Where Wicked is the story of the tragic death of Elphaba, a flawed but rather admirable character, Son of a Witch is the story of the redemption of Liir, a flawed, whiny, and only barely admirable character. Liir is perhaps a more realistic character (at least, I can see myself in his insecurities and aimlessness) but that doesn't make him likable.

The book starts off with a physically broken Liir carried to the Mauntery where he spent his early childhood. His physical wounds are treated there by the resident doctors while his mental wounds are addressed by the ministrations of Candle, who plays an instrument that guides Liir through his memories. Most of the book is actually Liir's memories--memories that show Liir is a pretty weak, self-loathing, and irresponsible boy. Once he works his way to the present and regains consciousness, Candle forces Liir to take some responsibility for his life. Liir spends the remainder of the book tying up the loose ends from his memory, with remarkably little difficulty.

Like I mentioned before, Liir isn't a terribly likable character. Mostly he drifts along with no real purpose to his life and, probably in part because of that lack of direction, he does a lot of questionable, sometimes even repugnant things. Even after he sets out to right some of the wrongs he's committed, his self-loathing gets in the way of my feeling any admiration for him. He's also a jerk to Candle, who is a character I really liked (interestingly, all of Maguire's female characters are far more likable than any of the male characters). If Liir had faced any serious difficulty other than the internal ones, I probably would have felt more empathy for him, but the exterior difficulties are resolved so neatly and so easily I never truly felt any apprehension for his welfare. Realistically, I should have. The fact that he's able to get away unscathed, and presumably is left unmolested after the end of the book after both deserting the army and then destroying some of their most dangerous weapons just doesn't feel realistic. Having listened to a bunch of writingexcuses podcasts (notably the recent one on endings) I'm aware that structurally endings are far more powerful when the emotional loose ends and external conflict/plot loose ends are all tied up as close together as possible. The endings in this book are tied up over the last something like third of the book, which also (I think) robs them of their power. I almost think there should have been a final chapter or two in which we see Liir face the larger logical consequences of his attacks on the state and also in which we see him finally act like a decent human being toward Candle. That's apparently not the story Maguire was telling, though, so we're left with a character who has only grown into a half-man and is in a situation likely far more dangerous than the previous situations we waded through with him.