Like Emma, not my favourite Austen. And like Emma, it's entirely because of the main character. Jane Austen is as witty and observant as ever, but even her mum thought Fanny was insipid - and she is! It's not even that she's such a goody two-shoes. Catherine Morland is good, Elizabeth Bennet is good, Jane Bennet is the most shiningly good character in all of Austen... but all of them are interesting. Fanny is not. Her endlessly lovesick prig of a cousin (and eventual love interest) isn't much better, but at least he isn't weeping buckets every other page. I think that's Fanny's biggest problem, and the reason why, though I can just tolerate her in fiction, I couldn't bear to spend any time with her in real life. She's just so very damp; a wet blanket in human form.

However, she gets her unbearable cousin in the end and snivels off into the sunset, which is exactly what one expects from the book after all. I still can't help but think I would find it more entertaining if Fanny's little sister Susan were the main character. It's improbable, but I like to think she would have stabbed Edmund with her little silver knife just to shut him up.

No jury would convict her.