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.