Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West (Volume One in the Wicked Years) by Gregory Maguire

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01/25/08

Claire added it (review of isbn 0060987103)

Read in January, 2005

recommends it for: Nobody - literally not one body

I hated this book. Maybe it was because I was expecting so much with all the hype, maybe because I thought the original idea was so great, whatever. End result, I freaking hated this book. This is a book that makes you want to sit down and re-write it yourself because it is such a shame that such a great idea was so mishandled. I loved the idea of delving into the witches and their past and seeing them from a different view point. I loved the idea of the politics of the different realms of ...more I hated this book. Maybe it was because I was expecting so much with all the hype, maybe because I thought the original idea was so great, whatever. End result, I freaking hated this book. This is a book that makes you want to sit down and re-write it yourself because it is such a shame that such a great idea was so mishandled. I loved the idea of delving into the witches and their past and seeing them from a different view point. I loved the idea of the politics of the different realms of OZ. There was so much source material to interpret in so many ways. But no - the biggest thing I hated was the timeline. It would start with the witches childhood and get really in depth into it - chapters of the family and their day to day lives and the family dynamic. And then it was like the author realized that if they continued on this way, the book would have to be a series and every book in it a tome. So the next thing you know, abruptly, he jumps forward in time. And the explanation of what happened in that gap is only briefly described - if that! It is so jarring. I also felt that the characters were fleshed out during those brief times, but after the jump, And then it would seem almost like they were different characters. Or a variation of the character you had come to know. If there were life altering events during the gap that changed the character's personality, you can't just skip it! Don't spend that much time making the reader get to know the character and then change them without showing how and why! I hated the way the author would spend enormous amounts of time describing certain places or characters or situations in a way that gave the reader the idea that it would be significant and play into the main story. Nope. Which makes you feel so unsatisfied. Imagine an entire chapter (and a long wordy one at that) devoted to a certain character or group of people and then then just drop out of the story completely. Where did they go? What happened to them? Why spend so much time on them to just go no where with it?? Also, after awhile, it really seemed like the author had a definite AGENDA and he spent so much time forcing the characters and the plot to fit that agenda, that it disrupted the flow and felt forced. I often felt like the characters wouldn't have acted that way - given his own description of them! I don't like being preached to. If you want to really write a political book with obvious leanings, then do so. But don't package it like this. And this book could have been a great vehicle for a basic statement on many different things - animal rights, our ideas of "others", our treatment of people different from ourselves, a broad idea of what is good and evil as opposed to what people often label good and evil - but didn't have to be so skewed to the author's personal beliefs. (Animal Farm, 1984, and many others come to mind - I really believe that this story COULD have had the potential to be a classic, had it not been so mishandled.) So many of these concepts were brought up and then abandoned. Or they were brought up and dealt with in a talky soliloquy, and without any real opposing view or anything. It was like the author was determined to present every possible political view he had and, one way or the other, force it into the story. But as he got writing and trying to actually write a STORY as opposed to an editorial opinion piece, he lost track of what he was saying or the point he was trying to make. So many themes and ideas were a complete mess. Not explained fully, explained too fully, so vague and complicated they were impossible to understand, or more often than not, forgotten altogether. I would have appreciated ANY resolution - even skewed to the author's opinions - rather than what he often offered, which is nothing. It also felt so smug and superior - it seemed like he referenced things for the sake of feeling smart or proving he was informed- like a college student mentioning Nietzsche in conversation, not because he really wants to discuss the ideas or whatever, but because it sounds smart and proves he's beyond such things as keggers. I just didn't like anything about this book. I stuck with it to the end, hoping that maybe things would change, or maybe things would come together in a way I didn't expect - but nope. I can only assume that it was so popular because of the interesting concept of the book or the fear to admit that they didn't get it or the broadway play - which I have heard is great and might better explain of the popularity of the book. (People loved the musical and bought the book thinking they would like that too.) Anyway, I wouldn't recommend this book to anyone.(less)

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12/26/07

David rated it:

(review of isbn 0060987103)

Read in April, 2008

recommended to David by: Steve W
recommends it for: people who like modern takes on fairy tales and whose can't read beyond a 5th grade level

I have a confession: I wanted to read this book because I saw the Broadway show, and the idea of a Broadway show based on a book based on a movie based on a political satire intrigued me. I heard the book and the show were quite different, so I wanted to see the difference.

