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A review by yeller
Son of a Witch by Gregory Maguire
3.0
I've seen a lot of complaints about this book, and I agree with a lot of them. This book was chronically mediocre, it didn't stand up to how wonderful Wicked was. I adored Wicked, it was my favorite book for years. I bought this book early, shortly after he published the third book in this series, so I could get it signed by him when he came to visit my town. I tried reading it three times and couldn't get into it, and didn't know why. Now, having finished it, I do know why.
First off, the pacing is wildly off. Maguire adds long, philosophical tangents that are interesting, but add absolutely nothing to the story. He adds tangents about uninteresting characters (there was WAY too much about the maunts) and drags on Liir's illness and journeys way too long. There's little that happens in the majority of the book, simply because Liir just hems and haws for hundreds pages and frets about his lifelong identity crisis. It just drags on way too long without much happening.
Another problem I had with it was the characters, of course. They are half-drawn and undeveloped. A lot of them had the potential to be interesting, but just fell so flat, like Trism and Princess Nastoya, Sisters Apothicaire and Doctor. Others just weren't developed at all and didn't have a chance, like all of the Animals. Obviously, background characters are important and not usually fleshed out, but almost none of the characters were fully fleshed or interesting. All of them seemed like fleeting, uninteresting interruptions in a book that was already uninteresting. Liir is also not all that sympathetic a character. His identity crisis, which makes up the majority of his character and life, is uninteresting. His constant self-deprecations are not charming, but annoying. He just falls completely flat of being interesting or engaging or relatable.
Notice that I did give it three stars, rather than one or two. There were parts that I enjoyed, and characters I enjoyed. I wished we'd learned more about Shell, about Liir's time with the army, about Commander Cherrystone, about how the government was functioning. I think, in this case, having a third person limited voice for the book was a bad choice because it left all the action out. I loved the bit about Southstairs. There were parts that were interesting and engaging, they were just few and far between. There were, however, enough interesting parts to keep me forcing myself through the novel.
All in all, I wouldn't particularly recommend this book unless you desperately want to know what happens to Oz after Elphaba and Dorothy leave it. I am dearly in love with Oz, both Baum's and Maguire's, and I will continue reading the series just to see how the politics and international relations continue, but I hope the main character and voice and plot gets better in the next two.
First off, the pacing is wildly off. Maguire adds long, philosophical tangents that are interesting, but add absolutely nothing to the story. He adds tangents about uninteresting characters (there was WAY too much about the maunts) and drags on Liir's illness and journeys way too long. There's little that happens in the majority of the book, simply because Liir just hems and haws for hundreds pages and frets about his lifelong identity crisis. It just drags on way too long without much happening.
Another problem I had with it was the characters, of course. They are half-drawn and undeveloped. A lot of them had the potential to be interesting, but just fell so flat, like Trism and Princess Nastoya, Sisters Apothicaire and Doctor. Others just weren't developed at all and didn't have a chance, like all of the Animals. Obviously, background characters are important and not usually fleshed out, but almost none of the characters were fully fleshed or interesting. All of them seemed like fleeting, uninteresting interruptions in a book that was already uninteresting. Liir is also not all that sympathetic a character. His identity crisis, which makes up the majority of his character and life, is uninteresting. His constant self-deprecations are not charming, but annoying. He just falls completely flat of being interesting or engaging or relatable.
Notice that I did give it three stars, rather than one or two. There were parts that I enjoyed, and characters I enjoyed. I wished we'd learned more about Shell, about Liir's time with the army, about Commander Cherrystone, about how the government was functioning. I think, in this case, having a third person limited voice for the book was a bad choice because it left all the action out. I loved the bit about Southstairs. There were parts that were interesting and engaging, they were just few and far between. There were, however, enough interesting parts to keep me forcing myself through the novel.
All in all, I wouldn't particularly recommend this book unless you desperately want to know what happens to Oz after Elphaba and Dorothy leave it. I am dearly in love with Oz, both Baum's and Maguire's, and I will continue reading the series just to see how the politics and international relations continue, but I hope the main character and voice and plot gets better in the next two.