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Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West
- ISBN13: 9780060987107
- Condition: New
- Notes: BUY WITH CONFIDENCE, Over one million books sold! 98% Positive feedback. Compare our books, prices and service to the competition. 100% Satisfaction Guaranteed
When Dorothy triumphed over the Wicked Witch of the West in L. Frank Baum’s classic tale, we heard only her side of the story. But what about her arch-nemesis, the mysterious witch? Where did she come from? How did she become so wicked? And what is the true nature of evil?
Gregory Maguire creates a fantasy world so rich and vivid that we will never look at Oz the same way again. Wicked is about a land where animals talk and strive to be treated like first-class citizens, Munchkinlanders seek the comfort of middle-class stability and the Tin Man becomes a victim of domestic violence. And then there is the little green-skinned girl named Elphaba, who will grow up to be the infamous Wicked Witch of the West, a smart, prickly and misunderstood creature who challenges all our preconceived notions about the nature of good and evil.
Rating: 
(out of 1694 reviews)
List Price: $ 16.00
Price: $ 2.70
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#2 written by Christian 1 year ago
Review by Christian for Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West
Rating:
If you go into this story with expectations of a retelling of the classic “Wizard of Oz”, then you may be disappointed…but enter with an open mind and a desire to be fully entertained, you’ll find yourself incredibly satisfied by the end of this “Wicked”-good book.Gregory Maguire sets out on an ambitious journey into the story that we grew up with, but by giving it a clever twist and fleshing out the characters we never got to know in the original. Yes, we all know about Dorothy and her annoying little dog…the twister, the house… But, how much were we told about how Oz came to be, or Munchkinland, or the Wizard himself? We were expected to accept these places and things as they were, without any explanation, and as kids, we did. We accepted that Glinda was the good witch and that the Wicked Witch of the West was evil…but why? Well, when you read “Wicked”, you get the story, warts and all! You find that perhaps the Wicked Witch of the West (born Elphaba) wasn’t entirely acting out of pure evil at all, nor was Glinda acting on behalf of all that’s good. You find that perhaps there was a lot more going on in that particular world than you ever imagined…but luckily for all of us, Maguire does an excellent job of imagining it for us! The politics, the treachery, the origin of The Wiz himself…all of this included in this highly readable, immensely likeable book!Don’t start it expecting to read another take on Dorothy or her adventure in the “wonderful Land of Oz”. She doesn’t even enter into the picture until the very end! What you will find is an incredibly imagined story, for adults, that you’ll find yourself thinking about for a long time after you’ve finished reading it! -
#3 written by Anonymous 1 year ago
Review by for Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West
Rating:
I must start this review by saying that it is certainly not a book you can take lightly. It takes some serious effort to stick with it, particularly once you get about half way through and the more light-hearted experiences of Elphaba, the wicked witch, at Shiz fade into her darker, secretive experiences at the Emerald City. After two failed attempts to tackle to book, fascinated by the subject matter both times, I finally got through it, inspired to read it because of the Broadway musical based on the book that I found myself mesmerized by (go see it, despite how different it is).The book is a richly textured account of the life of the Wicked Witch of the West, here given an actual name, Elphaba, as she moves from student at Shiz University, an outcast and roommate to G(a)linda, to secretive activist in the Emerald City, to maunt (nun), to Auntie Witch, later to become The Wicked Witch of the West. Throughout, the detailed religion, culture, and government of Oz supplement the narrative beautifully, adding depth to what could have been simply an unfounded story of what could happen to some flatly portrayed green girl from Oz. This story really makes you care for the witch and understand that even the most evil of people could simply be the victims of chance. I thought the book began and ended very strongly, but the narrative sagged a bit in the middle, particularly as Elphaba becomes a nun and travels rather boringly across the desert to the Winkie stronghold of Kiamo Ko. The story stays rather low-key for a while, but picks up when some more familiar characters, such as Nessarose, Elphaba’s sister, Elphaba’s father, Frexspar, and Glinda, reenter the novel. From this point out, the novel receives its well-deserved finale, in which it goes out with a bold glory rarely seen in novels.Of course, no life is without its dull moments, and even these are not completely flat. The prose is witty and never becomes to boorish. What really mesmerized me was fitting together the story in this novel into the context of the original Oz book and movie of the same (revised) name. I would reccomend this to someone who has quite a bit of undistracted time. It’s important not to take very long breaks in reading this novel, as the details become more important toward the end, when the witch begins looking back upon her life. The novel should be a very interesting read for anyone familiar with The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum or the movie from MGM. Its richly detailed characters and interesting plot choices make for a wonderful read that you’re surely not soon to forget. Tough it out through the middle so you can finish this great book. -
#4 written by EquiPro 1 year ago
Review by EquiPro for Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West
Rating:
I’ve read many of the reviews of Wicked and I just don’t get it.So many, even when they revile the plot, the content, the story itself, deem Mr. Maguire a “literary genius” with words. I see none of that. In a great story, especially one of fantasy, we should feel swept away by the tale, captivated by the writer’s language and enveloped by every sentence. Instead of creating this safe haven for us to enjoy by making his words RELATIBLE, he seems to go out of his way to show us what fancy verbiage he can pull off, regardless of whether it improves the story for it’s reader or not. It doesn’t.
