over the much younger Marianne Dashwood. We have the loves-himself-more-than-could-possibly-be-warranted Mr Robert Ferrars, and the nasty let’s-be-honest-fuckboy-energy of Mr Willoughby that leads him to his inevitable almost-demise. Not to mention the outrageously disgruntled-with-his-wife-so-why-did-he-marry-her-in-the-first-place Mr Palmer. 

There are deplorable actions from characters we are endeared to because they are so deeply, inherently human. I guess what I’m trying to unravel in my head is what makes this such a compelling read. It isn’t that everyone is so nice and lovely and always says the right thing. It isn’t that everyone is interesting and cool and admirable. It isn’t that they’re all morally unbreakable and superior. I think it’s that they’re all a little bit like the opposite of these things. 

They’re all so invested in being themselves, in experiencing the connections offered up in front of them, in getting through this mucky and muddled existence. I’m not suggesting we look for our examples on how to live from the Recency upper classes, but that the construction of the characters within these tales are so reflective of how we do life (admittedly, now with fewer balls and carriages) that they’re mesmerisingly familiar. 

I know awkward and regretful people. I know passionate and fiery people. I know mournful and unconfident people. I know lost and impulsive people. Most people I know are stuffed full with all of these things and are bound by whatever’s coming to the surface at any moment. We’re all multifaceted and complex and we all just want to get by with the least pain possible. 

We all want to get on with our sisters and go for walks and go on picnics and fall in love with handsome people who rescue us when we need it and like the same books as us and want to bring us perfect gifts and spend time with us doing the things we love.  

What I think is most compelling, and this is in no way a fresh take or opinion, is how relatable these characters are. For their vices and their virtues alike. Austen writes real people. She was a wallflower, and she painted vivid scenes of humanity, reflecting back to us, even more than two hundred years later.