Now was perhaps not the ideal time to be reading The Scarlet Letter. Roe v Wade was overturned in the middle of it and I think this book felt a little too on the nose, which definitely affected my experience. It was possibly a lot more raw emotionally than it would have been at another time, and I wish I'd read it a week earlier.

But I did thoroughly enjoy this. I understand why this is assigned to a lot of high school classes (including mine, but I opted to skate by writing absolute nonsense based on thirty seconds of googling and class discussions). There's so much to discuss in terms of themes and characters and author intent.

One really interesting thing that I hadn't known (or possibly just hadn't bothered thinking about) is that this book is historical fiction. It's set around 1650 and published in 1850, which means we're closer to Hawthorne writing this book than he was to the setting. He seems very critical of the puritans, and their treatment of Hester.

But to review this book as a book and not just discuss it like I would in a class, it was great. It was actually a really easy read and I never had trouble following the characters or their motivations. There are really only four that matter and they're all really well fleshed out.

This is a really slow book, and I adore that. I do love when nothing happens for a hundred pages and it's all just buildup. The buildup was so intense. You feel Hester's struggle and her acceptance of her fate. There are men involved in her struggle, but it's really focused on Hester alone. They're kind of inconsequential to a degree.

One thing I struggled with a lot was Hawthorne's introduction, The Custom House. It was so dry and boring and unnecessary to the story and 40 pages long. I genuinely wonder how many people hate The Scarlet Letter because they were forced to read it school and gave up during The Custom House in favor of sparknotes. I can't blame them. If I ever reread this, I'll just be skipping straight to chapter one because it added nothing for me.

It's also a bit short. I found myself wish it was a bit longer and more fleshed out. It just seemed like a little more time and space for the characters to grow would have allowed for a fuller story.

Overall, I'd highly recommend this. I know it's kind of unpopular in terms of classic, but there's so much discussion on womanhood (albeit from a male author two hundred years ago) and so much discussion on society policing morality that is fascinating. This makes me want to read more Hawthorne. The story is great and the commentary is even better. And if you are struggling with The Custom House, try skipping to chapter one and see if you like that better.