Books : Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West

Rating: - Wordy But Dull
Wow, what a plod. I'm not ashamed to say I rushed out to buy this and its sequel, Son of a Witch, after seeing the musical. There is actually very little connection between Wicked the novel and Wicked the musical - where the musical is full of life and vitality, the book plods along in a dense, wordy style that never even threatens to catch fire. The dialogue is wooden, the characters without exception unsympathetic, the plot meandering and unsatisfying. Son of a Witch remains undisturbed on my bookshelf.

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Rating: - not bad at all
I liked this book as it delt with the politics of fairyland, the nitty gritty everyone sometimes thinks of but is never explained, i didnt find the story fantastic, but not bad, very dark in places, watch out for the menacing dwarf! brrrrr!!!

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Rating: - Wicked In Every Way.
As a child i enjoyed the Oz books and the films.
I was looking forward to reading this book, thinking it would be a lighthearted family type thing.

I couldnt be more wrong. This book is one of the best books i have ever read. Oz becomes a completely different place to the one we know of. But in a strange way, it fits perfectly in within the stories of the original Oz.

The style of this book is witty and thought provoking. I found myself unable to put this book down.

I have watched The Wizard of Oz since reading this book, and it has completely changed it for me. When the Wicked Witch of the West gets melted, i felt sorry for her.

It is almost as if the Wizard of Oz was a legendary tale told in gossip which became more far fetched as it was told. Then suddenly you read the true events and you realize that everything you heard was wrong, and what really happened was...

Thats how it felt for me. But i would highly encourage anyone to give Wicked a read. You may find that feeling of a childhood story stir inside you again.

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Rating: - Pretentious nonsense...and boring to boot!
I have so many criticisms of this book: Firstly, none of the characters have any charm or interest value. Despite being written about at length, there is no-one I gave a damn about. Secondly, nothing interesting happens throughout the whole book (or rather big, interesting events do happen but they are captured in such a boring way). Thirdly, the book takes itself far too seriously. There is no humour in the book of any description. How many fiction books do not raise a titter throughout 500 pages? I can't think of any. This lack of humour added to the feeling of dryness and boredom I felt throughout reading. Fourthly, there is lots of waffle around big themes: Religion; Consciousness; Adultery; Good vs Evil; Politics. However, it is just filler. The author does not draw these themes together. There is no conclusion. I was expecting - hoping! - that the author was waffling on with these themes for a reason. Perhaps, I thought to myself, he's going to show Oz to be an allegory for our own world. Alas, no. It was just pretentious twaddle that goes nowhere. Another problem is that the idea of the "Wicked" Witch actually being "Good" just doesn't work. The part of the book where Dorothy is present in Oz does not correlate to what we know from the film. I think Maguire thought of "the twist" (i.e. wicked witch isn't wicked) and then he tried to force it to work when it plainly doesn't. Perhaps the book would have been more fun if the Wicked Witch had just been plain wicked throughout the story? If this review stops just 1 person from wasting their time, I have done a "good" thing.

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Rating: - A GOOD LITTLE PAGE TURNER
I saw the fantastic musical before I read the book and it became apparent very early on that the former is only very loosely based on the book, pretty much around the characters alone. However, I found it to be a good story and not as whimsical as expected. It dealt with quite dark issues; politics, death, rejection, cruelty, anger, loss and all manner of emotions. I really cared what happens to Elphaba. If I have a criticism it is in the way the story moves on quickly on a couple of occasions and you are left with a lot of unanswered questions around her latter childhood and the period around the loss of Fiyero. I have also bought the sequel, Son of a Witch and am hoping that this will fill in some, if not all of the gaps. If not, there's always the imagination.......