Rating: 
Summary: A Classic
Review: The Scarlet Letter has endured for over a hundred years and will continue to do so, because it tells a powerful story well. Though many may find Nathaniel Hawthorne's writing boring or too descriptive, I think that every sentance serves to bring the book to life even more. The story itself too is fascinating, especially since the characters of Hester and Dimmesdale are not clearly good or bad. They've sinned, but they are still good people, or are they? Is Chillingworth really truly evil or are his motives justified? And then there's Pearl, the strange little girl who posesses unusual thoughts and character traits while still being the scarlet letter come to life. Altogether the book is a great study of shame and guilt for any age that is mature enough to appreciate it.
Rating: 
Summary: A Mixed Blessing
Review: The Scarlet Letter is a novel about a woman, in Puritan time Boston, Massachusetts, who commits a single act that changes her life forever. So for the rest of her life, she must bear a symbol of her crime. On her clothing, she must wear a scarlet colored A. She can never go out in public without putting on the A. This novel is about her life after she is made to be an outsider of the community. The book also speaks of the life of her illegitimate child, Pearl. This novel is a good read, but it is also a mixed blessing. I would not give this book an "A" for many reasons.One reason is the fact that the plot can move as fast as a snail with asthma. The story moves quickly in one way, meaning in years (Pearl is age 4 by page 70), but the plot itself - the interaction between characters and the conflicts between them -moves slowly. In some places, I could not read on because of the droning. Another reason that I did not give this book an "A" is the way that the book is explained. In certain versions of the publication, footnotes are placed all over the pages to explain certain metaphors and phrases. It is hard enough to read the old English - it took a large amount of effort on my part sometimes while reading - and then lose one's place to find out what Hawthorne meant by "our galiant old General." One time when I was particularly tired, I decided to prop myself up in my bed and do some reading. I could not concentrate on this book. It takes much too much effort in some places to find their meaning. Another reason is the fact that Hawthorne is just too "preachy." In one chapter, entitled "The Minister's Vigil," he goes on and on and on about morality, and it is just plain boring after a while. But there are some good points to the book as well. The story, when it moves, is very good. The preaching is only in a few spots. Also, the main character, Hester Prynne, and her daughter, Pearl, are well created characters. One can tell exactly all about them from the way that Hawthorne gets into their inner-souls. Overall, this book is okay. It drags at some parts, and it can be hard to read in places where there are too many footnotes, but the plot is interesting. It is a good read when the reader is completely awake. I would not recommend it to be read as a bedtime book that one reads before (s)he falls asleep. I would not give this book 5 stars for the reasons above, but I would give it something between 3.5 and 4 stars.
Rating:
Summary: One of a few
Review: Evidently I'm one of a very few teenagers who can actually enjoy this novel. Perhaps the most intriguing part of the book is not the repercussions of sin on Hester, but on her interactions with the people around her. Her lover, who is slowly burning away from the inside with his guilt. Her daughter, who is mercifully spared misery from her mother's actions. Her estranged husband, who has somehow been twisted by hatred into seeking to destroy any chances of peace that Dimmesdale, the man he knows loves his wife, might be seeking. Lovely young Hester Prynne is accused of adultery--she's pregnant and married, but hasn't seen her husband for over a year. He arrives just in time to see her tried and then incarcerated with her new baby, Pearl. Hester spends the following years in near-isolation, an outcast of society while her unaccused lover, Dimmesdale, is tortured by demons of guilt, believed by all and sundry to be a living saint. His inability to confess eats away at him, and the added torment of Hester's husband makes it more terrible. Hester redeems herself in some small way in the eyes of the world by helping those who need it, and for her refusal to point the finger at Dimmesdale. Eventually, Dimmesdale reveals to the world what he and Hester did, released from his torture. The ending is both happy and sad, for the characters mist away but are freed from their prisons, Dimmesdale from his guilt and Hester from her shame.
Rating: 
Summary: This book was OK............
Review: The Scarlet Letter, for me was just a little boring. Sometimes the description was just too long and I just started to lose interest in it. Also sometimes it got confusing as to what the relationships the characters had to each other. I would only reccomend this book to other people who liked reading lots of description, a little dialouge, and a repetitive storyline.
Rating: 
Summary: Well Written, Original, but soo Boring!
