Reviews with content warning for Religious bigotry - Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West

Reviews tagging 'Religious bigotry'

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

17 reviews

savage_book_review's review

I saw the musical 'Wicked' a couple of months ago and, while I did enjoy it, I wanted a little more depth of story so I did have half a mind to read the book. It was therefore a no brainer to add to my Audible library when I spotted it was included with my membership. At this point, I am incredibly glad I didn't pay for it! I will give credit to the people who wrote the musical... how they managed to extract their inspiration from this is something I will never understand!

First and foremost, my goodness is this slow going! It takes 3 hours for the book to do what the musical does in, oh, 10 minutes max and actually get Elpheba and Galinda to their first day at university. And in the 8 hours I listened to, I couldn't really tell you about any major plot points that happened - they were just heading off to the Emerald City when I gave up. It's like the author kept getting distracted and going off on unnecessary tangents; in fact, his writing reminds me of the dull professors he talks about! There was just NOTHING to keep you engaged as a reader/listener.

I also found the tone of the writing very odd. Now, I'll admit that I haven't read the original Wizard of Oz books, so my thoughts here could be a result of the gap in my knowledge. But I couldn't get my head around the semi-frequent swearing, allusions to sex and various instances of more 'adult' material, all of which feels completely at odds with some elements which feel very childish and simplistic. I was expecting more on the YA end of the spectrum, if I'm honest, so while I'm by no means a pearl-clutcher, the grown up stuff just threw me for a loop! It's like the author couldn't pick his audience, so we've got a random mashup of everything.

I also remember being slightly disconcerted by the seemingly racist, sexist and trasphobic undertones, all of which made an appearance within the first hour. There are also questionable depictions of disability (physical and mental), and I got really bored with the repeated assaults of thinly veiled religious theology. It's not a new book, I know, but it was still published within my lifetime and so with each instance it just felt less and less comfortable.

The characters were all pretty bland too. Galinda is your mean girl with her back up b*tches, Boq is the geek in love with the popular kid, Fiero has apparently been given one hell of a glow up in the musical, and Elpheba is actually quite unlikeable. There was just no character I felt a connection with or able to root for.

While the narrator was fairly easy to listen to and had plenty of animation in his voice, I just felt that it would have been better if the story had been narrated by a woman. I felt like I might have been able to connect with the main characters more if I could hear their voice, rather that (in my head at least) the Wizard speaking on their behalf. I'd also say that the sound quality was not the greatest (lots of swallowing, loud breathing etc), and his timing was really odd in places, with large pauses where there was no need, and no pauses where there should have been.

All of this ties up in the moment I decided to DNF. The gang of secondary characters have just held a wake for a minor character and decide that the most appropriate thing to do thereafter is go to a sex club. After drinking and dancing, they get taken into a 'special room', where one of their number is pulled onto the stage with a sentient Tiger and a woman on her honeymoon. The woman is tied up by her hands, our secondary character is wrapped around the Tiger koala style, they're all blindfolded and it's inferred that the evening's entertainment begins with the Tiger performing oral sex on the woman. And then, without a breath, suddenly we're with Elpheba and Galinda on their way to the Emerald City.

Yup, at that point my brain went 'we're DEFINITELY not in Kansas anymore!'

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poetry_birb's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional funny hopeful mysterious tense 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? It's complicated

3.25

It was so much weirder than the musical. I picked this up thinking it was going to be your standard villain origin story and instead I get Wizard of Oz smutty fanfiction. I suppose I should’ve expected that- but still- for this to have been turned into such a popular and well known musical blows my mind with how raunchy the source material is. It was a fine book but… would not read it again. I liked the racial allegory through the Animals and Elpheba’s defiance and perseverance, but man some of that stuff at the beginning was not needed at all. Definitely don’t recommend if you’re under 15. It was kind of wild.

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lateromantic's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious reflective medium-paced

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

2.5

This book is absolutely not what I was expecting. I don't know the show, only some of the songs from it, and I was not expecting it to be about racism and sedition. I am guessing they will have to change a LOT for the film, but that the undercurrent of racism will still be there... potentially more awkwardly if looking at the cast list is anything to go by (in a world where dwarfs are fully realised characters, you cast a dwarf as... an Animal? not the sexually appealing munchkin?? I get that Peter Dinklage is too old for that part but, like, he is not the only dwarf in the world...) For a 90s book that specifically references the UK as inspiration to give a sympathetic voice to an explicit terrorist freedom fighter is bold, and there's a pretty clear reference to AIDS in one character too, which was pretty brave. I'm assuming the musical questions morality significantly less, and focusses a lot less on worldbuilding.

I feel ill-placed to rate this book, as I don't tend to read this sort of fantasy with invented names and mapped-out worlds, but what I can say is that I was interested in the characters but not the situations they found themselves in - Maguire has created mature people and then made the relationships between them shallow and unbelievable. There is also far too much emphasis on children and the value of conception for my liking. Idk, a strange book, lovely philosophical moments and some fantastic quotes, but much too long and filled with odd choices that perhaps date back to the original LFB texts... and then at the end it just rattles along too quickly, with Elphaba turning mad in, like, 2 pages. I honestly don't know if I'd recommend it or not, and I don't know if I enjoyed it or not. Is one of the other books about Nessarose? I'm curious about how Maguire concieves her.

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honeybeewitched87's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional funny inspiring tense medium-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

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swhitzel's review against another edition

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slow-paced

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

What a useless story. So much character build up, so many possibilities, all for nothing. Pages and pages of rambling nonsense mixed in with small bits of interest and intrigue. Entirely anticlimactic.

A true waste of time. Genuinely amazed that this was the basis for such a fantastic stage play. It seems the musical pulled out the best pieces of the story. Wish I had left it there and not ventured further into this world.

A letdown.

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jerrysaywhaaa's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark sad slow-paced

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

3.0

I think overall that I enjoyed this story. It could have been trimmed down a bit and I do wish the whole thing more Elphaba’s story since the book is called The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West (the first half of the book is mostly about her mother, Glinda, Boq, and Fiyero).

I think that the musical actually improved on the overall story of Wicked, especially for Boq, the Lion, the Tinman, and the Scarecrow. I can only hope that the new movies take more from the novel to improve on the musical (I would love to see the inclusion of Sarima, her sisters, her children, and Liir).

Will I read the sequels? Maybe eventually, but this was a struggle to get through at parts.

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