Welcome to Litsy!

The witch museum looks amazing from here

A good accounting of just how far superstition, misinformation, tribalism, and mass hysteria can take people.

4.5⭐️/5⭐️

Which one? I‘ve started both and can‘t decide which to read. Opinions?? 👍👎

I read this for a book club. I probably wouldn't have chosen it on my own. It was good in parts. I read the Scarlet Letter a long time ago. I think if I remembered more of that I would have enjoyed Hester more.

I enjoyed this #LiteraryCrew pick: I have only a hazy memory of The Scarlet Letter, so it was interesting to read this interpretation where primary character is living in a much later era and in a relationship with Nathaniel Hawthorne. Explores issues like class, immigration, gender abuse, the Underground Railroad, and “witchcraft” in the earliest part of the 19th century. Jumping back-and-forth to Puritan Salem could be confusing, though.

Of course I was initially interested in this book because of seeing this beautiful cover on Litsy. When I was younger, I was a little obsessed with reading about the Salem Witch Trials, and I read The Scarlet Letter around that time too.

The author had such a unique idea for the origin of the famous red letter, and the reimagining of Hester and Nat‘s stories was so full of emotion!

I haven‘t read The Scarlet Letter, so I‘m not sure if that had an impact on my reading of Hester. I just never really connected with the main characters. I didn‘t always understand their motivations. I enjoyed the characters of Mercy and Zeke and the embroidery information, but overall this wasn‘t really for me.

#LiteraryCrew