The biggest difference is that the show is good, and the book is not. I don't want to be mean to the poor author (Gregory Maguire), who has made a fortune and franchise from this book and ones like it, but it's abs...more

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08/02/07

Keith added it (review of isbn 0060987103)

Read in October, 2006

recommends it for: absolutely no one

This book as become increasingly popular, mostly due to the success of the musical by the same name. the truth is however, its not very good. There are many interesting and intriguing plotlines in the book, and you wait for them to be clerified, and expanded upon, but many never are. many fantastic characters are introduced, and are hinted at playing an important roll later in the book.. doesnt happen. the book doesnt even really give you the background you want on the witch. it is made clear fr...more

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06/27/07

Max Ostrovsky rated it:

(review of isbn 0060987103)

bookshelves: contemporary, fantasy, fiction

Read in April, 2007

From the first page, I couldn't put the book down. I loved it! And as my love for the book Wicked and the Wicked Witch of the West grew, my hatred for George Lucas grew in direct proportion. How could he have gotten it so wrong?
I never pretended to like the new trilogy. It could have been a new story. It could have really delved into the character of Darth Vader, or rather Anakin Skywalker and truly made him tragic.
Instead of trying to fool the audience into liking Anakin by hiring ...more From the first page, I couldn't put the book down. I loved it! And as my love for the book Wicked and the Wicked Witch of the West grew, my hatred for George Lucas grew in direct proportion. How could he have gotten it so wrong?
I never pretended to like the new trilogy. It could have been a new story. It could have really delved into the character of Darth Vader, or rather Anakin Skywalker and truly made him tragic.
Instead of trying to fool the audience into liking Anakin by hiring cute kids and bad actors, George Lucas could have created an interesting character. He could have told an actual story.
With Wicked, we get that.
Either a person has read the book or since we live in a culture of anti-reading, most likely has seen the movie. Regardless of which one, the Wicked Witch of the West is a pretty clear cut character.
She is evil. She is green. She is scary.
What Wicked does is take this evil, green and scary witch and turn her into a person we can like and love. And it doesn't do it in a cutesy way where we say to ourselves, "oh what a cute green baby."
She is born a freak. She was not only green, but she had teeth like a shark. And used them! Lost fingers, oh boy! And forget breast feeding!
She had a severe allergy to water.
Her upbringing wasn't too much better. She was outcast. She had to help raise and take care of her beautiful and crazily religious armless sister (who would eventually become the Wicked Witch of the East).
She was ostracized in school. Her roommate Galinda, who would eventually become Glinda, the good witch, could barely stand her.
And despite all that, we grow to like her. She's smart as a whip. She's funny and witty. She's sarcastic and actually quite fun. And she cares for all living creatures. Can you believe that? She even gets involved in a cause to help protect the capital A Animals (like the Lion, those that can talk), who are being rounded up, Nazi like, by the real bad guy of the story: The Wizard.
We see her take a lover and fall in love. We see her lose her lover.
The progress that leads to her becoming the Wicked Witch of the West is natural and logical. And even at the end, crazy as she became, we understand her and pity her, making her that much tragic.
What a treasure trove George Lucas could have used to truly show us a young Anakin Skywalker.
How about this (and I know I'm pilfering from Wicked a bit): What if Anakin Skywalker wasn't a cute kid? What if he was born disabled? What if to be mobile, he needed prosthetics to begin with? Oh sure, we'd still have that battle with Kenobi where he loses a whole lot more to become that scary guy in the black suit, but maybe he had to suffer his entire life being part machine. That'll make Kenobi's later line of "He's more machine now than man" even more poignant.
And maybe he's just a little angry about having mechanical parts? Maybe his first awareness of the force is through his anger. Of course, the beginning would be about how, on his own, through his own strength and integrity, he overcomes the anger and the dark, and chooses the light side of the force.
And he comes to grips with his deformity. And works on his charm and personality to such a degree that he wins a princess (or a queen, whatever).
He could even have a cause that he fights for. Anakin built C3PO, so why not take up for droid rights or some such? After all, he is part machine.
Why, oh why George, did you give us such crap?!
It could have been possible. And then we could have had a sci-fi examination and analysis of the origins of evil. We could have brought more depth and substance to a classic space opera.(less)

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12/07/07

Madeline rated it:

(review of isbn 0060987103)

bookshelves: crap-tastic, fantasy, kids-and-young-adult

Instead of my usual griping style, we'll do this review in list form.

Things That I Really Wish Gregory Maguire Had Bothered To Explain That Might Have Made Wicked Worth Reading:
-Why Elphaba is green
-Why Elphaba cannot touch water
-The "Philosophy Club" which seemed to be some sort of bizarre sex club which was introduced towards the middle of the story, and then never mentioned again
-How it's physically possible that Elphaba gave birth to a son, but ...more

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01/11/08

Amy rated it:

(review of isbn 0060987103)

bookshelves: finished-out-of-a-sense-of-obligati

Read in November, 1999

recommended to Amy by: a particularly messy houseguest
recommends it for: book clubs; fans of the stage show

I don't remember the original impetus for reading this book - I do recall discussing it with a particular friend, but whether I read it on her recommendation or because I wanted to all on my own I don't recall.

As is evident from my star-rating, I can't say that I liked this book. I did really like the first chapter, when Elphaba was this awful baby, with her terrible teeth and who would only say 'Horrors', as though she were an infant Kurtz. But each successive chapter I liked less and...more I don't remember the original impetus for reading this book - I do recall discussing it with a particular friend, but whether I read it on her recommendation or because I wanted to all on my own I don't recall.

As is evident from my star-rating, I can't say that I liked this book. I did really like the first chapter, when Elphaba was this awful baby, with her terrible teeth and who would only say 'Horrors', as though she were an infant Kurtz. But each successive chapter I liked less and less, until I finally reached a point where I was reading the book only to finish it, not because I enjoyed it.