Review: Like everyone else, I read it for school and would not read it again on my own, but some of the imagery was powerful an I could never write a sentence like Hawthorne. But the story is just so repetitive. I guess the premise (the ruin brought by guilt, etc.) has been copied too many times by TV sitcoms and soap operas and other modern works of drama.
Rating:
Summary: Yes, I was another victim who had to read this for school
Review: Ok, when I first started this book I thought it was the dumbest thing and I could not belive this was a classic! (I still can't) After a few chapters I thought it was a little better and thats why I gave it two stars. Also, it is one of the better books that I had to read for school. I still feel that it was a little boring and hard to follow but with the class discussions I understood it a lot more. I still wouldn't reccommend this book to anyone
Rating: 
Summary: Should not be a requirement in high school
Review: To me this book would turn a young person, like my self away from the key and enjoyment of reading . Being a book with extensive mistakes in it, it is very difficult to read unless you are to inerpret it every paragraph or should I say sentence. I't maybe a classic, but I feel that the word "classic" comes from just being old........................................................................................................p.s the only reason I put a star was because I had to, to express my opinion on he novel.
Rating:
Summary: Quite The Story .....
Review: Where does one begin ? how does one begin ? This novel of Hawthorne is an excellent one .. a classic...a novel to be cherished . The lessons to be learnt about sin ,giult ,denial and eventual deliverance of truth ,redemption and socialization can all be internalized into real life . Yes , Hawthorne was not a perfect Writer but he portrays the language skillfully and beautifully . I must stress that to reaal understand this book, you shouldn't be cranking up the volume on your stereo and drinking caffeine drinks ....if you do . you'll fell the book is " the worst book you could ever read "
Rating:
Summary: I was fored to read it too
Review: The Scarlet Letter is a good but long and discriptive book. I wouldn't tell anybody to read it unless they classic books or a Hawthorne fan. This book and also The House of The Seven Gables are based on the one unlying rule of Hawthorne description. His books wouldn't be so long if he would have just gotton to the plot. Now don't get me wrong the plot to this book was good but the movie is even better. If you have to read it just deal with it. All I know is that is didn't hold my attenion very long and I fell asleep a couple of times.
Rating:
Summary: underwhelming
Review: On the positive side, the story is O.K. (the plot hangs together structurally) and the language is rich and flowing (if not repetitive; witness the clumsy word "ignominy" and its variants). On the negative side, I have the following criticisms: (1) The narrative style is uninvolving. The best writers SHOW their readers what is happening; mediocre writers TELL their readers what is happening; and, bad writers feel they must explain what they are telling their readers. Hawthorne, in this novel, falls in the mediocre category for the most part. A good writer tells a good story; a great writer makes you feel as if you are there as the story unfolds. (2) The settings are sketchy. I was not able to reconstruct the layout of the town, its situation with respect to the forest, or even the precise location of the main buildings (the church, Hester's house, etc.). I kept contrasting this element of Hawthorne's style (unfavorably) with Austen, Proust, Nabokov, Tolstoy, Flaubert, Melville, Robbe-Grillet, etc.---with these great writers, I become so familiar with the settings that I feel as though I grew up in their make-believe worlds where everything seems to be one of a kind. In The Scarlet Letter, the settings are seemingly taken off the shelf. (3) The story and its characters are one-dimensional. Virtually every single scene (covering about seven years in the story) concerns the scarlet letter and its impact on the main characters (it's like watching a prize fight where the boxers only jab---tedious!). While the primary characters are fuzzy and ill-defined, the secondary characters are all but nonexistent; we are told what impact they have on the main characters, but rarely allowed to witness the specific actions of the supporting characters so that we can appraise their influence for ourselves. In other words, the character development stinks. (4) Finally, the symbolism is abstract and obvious. The silly "forest=freedom"/ "town=oppression" school of symbolism always annoys me. In the best novels, the words (after all, that is what literature is about) pull double duty: they inform and evoke. Great writers use all of the various qualities of words (rhythm, tone, secondary connotations, etc.) to create mood and imagery, allowing the attentive and imaginative reader to sense the story. Bush-league scribblers use only the literal meanings of words, devising dreary word-equations (abstract, or literal, symbols) to manufacture connections when their artistic talent comes up short. I know my less than enthusiatic review may be further evidence of the "dumbing of America". But, I like dumb people more than I like middlebrow parrots, with their enthusiastic but empty cheerleading, hand-me-down sensibilities, and tiresome blather. You go!...and take this book with you!
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