In the beginning of May, a part of me thought it was an excellent idea to dive back into my ginormeous omnibus edition of Jane Austen’s novels. After reading Sense and Sensibility for the first and Pride and Prejudice for the third time (although the first time in English), I’m currently on Mansfield Park.

This is a whole new experience for me, since I had watched adaptations of both S&S and P&P prior to reading them. I do own adaptations of Mansfield Park, Emma, Northanger Abbey, and Persuasion (period drama freak that I am), but I wanted to read the novels first for a change. However, I’m not going in any of them totally unspoiled. I’ve seen trailers and clips, was confronted with the main aspects of the story at university, or read about them someplace or another. Still, although I know what they’re about and also how they end, I don’t know how the characters end up there.

I was really surprised how much I enjoyed the beginning of Mansfield Park although I cannot help but picture Billie Piper as Fanny – I swear, I haven’t seen more than the first five minutes of it but it kind of sticked. I thoroughly enjoyed the characters’ relationships and dynamics. That was until they started with that theatre idea. It lost me there. However, that episode’s over now and I’m nearing the middle of the novel. I really hope it will lure me back in now. So far, that hasn’t happened yet but I’m hoping to finish it in June.