My sister slept with the light on until she was 27. She rightfully blames me. I would leap out of closets with my hands made into claws. I would...
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bookduck19, January 1, 2013 (view all comments by bookduck19)
I loved this book and the background story it provides for the Wizard of Oz.I actually find it to be much more interesting than its well known companion.
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ReadABookADay, August 13, 2012 (view all comments by ReadABookADay)
This is the most tedious book I have had the misfortune to buy in many years. It is a true waste of a good concept. I am finding trouble finding bad enough things to say about this pointless waste of ink and paper. On the plus side, if I can't manage to sell it back to a used book store, shredded paper is a fine addition to a kitchen compost pile.
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jerikajoy, August 12, 2012 (view all comments by jerikajoy)
This is the kind of book that is not only delightfully captivating- with it's brilliant humor and witty characters- but also one that can really make a person look at the world from a new perspective. If this book doesn't make you think about the world we live in, then you aren't paying any attention.
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Kari Strong, May 5, 2012 (view all comments by Kari Strong)
I like the movie Wizard of Oz. I loved the play Wicked. But the book is something entirely different. It's so much more. The wicked side of Wicked is very enticing. Wicked is a completely different realm than the lollipop kids or Miss Dorothy. It's a tale of how the Wicked Witch became so wicked. I engulfed this book and if you think the Wizard of Oz could have used a lot more spice then this is the tale you have been waiting for.
Melinda Spencer, September 3, 2011 (view all comments by Melinda Spencer)
A fantastic re-imagination of a classic story from a different point of view. This story shows the reader that there is more beyond the surface of any story and that everything in life is much more complicated than it appears to be. Every decision, big or small, can change the course of history.
"Review"
by The Times-Picayune,
"Children — children of all ages, as Maguire reminds us in this splendid novel — need witches. Gregory Maguire has taken this figure of childhood fantasy and given her a sensual and powerful nature that will stir adult hearts with fear and longing all over again. It's a brilliant trick — and a remarkable treat."
"Review"
by School Library Journal,
"It is to [Maguire's] everlasting credit that he has succeeded so admirably that his book stands as an independent and inspired whole; it is also very close to being an instant classic....Maguire has hit a home run his first time at bat. That Wicked is a first novel is remarkable because it is so fully realized, so rich and involving. It is the most seamless interweaving of fantasy and reality since John Crowley's peerless Little, Big, written in poetic language as graceful as a Ray Boldger tap-dance."
"Review"
by USA Today,
"An outstanding work of imagination."
"Review"
by Kirkus Reviews,
"Save a place on the shelf between Alice and The Hobbit — that spot is well deserved."
"Review"
by New Orleans Times-Picayune,
"Gregory Maguire has taken this figure of childhood fantasy and given her a sensual and powerful nature that will stir adult hearts with fear and longing all over again."
"Review"
by New York Newsday,
"Gregory Maguire's shrewdly imagined first novel...is part fantasy thriller, part psychological study, part political cautionary tale. It's all fascinating. And it's impossible to deny the magic of Gregory Maguire."
"Review"
by Los Angeles Times,
"It's a staggering feat of wordcraft, made no less so by the fact that its boundaries were set decades ago by somebody else. Maguire's larger triumph here is twofold: First, in Elphaba, he has created (re-created? renovated?) one of the great heroines in fantasy literature: a fiery, passionate, unforgettable and ultimately tragic figure. Second, Wicked is the best fantasy novel of ideas I've read since Mervyn Peake's Gormenghast or Frank Herbert's Dune. Would that all books with this much innate consumer appeal were also this good. And vice versa."
"Review"
by Newsday,
"Listen up, Munchkins. Stop your singing, stop the dancing. The Wicked Witch is no longer dead. But not to worry. Gregory Maguire's shrewdly imagined and beautifully written first novel, Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West, not only revives her but re-envisions and redeems her for our times."
"Review"
by Publishers Weekly,
"Maguire combines puckish humor and bracing pessimism in this fantastical meditation on good and evil, God and free will, which should...captivate devotees of fantasy."
"Synopsis"
by Libri,
An astonishingly rich re-creation of the land of Oz, this book retells the story of Elphaba, the Wicked Witch of the West, who wasn't so wicked after all. Taking readers past the yellow brick road and into a phantasmagoric world rich with imagination and allegory, Wicked just might change the reputation of one of the most sinister characters in literature.
"Synopsis"
by Harper Collins,
This is the book that started it all! The basis for the smash hit Tony Award-winning Broadway musical, Gregory Maguire's breathtaking New York Times bestseller Wicked views the land of Oz, its inhabitants, its Wizard, and the Emerald City, through a darker and greener (not rosier) lens. Brilliantly inventive, Wicked offers us a radical new evaluation of one of the most feared and hated characters in all of literature: the much maligned Wicked Witch of the West who, as Maguire tells us, wasnt nearly as Wicked as we imagined.
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