A review by editorsansserif
Out of Oz by Gregory Maguire
3.0
On closing the back cover of Out of Oz, I was left shifting with disappointment on the couch, metaphorically grasping for there to be more to the end of this series, or even to the end of this tale.
Like many others, I was blown away by [b:Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West|37442|Wicked The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West (The Wicked Years, #1)|Gregory Maguire|http://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1370992578s/37442.jpg|1479280]; and I loyally persisted through books two and three. Each subsequent book had a lesser impact on me than the first, but I still cherished their stories, lingered in their endings for weeks. Yet when I woke the next morning after finishing Out of Oz, I felt nothing. The story had finally ended, but not with some sort of singing triumph or great mystery: no, it was about as flat and safe as your regular old airport landing of a 747.
Maguire has never lost a charming way with words, a capability to use language with richness and reach into the inner world of many characters at once. This novel's plot, however, nudged forward slowly as it strung from one introspective session to the next, while the characters outwardly spent most of the novel listlessly doing little of nothing. Threads of the story were dropped and then picked up far later, as if forgotten, and casually brought back in as if such a long lapse had meant nothing.
The finale of the book (and series) was so sudden and brief in comparison, but in the end, it left the impression of an old, knitted sweater left on a couch, mostly done but without the ends tied up.
Like many others, I was blown away by [b:Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West|37442|Wicked The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West (The Wicked Years, #1)|Gregory Maguire|http://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1370992578s/37442.jpg|1479280]; and I loyally persisted through books two and three. Each subsequent book had a lesser impact on me than the first, but I still cherished their stories, lingered in their endings for weeks. Yet when I woke the next morning after finishing Out of Oz, I felt nothing. The story had finally ended, but not with some sort of singing triumph or great mystery: no, it was about as flat and safe as your regular old airport landing of a 747.
Maguire has never lost a charming way with words, a capability to use language with richness and reach into the inner world of many characters at once. This novel's plot, however, nudged forward slowly as it strung from one introspective session to the next, while the characters outwardly spent most of the novel listlessly doing little of nothing. Threads of the story were dropped and then picked up far later, as if forgotten, and casually brought back in as if such a long lapse had meant nothing.
The finale of the book (and series) was so sudden and brief in comparison, but in the end, it left the impression of an old, knitted sweater left on a couch, mostly done but without the ends tied up.