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A review by proletecario
Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West by Gregory Maguire
adventurous
dark
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
Well, yes! It did take me a million years to finish this book—first year of university can drive anyone crazy, I'm sure our protagonist here would certainly agree!
Now, before getting into the tids and bits of this book and my thoughts on it, I'll have to preface everything by saying that I saw (a bootleg of) the Broadway musical before reading the original Maguire work and oh, boy... did I hear just so much about everything... How the book was so much darker, how everyone who liked the book hated the play adaptation and how everyone who loved the play adaptation hated the book, how the book sucks, how the play is rushed, how Maguire writes, how it's all fake woke, how it's overdone—oh my god, it was never-ending.
I think, I think, a three is precisely the rating both the book and the movie deserve. Hell, maybe even a two point seventy-five... I don't know.
I find myself thinking and I get it. I get almost all the changes done in the play to this piece of work, and they ultimately kind of tell two different stories, don't they? Is it fair to judge them as one? I liked the book, and I really liked the play, but it is true that the play is truly deceitful of what one can find in the book; yet, I wouldn't say the book is so dark that it's unreadable or would make anyone squeamish, I'd say it's the play that strips itself of so much of the nuance!
Elphaba is intersex, everybody is gay as hell, Fiyero was Black! The whole damn thing is about colonialism and imperialism! And we've lost the damn plot! Both play and book! It makes me sick.
I love it when a story and a world makes you think, because that's what reading should be about: thinking! And what nobody seems to want to do when it comes to this book in particular that is so clearly dripped out in social commentary that it's all you get in the book for the better part of what? Three quarters of it? And then it all kind of... comes crashing down? So damn odd, I can't understand it. The pace is slow enough that you won't realize it at times and will dread it at others, and it's slow enough that you'll have to run your memory back over and over again to previous events, and yet, all the hints, all the spectacle, all the waiting, even all the twists are for so little in the end because it maddens you as much as it maddens every last remaining character.
While I could go on forever, let me cut this short. It wasn't the darkest thing I've read, however many people I've read say otherwise online, and I really enjoyed most of it, because all the buildups, at least in the first four chapters, were actually nice (and I personally enjoyed Maguire's writing! I think it was quite on par with the world he was building and the story he was telling); but I thought it was going to be better. I knew not to get attached, and I didn't, because none of the characters were present enough to be cared about, but it left me the same sour taste as They both die in the end did, like I'd wasted a lot of energy to be put off by a lousy way of things.
I don't know how tempted I am to read the other books in the series I am, don't really think I will any time soon. Or the supposed prequel Maguire has in the works about young Elphaba—Elphie. Or the movie for that matter! Even though I was reading this in preparation to that, too, because I was really excited. I can only find everything wrong with the way they're all going about it.
Anyways, I'm kind of glad I got this book over with. I'm not even close to halfway through my year goal and don't think I'll make it but I hope whatever my next read is is better. I need something like a refresher that isn't academic papers.
Now, before getting into the tids and bits of this book and my thoughts on it, I'll have to preface everything by saying that I saw (a bootleg of) the Broadway musical before reading the original Maguire work and oh, boy... did I hear just so much about everything... How the book was so much darker, how everyone who liked the book hated the play adaptation and how everyone who loved the play adaptation hated the book, how the book sucks, how the play is rushed, how Maguire writes, how it's all fake woke, how it's overdone—oh my god, it was never-ending.
I think, I think, a three is precisely the rating both the book and the movie deserve. Hell, maybe even a two point seventy-five... I don't know.
I find myself thinking and I get it. I get almost all the changes done in the play to this piece of work, and they ultimately kind of tell two different stories, don't they? Is it fair to judge them as one? I liked the book, and I really liked the play, but it is true that the play is truly deceitful of what one can find in the book; yet, I wouldn't say the book is so dark that it's unreadable or would make anyone squeamish, I'd say it's the play that strips itself of so much of the nuance!
Elphaba is intersex, everybody is gay as hell, Fiyero was Black! The whole damn thing is about colonialism and imperialism! And we've lost the damn plot! Both play and book! It makes me sick.
I love it when a story and a world makes you think, because that's what reading should be about: thinking! And what nobody seems to want to do when it comes to this book in particular that is so clearly dripped out in social commentary that it's all you get in the book for the better part of what? Three quarters of it? And then it all kind of... comes crashing down? So damn odd, I can't understand it. The pace is slow enough that you won't realize it at times and will dread it at others, and it's slow enough that you'll have to run your memory back over and over again to previous events, and yet, all the hints, all the spectacle, all the waiting, even all the twists are for so little in the end because it maddens you as much as it maddens every last remaining character.
While I could go on forever, let me cut this short. It wasn't the darkest thing I've read, however many people I've read say otherwise online, and I really enjoyed most of it, because all the buildups, at least in the first four chapters, were actually nice (and I personally enjoyed Maguire's writing! I think it was quite on par with the world he was building and the story he was telling); but I thought it was going to be better. I knew not to get attached, and I didn't, because none of the characters were present enough to be cared about, but it left me the same sour taste as They both die in the end did, like I'd wasted a lot of energy to be put off by a lousy way of things.
I don't know how tempted I am to read the other books in the series I am, don't really think I will any time soon. Or the supposed prequel Maguire has in the works about young Elphaba—Elphie. Or the movie for that matter! Even though I was reading this in preparation to that, too, because I was really excited. I can only find everything wrong with the way they're all going about it.
Anyways, I'm kind of glad I got this book over with. I'm not even close to halfway through my year goal and don't think I'll make it but I hope whatever my next read is is better. I need something like a refresher that isn't academic papers.