my feelings for mansfield park varied greatly during my time reading it. i took it on holiday with me in june, intending to finish it while i was there... which obviously didn't happen. i had times where i would read 50 pages in a day, days in a row where i would read none at all, or a short amount at a time, and then back up to a lot of pages again—which i feel goes along with the pacing of the story, as well. you're thrown into mansfield park just as fanny is, learning about the different characters, and then there's a very long stretch of time in which it details the visits of the cast of characters to and from mansfield park, and then you get close to the end, where suddenly everything is happening.

i wasn't a fan of the pacing. i grew to enjoy the leisurely pace it set, taking my time reading it and really getting to know the characters within. but by the end it felt so rushed—everything is cleared up incredibly quickly and conveniently. just as i was starting to really like the story again, it sent me right back to my feelings of disappointment.

i LOVED henry crawford. i was willing to begrudgingly accept edmund as the love interest— mostly because there's not anything i can do about it—as long as it was properly set up, and not just quickly mentioned two pages from the end of the book. i understand the moments between fanny and edmund throughout the book are essentially the set up, but it didn't come across that way to me at all. even if you ignore the comments about edmund being like a brother to fanny, and fanny like a sister to edmund, he really comes across like a reflection of fanny's brother william. to me, it was impossible to see edmund's love and defence of fanny as anything other than familial affection. it's hard to see edmund's love of fanny being romantic when he declares that mary crawford is "the only woman in the world whom [he] could ever think of as a wife." giving us a disclaimer in the last few pages of the book that, don't worry, edmund really does love fanny now, and it all happened at the perfect and convenient time, does not make me care at all for them being together.

mansfield park is only my second austen after pride and prejudice and i definitely see why it's almost universally considered the least favourite. austen herself is a little disparaging about it in a letter to her brother, saying that it's "not half so entertaining" as pride and prejudice—which it isn't. i didn't hate it, and it isn't a bad book by any means. i enjoyed my time reading it. i just didn't care for a lot of the choices made in the book and i unfortunately didn't really like fanny price. i may go back to it in the future, and it'll be interesting to see if my opinion changes.