I do think the ending is epic, especially since it’s a book about vengeance. But it also gets sentimental. However it’s possible that you just don’t like the book. The meandering and side stories is one of the things that make it so beloved, similar to Don Quixote or Moby Dick. But that’s also something that can be annoying to people who want a more straightforward story, especially modern readers.

Romance novels have always been about the sex. There is a spectrum of how explicit you want to get, from vague and abstract to really explicit porn. Most famous romance authors are somewhere in the middle. There’s also a spectrum of how the characters treat each other. From super sweet to traditional hero/heroine to kinky to abuse / shock porn. If you are getting more of one thing than something else, then it’s probably got more to do with your choices than the genre. Read what you want.

Yeah the book is a disturbing masterpiece. There’s a whole study of killers who work in pairs like that, and it’s not usually that one of the other is worse but that the dynamic between the two of them accounts for this, especially if they are young. There’s a Hitchcock movie that explores this too (Rope) but real life famous examples are the boys that tortured and killed James Bulger. See Heavenly Creatures also which is a true story but also Peter Jacksons best film imo though it fucking haunts me.

People are messed up.

I don’t know how old you are or what sort of life you might have, but you might wish to share it with a child with whom you are close at some point in the future.

I wish more people would read Aberration in the Heartland of the Real though it is a slog (started out as a dissertation) in some bits. It’s about McVeigh, not Waco, though of course it talks about Waco and the siege and its consequences and the weird politics around it especially with secrete police/military/intelligence forces etc. It’s a weird book full of blow your mind stuff if you will slog through it and stick with it though she really could have used a better editor and publisher. It leaves all sorts of dangling threads that you could spend your life pulling.

Cook’s Waco Rising is more straight forward and presents the more mainstream narrative but I’d take them in tandem. It gives the history of Koresh and the FBI raid.

Weiner’s Enemies: History of the FBI puts it all in context of similar activities at the time.

The OP says they are strangely enjoying it, not that it’s strange to enjoy it. Meaning their level of enjoyment is unusual. I would have said “uniquely” or “peculiarly” instead of “strangely” but I get what they mean. Austen is absorbing in a way that only a masterpiece is. This is a common opinion, as you say, millions of readers agree. It’s fine to ask what it is about her books that make them that way.

In Ascension by Martin MacInnes

He has some amazing short stories: Bottle Imp, Suicide Club, Body Snatchers are my faves. His novel Kidnapped is great fun too.