'The Blithedale Romance'

Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote some weird stuff.

The Blithedale Romance starts out as The Blithedale Bromance between Hollingsworth and Coverdale and then you begin to think that everyone's in love with Zenobia when in fact everyone's in love with Priscilla, Zenobia's half-sister. When left by Hollingsworth for Priscilla, Zenobia winds up drowning herself (see: Ophelia, the girl from Sansho the Bailiff).

I found Coverdale pretty obnoxious and egotistical in the first part of the story until you realize that everyone else is entirely more annoying and full of themselves. As it turns out, Coverdale is left on his own as he breaks up the relationship with Hollingsworth and the Zenobia is a flaky tramp.

Who I liked the most is the Fosters and Old Moodie. Also, I would have liked to read more about Blithedale and this commune action going on in the 1800s. People would just come to a farm to take advantage of the environment and hard work. Blithedale is based on Brooke Farm, a real life Transcendentalist commune in west Massachusetts that Hawthorne, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Margaret Fuller and others all frequented.

Eventually, it became a socialist farm: You put in the work, everyone shares the spoils and you get to dick around the rest of the time and talk about ghosts. Because, apparently, all anyone talked about in the 1800s was ghosts.