Wicked

I’m not into the fairy tale reads. The author finishes the main book, the rambles on for pages upon pages of dabble about fairy tales and other authors. Once you’re done with that there are pages upon pages of excerpts from Elphaba. I couldn’t even continue reading. Horrible!

Incredible to think someone could read this and then make the play so happy and funny. Full of optimism if this is the original text. This book is very dark. Very adult themes and big ideas and philosophical talkings that are hard to understand. I think this book was written to talk about social problems but under the disguise of a fairy tale. It’s not the play. Not really at all, but I liked this read all together. I liked seeing a different side to a story we all know. But definitely not for the light of heart.

Not for me personally.

Loved his voice he did a great job. Good book!

I’ve never read anything quite like this. I loved reading Boq and Glinda’s POV and the additional background on Oz was fascinating. There are some interesting elements in the world-building (for example, there’s heavy religious tension). Elphaba is a phenomenal protagonist and Glinda is a thousand times more vivid on the page. The meat of the story is its COMPLEX political themes — corruption, classism, colorism, marginalization, etc. It’s highly dense and intellectual. At times the text does feel bloated with tangents and extraneous detail, and I really slogged through the third quarter. MANY descriptions made me cringe. Overall, I found it deep, dark and gripping. And icky. Very icky. I couldn’t put it down but I’m not keen to pick it up again.

I, like many others, fell under the guise that this would have some direct connection to either the 1939 film, which was only somewhat referenced, or that it would hold some closeness to the Broadway adaptation. Perhaps I should have done a bit more research. The part of the play in the book is maybe 13% of the book and that’s if you skipped the “vulgarities and less family friendly parts”. As an adult I imagine with a card or Apple account it’s a bit childish to be so squeamish, but there are for sure some parts that make me think something should have mentioned some of the somewhat disturbing parts before sealing the deal and finalizing the purchase. Regardless, I was nearly incapable of keeping super strong interest and thumbing non-stop. To say the least the plot was thickened for some form of backstory but it was boring for the most part. I certainly couldn’t put into a plot diagram where the exposition ends, the rising actions start, and certainly not where the climax is, although the whole book felt like a conflict… of whether to put it down permanently. Maybe I just overlooked but it also lost my attention for three months of picking up and putting down. I know I am pleased I didn’t get the whole series because it’s not often crossed my mind to DNF

I wasn’t really sure of this book at first but it sucked me and kept me flicking the pages from right to left for a week. It’s different and worth a read.

For all the reviews saying that it was not like to musical or they read/listened to it, because they love the musical. Please note that this book came long before the musical was created. The themes in the book, deal with sexuality, rape, xenophobia, and at times is very political. This is not a companion piece to the musical. The musical is similar in a lot of aspects however, some of the more graphic contact has been removed and edited for a more family-friendly audience. For that matter, it is not even a companion piece to the movie because it takes place prior to the events in the movie. Go into it with an open mind and heart and you’ll enjoy the ride!

Do not go into reading this expecting it to be like the musical. It is completely different. But it is absolutely fantastic. It deals with sexuality, good versus evil, individualism, politics and everything else under the sun in a powerful way. Maguire’s writing style is so unique and addictive. Probably not for everyone though: definitely not light reading. I would 100% recommend at least sampling this book though, it’s one of my new favorites!!

I was so looking forward to reading the back story. Unfortunately, it is nothing like the stage musical at all. The verbiage is very difficult to understand and the story often times doesn’t make much sense. I was looking forward to reading a series, but I’m gonna have to spare myself the trouble of trying to get through another McGuire novel.