Current Book- Northanger Abbey

I'm about 100 pages in and attempting to get past Austen's strong narrative voice. I'm not used to characters taking such a back seat in a novel, nor am I very used to this kind of fiction at this moment, given the books we've already read and the semester we had scrutinizing Beowulf and Milton. But alas, the book shows promise, and Austen's strong voice is drawing me in like a warm friend schooled in rhetoric. It's a good introduction to her work. You guys will have to let me know how different NA is compared to her more popular works.