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The Scarlet Letter

Nathaniel Hawthorne

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What Members Thought

Sep 05, 2010 Tanja rated it liked it

Shelves: read-in-2016, 19th-century, classics

“No man, for any considerable period, can wear one face to himself and another to the multitude, without finally getting bewildered as to which may be the true.”

I heard so many times that this book is incredibly boring, but I decided to give it a chance and it actually isn’t that bad. It’s the story of Hester Prynne, who has an affair and gets pregnant and the way that the Puritan community she lives in reacts to that. She is forced to wear a scarlet “A” on her dress so nobody ever forgets that ...more

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Nov 18, 2020 Lynn rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

I had to read this in high school and just recently decided to revisit it. All I remembered from our classroom discussions was the basic plot, so I was pleasantly surprised. The story moved quickly, despite the antiquated language. I read a lot of classics, though, so I may just have a higher tolerance for run-on sentences. I appreciated Hawthorne's insight into human feelings and folly and into the lives of the Puritans.

All in all, an enjoyable read as well as an important work of American lite ...more

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Sep 07, 2012 Tara rated it it was ok

Shelves: fiction, never-finished, classics, historical-fiction

I struggled laboriously through this up to halfway through and decided I just really had no interest in continuing on. Overall I found the premise was good but I couldn't seem to connect with the style of writing. ...more

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