Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West (Wicked Years, #1)

by Gregory Maguire

We only have babies when we’re young enough not to know how grim life turns out. Once we really get the full measure of it—we’re slow learners, we women—we dry up in disgust and sensibly halt production. But men don’t dry up, Melena objected; they can father to the death. Ah, we’re slow learners, Nanny countered. But they can’t learn at all.

Work as a team—there are twelve of you and only one of him. Is it your differences from one another that keep you docile? Or are there relatives inside who will be tortured if you make a break for freedom?

“The more civilized we become, the more horrendous our entertainments,”

Maybe the definition of home is the place where you are never forgiven, so you may always belong there, bound by guilt. And maybe the cost of belonging is worth it.