One of the main things that didn't work for me was that I felt the author did an inadequate job of introducing people to the world of Oz. While of course there the original Oz books for that, Gregory Maguire had to know that the majority of people who read this book were only familiar with the movie (or nowadays, I guess, the play). No doubt, this is why he kept the slippers ruby instead of silver (which they were in the original book). So an explanation of why it mattered that Turtle Heart (or whatever his name was - it was a while ago that I read this) was a Quadling, or what a Quadling actually is, would have been very much appreciated, and would be something that a more skilled author would have found a way to work into the narrative. Ditto an explanation of the tick-tock clock from the first chapter. If these things are not references to the L. Frank Baum books (which I never read; I'm a movie girl), then it is a double failure on Maguires part that there is no explanation in Wicked as to what these things mean.

Also, while I thought that the premise of the book was interesting - the life and times of the Wicked Witch of the West - I don't think that Maguire really brought anything substantial to Elphaba's story. Her portrayal in Wicked does not jibe at all with the character from the movie. The idea that she would have been an outcast because her skin was green isn't terribly original - "It's not easy being green" having been done somewhat famously elsewhere. Besides being derivative, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense on its own, that in a land of Munchkins, talking Animals, Quadlings (whatever they may be) and magic, she would be outcast simply because she is green. Even if one were to accept that, the story presented in Wicked does not in any way explain the behavior portrayed by the same character in The Wizard of Oz - the one does not lead naturally to the other. While it must have been difficult for Maguire to write the book, that no matter where he wanted to go with the character, her ending was would always be the same, as an explanation of How She Got There, Wicked is a total failure.(less)

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05/13/08

Jennifer Wardrip rated it:

(review of isbn 0060745908)

bookshelves: trt-reviews

Reviewed by K. Osborn Sullivan for TeensReadToo.com

Have you ever read a popular book and wondered why it was so popular? That's exactly how I felt as I worked my way through WICKED. Actually, that's not entirely true. I know why it's a New York Times Bestseller. Part of it has to do with the reason I picked the book up in the first place. I expected a light, fairy tale-like story. It's based on a children's book. There's a Broadway musical about it. Sounds like it should be fun, righ...more Reviewed by K. Osborn Sullivan for TeensReadToo.com

Have you ever read a popular book and wondered why it was so popular? That's exactly how I felt as I worked my way through WICKED. Actually, that's not entirely true. I know why it's a New York Times Bestseller. Part of it has to do with the reason I picked the book up in the first place. I expected a light, fairy tale-like story. It's based on a children's book. There's a Broadway musical about it. Sounds like it should be fun, right? Uh, not quite. I get the feeling, though, that a lot of people thought as I did and bought WICKED looking for an easy-to-read lead-up to THE WIZARD OF OZ. I wonder how many of them finished reading the book when they figured out the truth?

Although to be fair, WICKED doubtless also owes some of its popularity to the fact that it's a well-written, literary novel that can be appreciated by well-read, literary-type people. Unfortunately, I'm really not one of those. Giving me a piece of deep, meaningful literature is like giving a copy of Hemingway's THE OLD MAN AND THE SEA to a manatee. In other words, I was disappointed. My disappointment was partly in the book for not fulfilling my expectations, and partly in myself for not being able to appreciate a quality literary effort.

In case you've been living in a hollowed out tree for the last couple of years and haven't heard about the play, WICKED is the story of the Wicked Witch of the West and how she became the Wicked Witch of the West. The book delves far deeper into the witch's life and times than any musical could in only two hours, however. In the book version of WICKED, readers are introduced to the witch, whose real name is Elphaba, when she is first born. She's green and has dangerous, pointy teeth. Needless to say, she's not too popular with the other children. Even her parents aren't too sure about her.

As the story progresses, we see Elphaba at college. She falls in with a number of fellow students, some of whom are more and others less accepting of the strange green girl. It's not just her skin color that's different, though. Elphaba thinks and acts differently than other people. And she has this aversion to water.... Well, we all know how that turns out for her.

The book is an interesting departure from the Oz books, including such details as why the Cowardly Lion is able to talk, and the fact that everyone in Oz thought Dorothy's dog, Toto, was the most irritating thing to ever draw breath. I wish, however, that I could have liked some of the characters. No one was particularly likeable, as far as I was concerned. Even Elphaba, who readers should have had some sympathy for, seemed odd to me, and I never understood her motivation for anything she did. In other words, I could have gotten over the fact that she was green, but it really bothered me that she didn't act normal. Also, a word of warning: Even though these are essentially fairy tale characters, this book treats them like adults, complete with sex, swearing, and the occasional murder. Younger readers should steer clear, and older readers should be aware of what's in store here.

