Awesome book, but deffinatly for teens!

posted Jun 6, 2009 at 12:22PM

Do you really want to start sympathizing with the Wicked Witch???? REALLY??? I just don’t think that’s a very good idea...so...I’m skipping it.

posted Jun 14, 2009 at 1:23PM

The Wizard of Oz is a modern fairy tale. Young Dorothy (and her little dog too) run away from home, get caught in a tornado, and are blown far away to a magical land of walking scarecrows, talking lions, wizards, witches, yellow brick roads, and emerald cities. Most readers will know the 1939 Hollywood musical movie starring Judy Garland best, but L. Frank Baum wrote The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and its thirteen sequels way back when in the early 1900s. But it is author Gregory Maguire’s Wicked that really blows the lid off this classic. He focuses on the future Wicked Witch of the West, who begins life as a small green girl named Elphaba. Elphie’s Munchkinlander parents are less than thrilled with this strange offspring, and more so when another daughter (normal-colored but armless) is born a couple years later. Still, the sisters survive their difficult childhood and attend university, where Elphie’s roommate is ditzy Glinda (better known as the Good Witch of the North). Elphaba is never wicked or evil; in fact she campaigns against the politically corrupt Wizard of Oz and fights for economic re-growth instead. Elphaba is ultimately an intelligent and out-spoken young woman, but fate and luck are just not on her side. Readers will sympathize with this other side of the Wicked Witch of the West and relish the clever social satire and biting cynicism inherent in this alternate vision of fanciful Oz. Just as The Wonderful Wizard of Oz swept off the page and became the beloved Hollywood movie, Wicked has transcended its original format to become a popular Broadway musical. Maguire has proved something of a visionary with his reimaging of fairy tales and classics—he has most definitely cornered the market with other inventive perspectives like Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister, Mirror Mirror, and two other entries in his Wicked Years series about the land of Oz, Son of a Witch and A Lion Among Men. From the fairy godmother in Cinderella to the evil witch-queen in Snow White to the further adventures of Elphaba, Maguire’s blesses his fairy tale witches with a unique complexity that history has not previously afforded them.

posted Feb 19, 2010 at 6:57PM

I am going to see the musical and wanted to read the book. It is about Elphaba starting since she was a baby and how she was an outcast. It has taken a two tries to get through the book and is not about the Wizard of Oz.

posted Aug 8, 2010 at 1:16PM

I am going to see the musical and wanted to read the book. It is about Elphaba starting since she was a baby and how she was an outcast. It has taken a two tries to get through the book and is not about the Wizard of Oz.

posted Aug 8, 2010 at 1:16PM

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