Reviews tagging 'Physical abuse'

Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West by Gregory Maguire

4 reviews

swhitzel's review

slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? N/A
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

What a useless story. So much character build up, so many possibilities, all for nothing. Pages and pages of rambling nonsense mixed in with small bits of interest and intrigue. Entirely anticlimactic. 

A true waste of time. Genuinely amazed that this was the basis for such a fantastic stage play. It seems the musical pulled out the best pieces of the story. Wish I had left it there and not ventured further into this world. 

A letdown.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexism, Child death, Vomit, Animal death, Animal cruelty, Child abuse, Sexual content, Murder, Toxic friendship, Torture, Violence, Racism, Physical abuse, Misogyny, Slavery, Religious bigotry, Kidnapping, and Death

jadonmorgs's review

adventurous dark emotional hopeful mysterious sad tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

Let me start this review by saying that I love and adore the Broadway musical. This book is nothing like the Broadway musical but I'm not opposed to it being more grim and less light hearted. I actually prefer the much more darker themes that's in this book, but I feel like the book did not really deliver on the character of Elphaba she just did not feel fleshed out enough. I couldn't really immerse myself in the story and it's characters even though I really wanted to.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder, Animal cruelty, Blood, Child death, Physical abuse, Violence, War, Racism, Self harm, Hate crime, Toxic friendship, Colonisation, Death, Death of parent, Rape, Gaslighting, Pregnancy, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Slavery, and Toxic relationship

rosemaryandrue's review

adventurous dark mysterious medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.25

Long before Dorothy came to Oz, a baby was born in the east with green skin and shark-like teeth, and whether or not she is given a chance to be good will shape the future of the land.

This is a strange, slant-wise reprise of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, a thoroughly grown-up look at the realistic consequences of such political upheaval. I've seen the musical of course, and it is pretty funny how far it drifted away from the source material, as this in turn had drifted from its own. I liked the concept and the claustrophobic quality of the writing, but I felt the characters were held at too far a remove from us and each other, so I couldn't get invested in anyone's relationships.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Physical abuse and Violence

Moderate: Infidelity, Animal cruelty, and Animal death

heart_strong500's review against another edition

I was 40% though and so much time was being spent on things I didn't care about. I looked at other reviews which I rarely do before or while I'm reading and they all said it's very different from the musical. So even if my favorite parts of the musical would have happened I didn't know with how much detail they were or weren't going to be covered. And then the three-way sexual assult(everyone's under magic or something so I see it as sexual assult) with the tiger (which animals are just another race and I knew that before reading) happened and I was done. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Violence, Sexual violence, Animal cruelty, Racism, Death, Classism, Sexual content, Sexual assault, Rape, Physical abuse, Infidelity, Gore, Death of parent, and Blood