Reviews tagging 'Death of parent'

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

23 reviews

booknerd_therapist's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Body shaming, Bullying, Death, Drug use, Infidelity, Religious bigotry, and Pregnancy

Moderate: Alcoholism, Animal death, Sexual content, Death of parent, Murder, and Classism

Minor: Cursing and Fatphobia

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: Animal cruelty, Child death, Death, Hate crime, Physical abuse, Racism, Rape, Self harm, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Slavery, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Death of parent, Murder, Pregnancy, Gaslighting, Toxic friendship, Colonisation, and War

wishbea'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, Death, Emotional abuse, and Infidelity

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

Minor: Miscarriage, Racism, Rape, Sexual violence, Slavery, Suicide, 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 cruelty, Animal death, Death, Gore, Infidelity, Physical abuse, Racism, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Violence, Blood, Death of parent, and Classism

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: Racism, Sexual content, and Toxic friendship

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

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

summerb's review against another edition

adventurous dark funny mysterious 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

4.5

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Animal death, Infidelity, Grief, Alcohol, and Classism

Minor: Animal death, Child death, Cursing, Death, Rape, Self harm, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, Violence, Blood, Vomit, Medical content, Kidnapping, Suicide attempt, Death of parent, Murder, Pregnancy, Fire/Fire injury, Alcohol, War, and Injury/Injury detail

susannaobrien's review against another edition

adventurous dark slow-paced

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

3.0

Pretty disappointed in this, but I may have been expecting it to be closer to the musical which I love. Fantasy fans may enjoy this more, but I found the meandering plot and many small characters hard to keep track of and quite tedious at times. The commentary on religious fanaticism and the way societal expectations can become self-fulfilling prophecies was interesting, but often overworked and written in dense, and at times impenetrable language. I also found Maguire's writing of Nessarosa's disability incredibly ableist, and sex and female desire pretty dated and unnecessarily vulgar. Glad I read as it satisfies a curiosity but ultimately it dragged for me.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Ableism, Child death, Rape, and Sexual content

Moderate: Animal death, Violence, and Death of parent

Minor: Adult/minor relationship, Slavery, Grief, and Religious bigotry

molliepop's review against another edition

Plot was too disjointed to justify spending a further 200+ pages on, no real character motives after a really strong first act. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body shaming, Blood, and Death of parent

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

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

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

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.

itry's review against another edition

dark sad tense slow-paced

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

0.25

Tw: murder, debauchery, sex, cheating, political intrigue, slavery, torture, pedophelia, rape. The last two being extremely prominent and occuring more than once??? Because why not i guess????
Also general depressing tone cus its a tragedy through and through

Toto i don't think we're in kansas anymore

So..... i read the book because i liked thw musical and was like hey ill like this
Welll
I didnt dislike it but i have no idea how the musical became so different from this
As a book it was interesting but the pacing felt a bit off and the time skips werent handled the best
Otherwise as a guilty pleasure, it was enjoyable
Im not gonna read the sequels though because this was depressing holy moly

Read through audiobook

Update: literally had through dissociation forgotten my dislike for the book and the,,,,,,,, y'all know what parts bothered me if y'all have read it and if y'all haven't read it, don't. Disgusting. Worse than attack on titan the mangas one horrifying scene that i try to actively block out of my head but that memory stays lol

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Ableism, Adult/minor relationship, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body horror, Body shaming, Bullying, Child abuse, Chronic illness, Death, Emotional abuse, Genocide, Gore, Hate crime, Infidelity, Mental illness, Misogyny, Pedophilia, Racism, Rape, Sexism, Sexual assault, Toxic relationship, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Xenophobia, Medical content, Trafficking, Kidnapping, Medical trauma, Death of parent, Murder, Pregnancy, Gaslighting, Toxic friendship, Abandonment, Sexual harassment, Colonisation, War, and Classism

Minor: Slavery and Deportation