In general, I recommend this book for OLDER readers who are huge fans of the Oz books or the Wicked play and want to go deeper. According to my husband, who is capable of appreciating fine literature, it also has literary merit. But for those of us who want to keep our memories of the Oz stories as sweet as the old Judy Garland film was, those readers might want to be careful around WICKED. (less)

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06/22/07

Nina rated it:

(review of isbn 0060987103)

Read in May, 2005

As far as fairy tales are concerned, adults recall them to be simple moral stories of how things go wrong if you want the wrong things. As fond of them as adults may be, the stories aren't often dissected, interpreted, or believed in for much farther than that.

The brilliance behind Maguire's books, is his capability of understanding that both the fantasy world and the real world can be united by infiltrating the mystical with hard situations, realistic emotions, and simple human spi...more As far as fairy tales are concerned, adults recall them to be simple moral stories of how things go wrong if you want the wrong things. As fond of them as adults may be, the stories aren't often dissected, interpreted, or believed in for much farther than that.

The brilliance behind Maguire's books, is his capability of understanding that both the fantasy world and the real world can be united by infiltrating the mystical with hard situations, realistic emotions, and simple human spirit. Even in the realms he creates (some which are fantastical, others which are rather simple, and common earthly places) he manages to prove that no matter where you are, life happens. People get jealous, people feel resentments, and hurt. There isn't a sugarcoat and there isn't always a simple solution to everything.

He does not intend to create a pretty or perfect world. It seems rather, that he intends to take the perfect pretty worlds we are used to, and turns them into something we hate recognizing about ourselves. He fills his pages full of the things humans refuse to admit about themselves and in several cases he actually makes us sympathize with characters who we as children once hated.

It's easier to believe that there is a very blatant line between good and evil, do or don't do. In reality if things were so simple, wouldn't human beings find less struggles?

I love Wicked. The once negatively portrayed green queen of evil from Oz (as I liked to call her) is thrown into very sad situations, situations that seem so bizarre and yet, she feels things the same way we all do. It allowed me, to look at people I had once considered enemies, and see they had human nature built into them long before they became my "enemies", they had feelings that led them to wherever they happen to be now.

Many people might not find a cut and dry moral in this book, they may think it's dry, or that it fails to meet the standards of The Wizard of Oz. I'm not afraid at all to say this darlings... but we're not in Hollywood's Oz anymore.

Fact is, if you properly read Baum's original Oz books, Oz was a pretty morbid and cynical place. Aside from names and places; Wicked, The Wizard of Oz movies, or Baum's Oz books really don't have much to do with eachother. They have their own missions.

Just like Elphaba and Dorothy had their own missions.(less)

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12/01/07

Natalie rated it:

(review of isbn 0060987103)

bookshelves: fantasy, fiction

This book was bad. The idea is that you get to see how the Wicked Witch of the West grew up, see her side of things, and get some backstory about Oz. The book failed to make any of this engaging.

The backstory dragged on for far too long. Of course, I wouldn't complain if the backstory had been interesting instead of just.. *there.* It also manages to be puzzling in a vague way that detracts more than it adds.

The story afterward just meanders everywhere. There is no sense of d...more

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04/18/08

Anne rated it:

(review of isbn 0060987103)

recommended to Anne by: Diane

I enjoyed reading Wicked, but found it perplexing.

Maguire's Oz is a complex, political society, and his Wicked Witch Elphaba and her contemporaries are fascinating, moving, original characters--but the landscape and people are so far removed from their base story that the purpose of the reimagining, reworking seems lost to me. There's no particularly compelling reason to set this novel in the framework of Baum's Oz story; it doesn't gain anything by the association and it doesn't l...more I enjoyed reading Wicked, but found it perplexing.

Maguire's Oz is a complex, political society, and his Wicked Witch Elphaba and her contemporaries are fascinating, moving, original characters--but the landscape and people are so far removed from their base story that the purpose of the reimagining, reworking seems lost to me. There's no particularly compelling reason to set this novel in the framework of Baum's Oz story; it doesn't gain anything by the association and it doesn't lend any insights to The Wizard of Oz, or the movie version either. It would have been a stellar standalone novel, but as a riff on TWoO I feel it fails.

Read Jane Smiley's A Thousand Acres and compare it to its source King Lear--it's similar enough to Lear in plot and characterization to be recognizably the same story, but her updated Goneril and Regan are given plausible motivation for their evil behavior, and Cordelia's saintliness, originally fairy-tale fodder, survives in more believable hypocrisy; this makes it interesting, the interplay between new interpretation and original work. Watch Clueless and then read Emma. Watch Bridget Jones's Diary and compare it with Pride and Prejudice. The similarities highlight the differences: a good reworking has enough resonance with the original to enhance meaning or warp it creatively. The problem with Wicked is that there's not enough character or plot similarity to lend any significance to the reworking: Maguire's unrecognizable Dorothy is a clueless, hateful bitch; Glinda is some kind of deluded sorority girl, and the events of the Wizard of Oz timeframe, (once the plot finishes its excellent backstory,) don't ring true because they have exactly nothing to do with the story we know barring the names.

