" I love Hawthorne, but this novel, for all its "home-loveliness" (so said Hawthorne's wife Sophia), is simply not as brilliant or captivating as The Scarlet Letter. One critic said its characters were pictures, or portraits rather than real beings, not an unimportant characterization wherein daguerrotypy plays such an important role, but nonetheless true. Each chapter is more of a sketch, and the novel as a whole doesn't have a full and cohesive plot. It's themes (and even peripheral implications and inclusions) are undoubtedly important and certainly owerfully drawn but the whole does lack the power of Hawthorne's previous work. "
— Raelene, 1/20/2014