Throughout the book, it was kind of, "meh." That's the term i like to use at least. I mean, yes, it wasn't terrible, however, i would by no means call it "excellent." That's how i feel with a lot of the books most people consider as "the classics." Many books that are supposed to be incredible, often just come off as somewhat pretentious and unrealistic. This book falls into the same category as the rest of the books.
Throughout the book, the child, Pearl, seemed very unrealistic and too adult-like. Yes, she did have a harsh childhood. Throughout most of her life, her mother almost teased her about her father, but never actually told her who he was. It was odd, it was just like she was being a really bad parent. So, i'm assuming in some sort of retaliation, she acted as some crazed psycho and started doing questionable thing that eventually cause the town to think she was the spawn of satan. If you or a loved one is assumed to be the spawn of satan, you should probably go see a psychiatrist, because if the town's people assume that you are the spawn of satan, you're probably doing something wrong. If you can't realize that, there's even more wrong with you.
That's just the beginning of where the unrealistic parts of the book are. to be more specific, pearl is obsessed with "A," almost like it's more important than her mother. Then she's also awkwardly friendly around dimmesdale, to the point where you believe that she somehow knows he is her father. Oh, by the way, I was going to make a joke about the Puritans being the audience watching maury and hester being Maury revealing who the father was: Dimmesdale. However, the more i thought about it, the more i realized it was an obscenely easy joke to make and restrained myself. Then again, if a book can make you think up a ridiculous analogy like that, the premise is ridiculous, isn't it?
Think about it, if anybody was in hester's position, what would they do? if someone hurt you so much and essentially ruined your life, you would want revenge. However, in some crazy parallel universe, Chillingworth is the only evil one and he wants to get revenge! Really though, the person who was hurt the most in this book didn't want revenge? That makes prefect sense, clearly. This whole idea ruins all the characters and in my eyes makes them incredibly unlikable. It's as if it was the intention to make all the characters annoying, unrelatable, and moronic.
So, in conclusion, this book, which is readable is still not good at all. Basically, what makes this book bad is that Pearl is just creepy, weird, not realistic and rather unrelatable. Then there is also the fact of the premise. Oh, the premise, it doesn't make any sense, historically, yeah it's technically fine, but the characters and terrible. the characters are cringeworthy, from the sissyness of dimmesdale to the ridiculous choices hester makes and the fact that chillingworth is more angered at dimmesdale than hester after all that happened. so, my final thoughts? it can't be considered terrible, because i still read it, no matter how much it hurt. So, it's just in the bad category for me. This is DEFINITELY not going in my "classics" category.