It's a completely different story that could have been an excellent standalone novel on its own: change all the proper nouns and knock off the final quarter and it's stellar. Elphaba's tale is fascinating on its own, it's ill-served by the strained connection. (less)

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07/15/08

Beth(MN) rated it:

(review of isbn 0060987103)

bookshelves: 2008, fairy-tales-and-fables, fantasy, infidelity, witches, wizards-r-us

Read in December, 2008

Here is yet one more instance that supports the old adage that “hindsight is 20/20,” because had I known how much I’d have enjoyed this book, I’d have read it sooner. I have no one to blame but myself for taking all the negative reviews so seriously.

For starters, there are several types of people who should not read this book because it will make them angry. The biggest one is that group of folks who is opposed to S-E-X appearing in books. The sexy scenes in this book ar...more

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09/17/07

Marigold rated it:

(review of isbn 0060987103)

Read in September, 2007

Very interesting book! Lots to like, and lots to dislike, but overall I enjoyed it, definitely wanted to keep reading, and found a lot to think about. What struck me most is the story of Elphaba alone. She starts life as an outcast for various reasons, & really never recovers, though she's bright, determined, brave, a good friend and caring family member, and in some ways sensitive, though self-involved. The book seems to cast her as someone of great promise despite her rough start in life. She'...more Very interesting book! Lots to like, and lots to dislike, but overall I enjoyed it, definitely wanted to keep reading, and found a lot to think about. What struck me most is the story of Elphaba alone. She starts life as an outcast for various reasons, & really never recovers, though she's bright, determined, brave, a good friend and caring family member, and in some ways sensitive, though self-involved. The book seems to cast her as someone of great promise despite her rough start in life. She's a star pupil and an activist, and seemingly a woman who can attract intelligent and powerful men. Then her lover dies & she really never gets over it. She spends years retired from the world, then searches out her lover's widow seeking forgiveness, which she never receives in a way that she can understand. She is followed by a little boy, who it seems is her son - and her dead lover the father - tho I'm not sure what the author is trying to say by making the son so much less than the sum of his parents! From this point Elphaba seems to deteriorate mentally. She becomes obsessed with recovering the ruby slippers and she wishes only to retire from life after getting them. She really doesn't accomplish anything with her life, which I found very sad. She pushes all her friends away, & her family members mostly die before she does. So why is she wicked? Because she doesn't follow the conventional path that Glinda does? I have an odd feeling that Maguire sort of punished Elphaba for having a happy sexual life with her lover. Elphaba's mother is portrayed as a woman with loose sexual morals, & look what happens to her - her children are born deformed in various ways, her husband mostly ignores her, her lover dies, she lives in squalor, & dies in childbirth! Ouch!
There's a lot of interesting background about Oz, its politics, sociology, & religions. I would have liked some of this more clearly laid out in the book. A lot of it felt pencilled in, & this makes it appear less interesting. I think Maguire could have made a more fully realized fantasy world; it feels like he backs away from it by only giving bits & pieces. There's discussion of the nature of good & evil that is a bit pedantic - but where he shows "good" and "evil" through Glinda & Elphaba, that's much more interesting because their portrayals mirror the relative nature of these concepts. Is Glinda good because she makes something of herself in the sense that she marries well, has money & social position, gives money to good causes, etc? Is Elphaba wicked because she's not interested in those things? Or is she wicked because she doesn't manage to accomplish anything "good"? Are the fates of these women pre-determined in classic fairy tale style, because one is ugly and the other beautiful? What about Elphaba's sister, the other "wicked witch"? Is she wicked because she is self righteous & wants to push her religious agenda? What does it mean that she's beautiful but literally armless? It's all very interesting.
On the other hand, the book is quite uneven - really well written in parts, then poorly written in others; unevenly paced so that parts feel very slow while other parts seem rushed; some details are very clear & sometimes overly belabored, other details are entirely left out, leaving you wondering what happened! Characters who are very important in one part of the book, end up becoming minor players, and the other way around. While I realize that this may be art reflecting life, I have to admit that I usually enjoy some "wrapping up of loose ends" when I'm reading! There's an implication that Elphaba's father may have been The Wizard, but that's all we find out about that - this is just one example of a loose end, there are many others throughout the book.
Like Elphaba, this book is beautiful in its way, & oddly fascinating - but somehow flawed and unfinished. But I'm very glad I read it & I'll probably read it again to pick up things I missed. (less)

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07/08/08

Polly rated it:

(review of isbn 0060987103)

Read in April, 2008

recommends it for: No one

I’ve been trying to get through this book since last summer, and THANK GOD ON HIGH I finally finished it last night. Given that Wicked was popular with both critics and lay people, AND the fact that there’s a wildly successful stage play associated with it, I figured this book couldn’t possibly disappoint. And yet…

First, the themes/motifs were all. over. the. place. Animal rights, “otherness”, gender, good v. evil, and religion were the major players underlying the plo...more I’ve been trying to get through this book since last summer, and THANK GOD ON HIGH I finally finished it last night. Given that Wicked was popular with both critics and lay people, AND the fact that there’s a wildly successful stage play associated with it, I figured this book couldn’t possibly disappoint. And yet…

First, the themes/motifs were all. over. the. place. Animal rights, “otherness”, gender, good v. evil, and religion were the major players underlying the plot. And when I say underlying I mean thinly veiled by a meandering story. I kept thinking, he’s not really talking about animal rights or religion. He wouldn’t be that obvious. But he is. So much so that at times the story appeared to be merely a vehicle for positing his theories on that laundry list of Big Questions. Even then, I’m not sure what his theories are. It all seemed a bit pointless. I never could figure out where he stood on any of the issues, except for animal rights. He also seemed to jump from one theme to the next without any clear transition. Like the animal rights issue. It’s all over the first half of the book and then you don’t hear one single word about it until the last 40 pages or so. It’s like he thought, “oh yeah! I still need one more animal right allusion to make quota..."

