Reviews tagging 'Racism'

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

17 reviews

jadonmorgs's review against another edition

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

verinvaldez's review against another edition

dark mysterious slow-paced

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

3.0

Extremely different to the musical Wicked! the tone of this is much darker with murder and unnecessary sexual content. Far too many time skips, at least 4 major time skips spanning years of Elphaba's life. The plot of the Wizard of Oz makes an appearance, but the portrayal of Dorothy here doesn't quite fit this darker story. I think the Shiz portion is when the book is at its best both character wise and regarding the political, religious and moral themes. Elphaba is a very fascinating main character but she is incredibly unlikeable outside of her passion about her beliefs about Animal rights. 

If you are interested in this book because of the musical be very aware that this is extremely different,  it isn't just darker, Fiyero is a side character, Glinda is a minor character, Boq has a larger role and shares only his crush on Glinda with his musical counterpart and Elphaba is no magical prodigy.

If you want a book that explores the mentality of the Wicked Witch of the West, this is for you.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Infidelity, Death, and Emotional abuse

Moderate: Animal death, Bullying, Murder, Pregnancy, Child death, Police brutality, Sexism, Body shaming, Classism, Grief, Fatphobia, Injury/Injury detail, Kidnapping, Sexual content, and Violence

Minor: Miscarriage, Racism, Suicide, Rape, Sexual violence, Slavery, Death of parent, and Fire/Fire injury

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

mrsmower's review against another edition

dark emotional funny mysterious sad tense slow-paced

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

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual content, Racism, and Toxic friendship

Moderate: Religious bigotry, Murder, Genocide, Infidelity, and Classism

Minor: Animal death, Addiction, Mental illness, Death of parent, and Animal cruelty

greenrequiem's review against another edition

adventurous dark slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Racism, Xenophobia, and Sexual content

Moderate: Sexual assault

apersonfromflorida's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious slow-paced

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

2.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Child abuse, Death, and Sexual violence

Moderate: Violence, Racism, Infidelity, and Police brutality

Minor: Child death

rebeccafarren's review against another edition

reflective slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Slavery, Religious bigotry, Animal death, Ableism, Racism, Sexual content, Sexual harassment, Sexual violence, Xenophobia, Transphobia, Suicidal thoughts, Murder, Emotional abuse, Blood, and Animal cruelty

purplehulk713's review against another edition

I got bored. The musical is just better—much more entertaining and engaging, and not nearly as dense. There are just so many details that seem unnecessary like everyone’s perspectives that make the book feel eternal (why do we need know Boq’s perspective?). Maybe if Maguire had chosen to tell it from one perspective like the musical does, it would have just been easier to understand and enjoyable to read. I felt like it’s something I needed to read because I like the musical and thought I should read the source material. I just thought it would be interesting to see how they differed, but then I realized I can look that up and spend much less time on Maguire’s dense prose.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcohol, Hate crime, Violence, Racism, and Racial slurs

Minor: Rape

sarah2438's review against another edition

2.0

I did not like this. I've heard the show is better-- it would have to be, right?
I don't consider myself easily scandalized by things like *nudity* or *infidelity* but this book took it so much farther than was necessary. I mean there's a freaking threesome with a tiger and it serves NO PURPOSE. All of these people just out here cheating on everyone with no consequences. And everyone, including kids, getting naked all the time for no reason. At one point even the landscape was described as being erotic-- what does that even mean?? It was just weird, made weirder by the fact that this all stems from a CHILDREN'S STORY. You can darkly retell a classic without taking it to this level.
If you can get past that, this book is still a mess. It needed to be trimmed down-- there was so much that felt unnecessary and just bogged down the plot. The plot itself was clunky and meandering. The characters, even Elphaba at times, felt shallow and under developed. The faux depth had me wondering "am I dumb or is this just... boring? And maybe doesn't make sense?" But my lovely buddy in this buddy read had the same issue.
It's really frustrating because there's glimpses where I can see what the author was trying to do, or there's a good line here and there, so I think he might actually be a good writer. But this just wasn't good.
Overall, I would've DNF'd if I wasn't doing a buddy read. I don't hate it, so it's not quite one star, but I wouldn't recommend this.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Infidelity, Sexual content, and Bullying

Moderate: Animal cruelty, Racism, and Child abuse

Minor: Child death, Genocide, Sexual assault, and Ableism

gayghostprince's review against another edition

challenging dark reflective sad slow-paced

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

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Abandonment, Death, Death of parent, Emotional abuse, Grief, Infidelity, Murder, Sexual content, Animal cruelty, Child abuse, Child death, and Violence

Moderate: Toxic friendship, War, Xenophobia, Animal death, Body shaming, Bullying, Fatphobia, Hate crime, Police brutality, Racism, Rape, Sexism, Sexual assault, and Fire/Fire injury

Minor: Colonisation, Dementia, Drug use, Alcohol, Homophobia, Religious bigotry, Slavery, Suicidal thoughts, and Transphobia

I never finished this book when I was younger but I was immediately struck by how vile all the adults in this book are upon rereading it. there are no assault scenes, but people do mention r*pe. the descriptions and implications about specific groups in this people are racist and stereotypical, but not often aggressively malicious. a LOT of the treatment of children in this book is upsetting. content warning for family baggage and child neglect. in addition, late in the book a child is pretty relentlessly bullied by his peers. I added a minor homophobia warning because the way people describe the two obviously gay characters is often homophobic. just coincidentally describing them as simpering or whatever. the equivalent of calling a gay man a fairy, you know? the sex scenes in this book are not detailed or graphic but they are also not well written. take that as you will.