Take a photo of a barcode or cover
eesh25 's review for:
The Marvelous Land of Oz
by L. Frank Baum
3.25 Stars
This is the sequel to The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, which I'm still surprised even has a sequel. In this book, we're reunited with some old characters and introduced to some new ones. The protagonist is Tip. He's a boy who's being raised by the evil witch, Mombi, who is very mean to him. And when she threatens to turn him into a statue, he runs away.
Tip has no plans when he runs off. He just wants to get away from Mombi. On a whim, he decides to head to the Emerald City. And similar to how Tip has no goal in mind, the book itself is also quite aimless. With the first book, we knew that the goal was to get Dorothy back to her family. She met people on the way, there were obstacles to overcome and, in the end, they succeeded in their mission and Dorothy went home.
In this book, Tip is just wandering around. He rarely even feels like the main character. All his actions are driven by his companions and what they need to do. He's just a tag-along. Sure, his importance is made clear toward the end, but that doesn't change the issue of his lack of role or personality.
The other characters fared better. We were reunited with the Scarecrow and the Tin Woodman. There were also new characters like the not-so-smart Pumpkinhead, the maybe-too-smart Woggle-bug, as well as a few transportation devices brought to life. And there were some entertaining conversations, though I could've done without the repetitive brains are so great and, my heart is so great stuff.
So we followed Tip and others to the Emerald City, then to the Tin Woodman's "empire" and then to other places. And the goal kept changing. First, there wasn't one. Then the Emerald City was taken over by girls who wanted the city's wealth for jewels and dresses, so they needed to get the city back. But then it changed again.
I read in a review that this book acts as a bridge between the first book and the next four, which makes sense. Does that excuse the lack of an overarching plot? Not really. Fortunately, the book did improve the longer it went on. But I didn't like the way the story of the girls who took over the Emerald City was concluded. And I don't know how "good" Glinda really is considering she enslaves flying monkies and forbids the use of magic even though she uses it herself.
Overall, there were ups and downs, and the story does come off a tad dated, what with the women's fondness of superficial things. And kitchens, apparently. And for the majority of the novel, I was sure that this would be the last book in the series that I'd read. After the final few chapters, though, I'm not sure. We'll see, I guess.
This is the sequel to The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, which I'm still surprised even has a sequel. In this book, we're reunited with some old characters and introduced to some new ones. The protagonist is Tip. He's a boy who's being raised by the evil witch, Mombi, who is very mean to him. And when she threatens to turn him into a statue, he runs away.
Tip has no plans when he runs off. He just wants to get away from Mombi. On a whim, he decides to head to the Emerald City. And similar to how Tip has no goal in mind, the book itself is also quite aimless. With the first book, we knew that the goal was to get Dorothy back to her family. She met people on the way, there were obstacles to overcome and, in the end, they succeeded in their mission and Dorothy went home.
In this book, Tip is just wandering around. He rarely even feels like the main character. All his actions are driven by his companions and what they need to do. He's just a tag-along. Sure, his importance is made clear toward the end, but that doesn't change the issue of his lack of role or personality.
The other characters fared better. We were reunited with the Scarecrow and the Tin Woodman. There were also new characters like the not-so-smart Pumpkinhead, the maybe-too-smart Woggle-bug, as well as a few transportation devices brought to life. And there were some entertaining conversations, though I could've done without the repetitive brains are so great and, my heart is so great stuff.
So we followed Tip and others to the Emerald City, then to the Tin Woodman's "empire" and then to other places. And the goal kept changing. First, there wasn't one. Then the Emerald City was taken over by girls who wanted the city's wealth for jewels and dresses, so they needed to get the city back. But then it changed again.
I read in a review that this book acts as a bridge between the first book and the next four, which makes sense. Does that excuse the lack of an overarching plot? Not really. Fortunately, the book did improve the longer it went on. But I didn't like the way the story of the girls who took over the Emerald City was concluded. And I don't know how "good" Glinda really is considering she enslaves flying monkies and forbids the use of magic even though she uses it herself.
Overall, there were ups and downs, and the story does come off a tad dated, what with the women's fondness of superficial things. And kitchens, apparently. And for the majority of the novel, I was sure that this would be the last book in the series that I'd read. After the final few chapters, though, I'm not sure. We'll see, I guess.