I’m not impressed by Mr. Maguire’s vocabulary. In fact, it is one of the most annoying parts of an amazingly annoying book.
These are my complaints, along with the verbiage issue:
1) Mr. Maguire makes the book excessively complicated by adding in made-up factors which are essential to the plot, but which he never explains to us,
regardless of how verbose he is.For example, by the time I was 2/3 of the way through, I realized that I still didn’t understand the “time dragon” or any of the religions or basic politics that are so crucial to his story. He never bothers to explain these things, but carries on long, boring conversations between his characters that revolve around them. It’s like sitting down to a meal with 20 people speaking a foreign language. After a while it just exhausting and mind numbing.
2) Mr. Maguire jumps around – usually just when things are getting good.
We spend goodness-knows how many pages dealing with Elphaba and her family before she even utters her first word and then, just when the plot FINALLY goes somewhere…*poof*….she 17 and off to college. This happens continually. I kept thinking that it was going to become some sort of cliff-hanger where he goes back and we get to REALLY hear the good stuff. Nope. He moves on and that’s it. Where’s the payoff for the reader? We put up with all of that blah, blah, blah and then he just SKIPS ahead when it gets good?
HE DOES THIS EVERY SINGLE TIME. Beware. You have been warned.
3) He skips the interesting characters and spends pages and pages on the ones that you could care less about.
In another one of his jumps, we never know what happens to Elphaba’s TRUE father because it just ends with all of the characters in limbo, then, in a passing phrase, we find out that he was murdered – something to do with that ‘ole time dragon again. Then he’s on to something else. Hundreds and hundreds of words and pages have gone plodding by, and one of the more interesting things gets nothing more than a passing reference.
4) He spends pages and pages on THINGS that you don’t care about, describing them into minutia with his wordy, verbose language.
I think that if I had had to read one more word about Elphaba’s journey to the castle, I was going to tear my hair out. The description went on and on and was so boring and wordy. Blech. Skip that stuff! Geeze – tell us the GOOD stuff. Tell us exactly how they killed Fiero. Oh, I forgot, he skipped that part.
5) Elphaba is nasty, annoying and never grows emotionally.
Get some therapy, Elphi. Her POV was just annoying, hardly sympathetic. Obviously, after she learned to speak , she simply became a teenager and never grew past that.
6) The sex scenes and the violence are dull. Just because there is sex between humans and other species doesn’t make it good reading or erotic. It’s been done before and CERTAINLY done much better.
and the very worst thing:
THERE IS NO PAYOFF. NONE! I hung in there, and hung in there hoping that he would wrap things up and explain things at some point and give SOME sort of emotional satisfaction for having dealt with pages and pages and hours and hours of his slog, and he just rushes through the Dorothy part and it’s over. I’m furious.
Overall, I hated it. I’m astounded that so many liked it. I regret picking it up. Unlike others, I wish that I could give it “no stars” – the writer’s ability create an imaginary world should be a given and he gets no credit for that from me.
SEE THE SHOW: The broadway show is wonderful and amazing. It is everything that this book is not. However, don’t go thinking that they have much in common, because they don’t. The plot in the show makes sense, is interesting (far more interesting than the plot in the book), creates characters with whom you really become involved AND gives you a GREAT payoff in the end, explaining things in a MUCH better way and giving you a WONDERFUL and different point of view of the whole story of Oz. The show is one of the best that I have ever seen, and I have seen quite a few. Don’t miss Julie Murney as Elphaba, if you get a chance.