Second, this book was toooooooooooooo long. The editor should have worked harder to reign in Gregory Maguire’s meanderings. I know I used that word about three sentences ago, but that’s what it felt like. He was rambling through his thoughts with me as the unfortunate tag-along.

Finally, this book told me absolutely nothing (save a few gossip-worthy details) about the Wicked Witch of the West that I couldn’t have figured out on my own. If it had ever crossed my mind to consider how the Witch ended up so Wicked, I could’ve saved myself the 406 pages and chalked her behavior up to the classic little girl lost. Poor WWW, she was so misunderstood and mistreated. Now she doesn’t know how to behave as an adult because she grew up with a very unsatisfying home life. It’s the story half of the current prison population could blame their troubles on, and quite frankly I expected more out of a book that received so much critical praise.

My advice: See the musical. I hear it’s fantastic. But then again, that’s what they said about the book.(less)

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09/29/07

Helen rated it:

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recommended to Helen by: The Witch of Fluff
recommends it for: People who find the below description appealing

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

Woah. I'm still digesting this one. It was so fascinating, haunting, disgusting, inspiring, tragic, strange, funny, and danged confusing. And beautiful. This book is kind of in a genre of its own, a combination of psychological analysis, romance, religious theory, and mystery. And no, all those slick, poorly edited psychothriller-whodunit-we've-got-to-save-the-Pentagon-from-the-ticking-bomb-planted-by-the-maniac-you-met-in-the-first-chapter-because-he-thought-he-heard-God sort of things are not ...more Woah. I'm still digesting this one. It was so fascinating, haunting, disgusting, inspiring, tragic, strange, funny, and danged confusing. And beautiful. This book is kind of in a genre of its own, a combination of psychological analysis, romance, religious theory, and mystery. And no, all those slick, poorly edited psychothriller-whodunit-we've-got-to-save-the-Pentagon-from-the-ticking-bomb-planted-by-the-maniac-you-met-in-the-first-chapter-because-he-thought-he-heard-God sort of things are not in the same genre. (Ahem, Dan Brown, are you reading this?)

[Spoiler Warning!]

This book is really an in-depth psychological biography of the Wicked Witch. Turns out that the green one spent her entire life trying to figure out what life, death, good, bad, and God meant. It drove her crazy, especially when, towards the end, a mysterious little dwarf popped up (for the eighth random time) to tell her that she was essentially the product of the marriage between GOOD and EVIL themselves. Dang. So it was up to her to decide whether she had a soul or not, whether she was evil or not, whether whe was being manipulated by fate or not, etc. etc. She slowly descended into paranoia and that was when she met Dorothy, her death, and perhaps... her redemption with the "baptismal splash" (which killed her because she was allergic to water)? Too deep for me.

And then, besides the mind-boggling questions stirred up, the author decided to leave huge chunks of the plot out so that the reader just had to guess how the changes in the Witch's character had occurred. Meh.

Plus all these random cameo appearances from some Yackle character, who seems to be the reincarnation of a fierce and not entirely pleasant goddess. The nasty old crone shows up just when the Witch's life could use an improvement, and instead helps to set events on the path to yet more doom and despair. Then she utters some cryptic but ominous prophecy and vanishes. Gave me the shudders.

Read it if your head needs to be tied in a knot and your heart needs a vigorous massage.

Bottom line: I loved it, and I only understood about half of it.(less)

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10/12/07

Willie rated it:

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Read in August, 2003

My own peculiar obsession with The Wizard of Oz, in both its book and movie forms, was both a boon and, at times, a slight disadvantage to reading this book: since our culture's two primary references for the Oz story are so very different, Mr Maguire has a fascinating dilemma in trying to create a narrative that honors both, and is also something new. He does so brilliantly, re-imagining characters, places, and circumstances of the movie and the books (most notably the second one, The Land of O...more

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06/24/08

Rachel rated it:

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Read in June, 2008

recommends it for: Adult readers who enjoyed reading L. Frank Baum's Oz books and are not offended by freaky sex scenes

