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jhbandcats 's review for:
Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West
by Gregory Maguire
adventurous
challenging
dark
mysterious
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I figured I’d better read this before the movie came out. The book is so immensely popular that I was surprised to find myself struggling with it. How did so many people come to love it? Clearly I’m in a minority.
It took me the first third till I started enjoying it. Periodically I would get bogged down in philosophical or religious disquisitions. I’m sure the author was making very important points about religion but I wasn’t remotely interested in reading them.
Elphalba, born green, alarms her parents. They avoid and ignore her, especially when Nessarose, her beautiful, armless sister, is born three years later. Due to her disability, the non-green (and hence adored) sister needs constant care. Elphaba becomes the de facto caretaker, pretending it doesn’t hurt when her parents lavish attention on Nessarose.
There’s a lot of moving around, from home to school to the Emerald City to a convent and finally to the west. Elphaba is a likable character who quickly changes from empathetic to bitter and angry. It’s hard to reconcile the last 15% of the book where she’s insane or evil with the sympathetic person she was for so many chapters.
While I was delighted with the complexity of the plot and the depth of characterization, overall I was disappointed because the book hit a wall every time philosophy was mentioned. I also obviously had a hard time with the sudden shift in Elphaba’s character.
An aside: I started reading this after seeing movie trailers for what will be the first half of a two-part story. From what I can tell, aside from Elphaba being green and meeting Glinda at school, there’s nothing else from the book that appears in the movie.
It took me the first third till I started enjoying it. Periodically I would get bogged down in philosophical or religious disquisitions. I’m sure the author was making very important points about religion but I wasn’t remotely interested in reading them.
Elphalba, born green, alarms her parents. They avoid and ignore her, especially when Nessarose, her beautiful, armless sister, is born three years later. Due to her disability, the non-green (and hence adored) sister needs constant care. Elphaba becomes the de facto caretaker, pretending it doesn’t hurt when her parents lavish attention on Nessarose.
There’s a lot of moving around, from home to school to the Emerald City to a convent and finally to the west. Elphaba is a likable character who quickly changes from empathetic to bitter and angry. It’s hard to reconcile the last 15% of the book where she’s insane or evil with the sympathetic person she was for so many chapters.
While I was delighted with the complexity of the plot and the depth of characterization, overall I was disappointed because the book hit a wall every time philosophy was mentioned. I also obviously had a hard time with the sudden shift in Elphaba’s character.
An aside: I started reading this after seeing movie trailers for what will be the first half of a two-part story. From what I can tell, aside from Elphaba being green and meeting Glinda at school, there’s nothing else from the book that appears in the movie.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Ableism, Animal cruelty, Body horror, Bullying, Hate crime, Mental illness, Racism, Violence, Grief, Religious bigotry, Death of parent, Murder, Gaslighting, Abandonment, Classism