A review by kecb12
The House of the Seven Gables by Nathaniel Hawthorne

4.0

I’ve wanted to read this book for a while, since I love The Scarlet Letter with my whole heart and had heard that this was just as beautiful but also spooky. I will admit that I expected it to be a little more spooky than it was. There was atmosphere in this book, for sure. But it wasn’t tense or spine-tingling at all. However, I was absolutely floored by some of the observations about life in this novel. There were so many points where I felt slapped in the face by Hawthorne’s ability to put into a few sentences how complicated, confusing, and heavy the human existence is—and how redemptive it can be, as well. I will read this book again just so I can bask in those phrases again. Truly, I think Hawthorne is one of my favorite authors of all time.