THE SHOW: 2 THUMBS UP, 4 STARS, DON’T MISS IT!
THE BOOK: 2 thumbs down, 0 stars, skip it.
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#5 written by Growllingbear 1 year ago
Review by Growllingbear for Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West
Rating:
If you can find a better bang for the buck than Wicked, please let me know. I picked up Wicked, knowing nothing except that its subject matter was the Wicked Witch of the West, to be drawn immediately into Maguire’s splendidly imagined world of sentient animals, multiple societies, and unique physical laws. Wicked is an enthralling, great read, hugely entertaining. On top of all this, Maguire has Bradbury’s gift for creating atmosphere. The pages are heavy with dark, mysterious magic; its moral laws are ultimately incomprehensible.Apparently doomed at conception, Elphaba is a truly terrifying infant. Razor-toothed and preternaturally intelligent, she is shunned from birth as a freak and a curse. She is nonetheless the tale’s most complex, human, and compelling character, possessed of high moral sense and great courage. But neither of these qualities enables a single one of her brave, ethical actions to succeed. What are we to conclude from this?How is it that Dorothy, the sturdy little nobody from nowhere who committed manslaughter as she landed in Oz, skips down the Yellow Brick Road impervious to danger while Elphaba strives and plots to reap only negative results?Why is one protected while the other is doomed? Read Wicked and you will learn how the witch’s monkeys became winged, where the rubies for those slippers came from, and, indeed, why the witch’s skin was green. But you will wrestle, long afterward, with Maguire’s moral pessimism and the snarl of grace and doom that underlies this novel. I know I will.
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Review by Bedeviled Haberdasher for Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West
Rating:
After hearing so many sparkling comments and reading stellar reviews, I was eager to begin Gregory Maguire’s novel, Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West. As I began the story about little Elphaba and her promiscuous mother, her zealous father and the world they lived in, I waited patiently to get to the meat of the story, and the history of a timeless character. Unfortunately, I waited, and waited, and then finally reached the back cover and realised I was still waiting!
Even early on, I had trouble connecting with a single character. I found myself not really caring what happened to any of them, but I pressed on. As I did, it became clear that the reason I felt so disconnected was that the characters were equally disconnected. There was no feeling, no devotion, no love, no admiration, no hatred, no disgust. I knew that people were friends because I was told. I knew that Elphaba felt kindly towards Galinda because it was in black and white in front of me. Relationships came forth like Juno from the brow of Zeus; no development of any kind, simply born whole and unquestioned.
And Love. Love, the fifth element (if I may be so bold), has no boundaries and follows no set rules. But it has to be nurtured as it’s as delicate as it is strong. All true loves are disected and picked apart in an attempt to see how they work. Not so with Elphaba and Fiyero. They simply love. We don’t get the chance to know about that first flutter in Elphaba’s breast, or the stirring in Fiyero’s heart. We have no opportunity to question his infidelity with Elphie, but not with his sisters-in-law. What about this woman makes her so special to him? We’ll never know.
Nor will we ever understand how Nessarose, the much loved younger sister, is displayed as a tyrant in her world. One moment she is giving out awards at some public event (a very untyrantlike thing to do I add), and the next moment she is a splat on the pavement with a house on her head. Her shoes, her blessed shoes, red and glinting in the sun, a symbol of…what? We’re not sure. Certainly the wizard could tell us, but he doesn’t.
On and on the story goes, dropping characters in willy nilly without so much as a blurb about their importance. We never meet Shell, the youngest and most complete sibling. Nor do we get a firm sense of Liir and the other (more legitimate) children that Fiyero fathered. And while the subject is touched on, no real reason for HOW the Wicked Witch of the West became just that is ever given.
What we are given is a healthy dose of politics. Politics that go no where, and compare to nothing.
Over all this novel reads like a poorly written assignment handed in by a college freshman who has no experience to draw on or emotions to invest.
“Class, today you will select a person from literary history and give them a new life! Make it 300+ pages, to be handed in by semesters end. Hop to it.”
At the end of the day, I felt no richer for having read this book and appalled that it had gained so much praise. But then I felt perhaps some of the blame had been my own. The title is: Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West. It implies a straightforward, telling of the happenings and events in this one characters world. It was simply my mistake to assume I’d discover a vibrant flesh and blood character brought to life in these pages.
I’ve learned my lesson. You can tell a book by it’s cover, or in this case, it’s title.