Reading this book was like returning to an old friend ... it was written in the style of the Oz books I had enjoyed as a kid, except now ... with X-RATED COMICAL PASSAGES! Woo-hoo! I bring this up because I see a lot of people posting that they take offense at the sexual nature of some of the passages. I think the author was trying to portray Oz as an "other world" somewhat patterned after the European Renaissance (not entirely, of course: train travel, etc, came later), and the Shakes...more Reading this book was like returning to an old friend ... it was written in the style of the Oz books I had enjoyed as a kid, except now ... with X-RATED COMICAL PASSAGES! Woo-hoo! I bring this up because I see a lot of people posting that they take offense at the sexual nature of some of the passages. I think the author was trying to portray Oz as an "other world" somewhat patterned after the European Renaissance (not entirely, of course: train travel, etc, came later), and the Shakespeare plays and other forms of entertainment at the time were quite bawdy. So I thought the sexual scenes fit in just fine with the tone of the book, providing an ominous backdrop for parts of the plot. L. Frank Baum's books skipped the sexually expicit scenes, of course, but he was writing more for general audiences (to include children). This book is written for ADULTS, and I think the sexual scenes definitely enhanced the chilling nature of the story.

Lots of people have commented that the book was boring, but my experience was the OPPOSITE ... I couldn't put the darn thing down! I was intrigued by the character of Elphaba and everything going on in Oz around her.

One thing I don't understand is how the author is promoting this book "Son of a Witch," (ahem: cute, cute) which is apparently based on the character of Liir. The author portrays Liir as a big bland boring doughboy. This makes NO SENSE given that the author is simultaenously trying to convince us to go out and buy his next book, which is all about said doughboy. Very strange. But whatever.

One unexpected part of this book was Elphaba's allegiance toward animals and animal rights. At school, she speaks out against a professor who has taken a lion cub away from its mother for the purposes of biological experiments. (In the book, they have animals which are regular animals and Animals, capitalized, which are able to speak and think like humans.) Elphaba thinks its cruel to eat Animals, as she chides both her lover and her sister for eating meat that could possibly have been from an Animal rather than an animal. From what the book mentions of what Elphaba eats, she appears to be vegetarian. Elphaba does eat cheese, which, perhaps she is not aware, is just as harmful to Cows as it is to cows. Interestingly enough, the cruelty of milk and cheese production IS pointed out in the book, in a scene in which a Cow tells Elphaba about the pain of her life in the dairy business. Kudos to the author for that!!!

ALL IN ALL, WICKED was a very enjoyable and captivating read.
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06/22/08

Nekouken rated it:

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bookshelves: fantasy

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

I don't get it.

OK, so I read the book thinking it would be good preparation for possibly seeing the musical while it's in Chicago. Now I'm not so sure, though I'm told the musical is vastly different from the book. I'm guessing I'm no more prepared than I was before I started.

It started strong, with experiences that lead her parents to believe her disfigurements are a curse; she's born with green skin, razor-sharp teeth and a fatal allergy to water. Maguire then spends...more I don't get it.

OK, so I read the book thinking it would be good preparation for possibly seeing the musical while it's in Chicago. Now I'm not so sure, though I'm told the musical is vastly different from the book. I'm guessing I'm no more prepared than I was before I started.

It started strong, with experiences that lead her parents to believe her disfigurements are a curse; she's born with green skin, razor-sharp teeth and a fatal allergy to water. Maguire then spends way more time on her infancy than is really necessary, especially since she's not really the focus of that part of the story; it's about her parents and their relation to a foreign glass-blower.

There were two sections of the book that were simply excellent; the Witch's time at school with her sister and Glinda, and the following section, in which she lives in secret in Emerald City and carries on an affair with an old school mate.

The character grows a lot in these sections; she starts as a reclusive misanthrope, disinterested with social interaction until political revolution lights a fire under her and she discovers an unlikely set of like-minded revolutionaries. They work together, become friends and expand their group to include more lost souls when one of their teachers is murdered to stop his research. I felt that such a person would quite reasonably become a target of the Wizard's tyrrany. When she goes to see the Wizard with Glinda and is convinced upon meeting him that he must be brought down, she's ambitious and passionate and ready to act. In the next section, when one of her old school friends finds her and pursues her to her hideout, she continues that ambition and passion, so firey that it's not hard to believe he could fall headlong in love with her.

Sadly, when her big plan comes to a head, the narrative collapses into unremarkability. She fails to kill her target, her lover is murdered, and the entire rest of the book is a plodding story in which she occasionally encounters the chance to do something, and never, ever does, until Dorothy comes right up to her doorstep and she completely loses her mind.

The end.

Seriously, that's what I got out of the book. I thought this was about giving depth to the Wicked Witch of the West, but what little she had was cast away in a whirlwind of guilt and confusion halfway through the book, never to be recovered. Worse, reams of character development are left untold. We never see any evidence that the Witch's assassination plot is part of something larger, save her insistence that it is. Presumably her coconspirators are captured because of her failure, but when she begs forgiveness, they are left unconsidered as she heads to the ancestral home of her murdered lover to beg his wife's forgiveness, which she never gives before sharing her husband's fate. Though she speaks often and passionately of political and military movements going on within Oz, she never does anything about it! After her botched assassination attempt, she doesn't do anything else, despite several opportunities to get involved and take a leadership role, and all the important people in her life give her reason to do so! By the end of the story, she's not even a threat to the Wizard's rule; she's just a convenient scapegoat.

