This story is about two sisters; one of them, Marianne, represents “sensibility”, while the other, Elinor, represents “sense”. 
If I ever had any doubts as to which category I am most attached to, I can now vehemently proclaim it to be “sense”, because, wow, I cannot even begin to explain in words how much Marianne got on my nerves. Her ungratefulness, her superiority complex, her dramatics, and her general selfishness were just too much to excuse on her simply being a “spirited girl”. I honestly felt so bad for Elinor that she had to be subjected to this person, day in, day out. I’d go mad!

Opposingly, Elinor was truly an amazing heroine and it was a joy to see her navigate all social situations in such a mindful, kind and clever way. I often admired her selfless perseverance and her ability to know right from wrong. She was very resolute as well as astute, and always composed herself in a confident yet gentle manner, and I therefore had difficulty finding any fault in her at all. If I must name one thing, however, that bothered me about her, it would be her tendency towards excusing the behaviors of disgusting men (her immediate forgiveness of Edward and, even more, her eventual forgiveness of Willoughby, never sat right with me).

This was also why it pained me to see a good, honorable man such as Colonel Brandon pine after Marianne when everything would have pointed towards Elinor as the better match! Marianne treated him so unkindly, so uncivilized, so judgmental, so dismissively (as she did everyone, actually), and it was almost painful to witness. What he saw in her, I will never understand. Was it truly just because of her pretty face? It does my opinion of him no good if that really were the truth…
In any case, his love for Marianne was especially baffling to me when someone so much better than her was right there! Elinor and the Colonel actually suited each other quite perfectly, so much unlike their respective partners. Because truly, let me not even begin to speak of Edward, as it physically pained me to see Elinor settle for a man who never fought for her. She deserved much more passion and affection than that man could ever give her.

When it comes to all the many side-characters, I fear it would take up too much time to express my opinion on all of them, but be sure that I had many and excessive opinions of them all. I could feel genuine affection, but also vexation or even hatred, towards a multitude of them. I really admired this novel for its ability to bring forth such strong opinion on so many characters in me. The warmth I felt towards Mrs. Jennings was strongest of all, while my judgment and disgust towards the Ferrars (I am, of course, also including John and Fanny in this, even if their surname was technically Dashwood, as well as Lucy, even if she only acquired the surname near the end) was unmatched.

All in all, I have to say that this book was far from what I was expecting it to be, but I did not find myself feeling disappointed nonetheless. Whereas I expected to find a story of grand romance, I got none in that regard at all. Instead, I received a detailed story of two sisters traversing the intricacies of gentry social life in Regency England. And although I must proclaim the writing to have been a little dense at times, these characters truly did captivate my interest to a high enough degree to have me consider this novel to be rather engaging and certainly intriguing.