Books : Wicked (Wicked Years 1)

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.......

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Rating: - Ingeneous!
What a brilliant idea and an even better book. I loved this book and the characters in it and the difference between this book and the Judy Garland Oz could not be more extreme but all the better for it. Elphaba is a brilliant character and the Animals and animals is another stroke of geneuous. Am giving 4 stars because the sequel is even better and that deserves 5.

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Rating: - The Wicked Wrench of the West
Let's start off by saying how much I was looking forward to reading the book. How much I wanted to see the musical. I was so looking forward to being emerced in the wonderful world of Oz, finding out what made the wicked witch of the west tick that when I closed the book after reading it in two days flat the sense of immense disappointment almost knocked me sideways.

I had read rave reviews and seen all the press bumpf that accompanied a book that had hit upon a fantastic, yet so delightfully simple idea, to work backwards from such a familiar, popular and well known story that I imagined so much. I had almost dreamt of the way Maguire was going to breathe life into his characters that when I actually encountered them the anticipation was not matched by the content.

That is not to say that the book does not work. It obviously has done for so many people but for me it fell a little flat. The idea as stated above was brilliantly thought out and from a literary standpoint well delivered. The style concise, eloquent and well delivered. The imagery subtle and the underlying message of the book clear but often rammed down the reader's throat.

The character of Elphie left me a little cold, I felt that there was so much potential and so much that could be gleaned from her as she grew up. That when the story seemed to change from her being an evil child with a mouth of razorlike teeth who bit the fingers off her midwife to a misunderstood vigilante-esque do-gooder for Oz, to misunderstood witchlike figure didn't sit well with me. It somehow attempted to jutify and downplay the villain that so many children have come to know. As someone who grew up with the Wizard of Oz (and never being a very big fan) the idea of the story of the wicked witch attracted more interest from me than the happy fairytale and insipid character of Dorothy.

I guess my expectations got the better of me. The book I feel relied too much on the concept of evil and wickedness as a construct, a matter of opinion and the constant reference to sexual endeavours took the focus off what the story should have been about.

That said it might be worth another read to check that I am not missing some literary genius that others before me seem to have recognised.