Then there's Liir; presumably her son by her murdered lover. She spends some time in a convent hospital, and when she leaves, this kid is right there with her, even though they don't seem to like each other and they rarely speak. The Witch's motivations are clear, but failed. Liir's motivation is never explored and appears not to serve any significant role in the story, despite being there from the midpoint of the story right up to the end. Apparently a sequel has been written about him, but I don't care -- he's not interesting.

I was really dissapointed here, and I don't understand the reviews I've read that made me want to read the book so much; why are they all so glowing?(less)

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03/22/08

Nola rated it:

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bookshelves: fiction---drama

Read in March, 2008

recommends it for: someone who wants a new look at Oz

Wicked is the story of the infamous Wicked Witch of the West, told from the perspective that that the well-known fairy tale may not be all true. The premise of the novel is certainly interesting, and the themes it follows certainly make you think. The characters were well created and three dimensional, right up to the end, where everything went sour.

The story begins, not with the witch but with the events of her birth. We follow young Elphaba (what, you thought her parents just cal...more Wicked is the story of the infamous Wicked Witch of the West, told from the perspective that that the well-known fairy tale may not be all true. The premise of the novel is certainly interesting, and the themes it follows certainly make you think. The characters were well created and three dimensional, right up to the end, where everything went sour.

The story begins, not with the witch but with the events of her birth. We follow young Elphaba (what, you thought her parents just called her ‘Wicked’?) through her infancy, and then jump abruptly to her schooling in her young adulthood, where she meets up with Galinda (later known as Glinda, Good Witch of the North). Skip a few years later to her revolutionary stage, where she stands up to the Great and Powerful Wizard, and later still to a rather bizarre imprisonment with the family of her lover. The novel culminates, of course, in her fatal interaction with Dorothy and her friends.

I enjoyed the “other” side of Oz – a place where talking Animals are treated as beasts and losing their rights, where the Wizard is a despot who overthrew the existing monarch, where Glinda may well have been magiked into submission. I also enjoyed the depth given to the life of the Witch – more information about her sister, the well-known Witch of the East, her attempts to make her roommate Glinda use her brain rather than her social instinct, her foray into Animal rights, and her lover and resulting tragedy.

I also enjoyed the thought-provoking questions about evil. Is evil actions misunderstood? Is it not feeling bad when you do something wrong? Is it innate, something you are born with? Is it defined by society? I disagree with the authors conclusion, but I certainly enjoyed being made to think.

As a story, this was fairly enjoyable, but I struggled with a few things. I didn’t like the enormous skips in time. Although they were marked by sections, they were still confusing, and since they occurred almost always in the middle of an important action, I was left wondering how things turned out for a lot of pages. Elphaba struggled with finding herself, which made her go back and forth a lot. And I’m not sure I bought the explanation for why she and her sister were called ‘wicked’ – Nessie didn’t seem the type to change over like that, though I would have expected it from Elphaba. The point of view jumped several times within action, as well, which is an enormous pet peeve with me. I don’t like going from one character’s mind to another because I often miss where the change occurred and am left thinking that the first was thinking the second’s thoughts.

But the biggest problem I had with the ending was how flat it fell. The first sections of the novel were rich and detailed. The last section read like a pumped up fairytale. I believe this was most likely intentional, as the last section dealt quite literally with the fairytale part of the story. And if the whole novel had been written as such, the last part would have been easier to deal with. But after such detail, the ending was disappointing. I could believe the reason the Witch went after the shoes, if it had been fleshed out some more. I have trouble following the way she vacillated when she sent her familiars after Dorothy – first she wants to kill her, then bring her to dinner, then kill her, then bring her to dinner. Huh? I did like Dorothy’s reason for approaching the Witch, but the whole “murder” section felt rough and forced.

Overall, this was a pretty good novel, and a new take on an old fairytale. I’m surprised at popular it has become, however, though perhaps I shouldn’t be, based on the whole “there is no evil” argument. Still, it was quite interesting, and I am still unsure if I will follow up with the sequel, Son of a Witch.
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02/25/08

Jenny rated it:

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bookshelves: wish-i-had-not-read

Read in February, 2007

recommends it for: no one... period

I had mixed feelings about this book. On one hand the plot is very interesting. On the other, the author makes so many sexual references and adds scenes that are not even needed for the plot that it almost ruins the book. It seems he thinks the real learning arena is sexual encounters and sensory gratification. I also think he blurs the lines between real good and real evil. Obviously those who are different are not really evil. But killing, even for political reasons and vengence, is evil. Th...more

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08/29/08

Jen rated it:

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Don't waste your time! And don't let your teen read it. I kept reading to the bitter end of this book hoping that suddenly it would all come together in a glorious flash of beautiful, meaningful allegory that would make all the crap worth it. Not even. I was just really mad when I was done that I'd wasted so much time on it hoping that it'd pull through.

Not only did it delve into the kinky, it was just plain boring and didn't make sense to me.

If you're interested in i...more

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