Play Book Tag discussion

Wicked – Gregory Maguire
Audiobook narrated by John McDonough
2.5**

Subtitle: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West

This is a re-telling of The Wizard of Oz, told from the viewpoint of Elphaba, the “Wicked” Witch of the West.

I’ve had this on my tbr since shortly after it came out, having been a long-time fan of the classic movie starring Judy Garland. But for whatever reason, I just never got around to reading Maguire’s version. I have never even seen the hit Broadway musical based on this book, though I certainly love some of the music from that show. I did read another of Maguire’s re-tellings - Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister (Cinderella) – with my F2F book club some years back. I liked it but wasn’t blown away; still I was predisposed to liking this book.

I thought Maguire’s book went just too far afield in directions I never expected. Some of the scenes were downright disturbing (for example: (view spoiler)[sex that involved dismemberment and cannibalism! (hide spoiler)]). I also thought the plot dragged in places. This wasn’t helped by the fact that I had just read another Oz re-telling whose plot moved MUCH faster.

Still, it’s definitely imaginative, and there are some scenes that really forced me to think about assumptions, first impressions, and entrenched behaviors. So, while I can’t say I particularly enjoyed the book, I am glad to have finally read it, and I’ll round up my rating to 3*.

John McDonogh does a fine job performing the audiobook. His diction is clear, and I was rarely confused about who was speaking. I did have a copy of the text handy, and did a little speed-reading for part of it when I felt the plot was moving too slowly. The text also has a map of Oz which was helpful.


LINK to my review

I never read this, but I did see the Broadway Production and I took my daughter (who was pre-teen at the time)-(view spoiler)[I surely do not remember any blatant sex scenes and no cannibalism! (hide spoiler)]!!!
I guess this is one of those where the stage production must be better than then the book!

I read this back when the musical was still new (early high school), and was ehh. One one side, it's nice to have the backstory of it all- I thought the Animal thing got a little political for my tastes. I also don't remember any cannibalism but I may have "blocked it out" lol. It's been a long time, so I want to reread this- but I have a feeling my rating would only be a 3.

Musical on the other hand is 5 star!! I've seen it 4 times now, once in NYC, twice with the touring cast, and two years ago in London on the West End (hubbys first time seeing it). New touring cast is coming in about a month to my city, so I'm considering seeing it again, I'd pull the trigger but tickets are about $75 per person, which is more than I paid to see it in London even with the currency exchange....

This is been on my TBR for forever! So much so, that I actually put it as a number 36 for trim. Was hoping retellings would match it. I got to get to it sooner or later.

I listened to the audio too and I love John McDonough's reading. The hardest part of that for me was that he also narrated the entire Mitford series and, when I heard his voice, my mind went to that delight series of books - to me MDonough WAS Father Tim. It took a while to get past that.

I should double check, but I think I rated this "ok". For me, though, it was all the philosophy that drew it down for me. (Based on memory from reading it a number of years ago!)

I was interested in this book, but never bought it and based on the comments in this thread I will leave it off the TBR.

I absolutely loathed this book! Why did I loathe it so much? Because I thought it was mean-spirited, even downright nasty most of the time. Hateful. I actually loved the idea of it - and the others he's written, but I got rid of every single other book I had acquired without reading them because Wicked just left me with such a bad feeling.

The musical Wicked is a vast improvement over the book IMHO. In fact the positive message that the musical imparts is so far from what's in the book, there's basically no real connection other than basic plot line.

Theresa wrote: "I absolutely loathed this book! Why did I loathe it so much? Because I thought it was mean-spirited, even downright nasty most of the time. Hateful. I actually loved the idea of it - and the others..."

Thank you, Teresa. That's exactly how I felt about the book. I haven't been at all tempted to read anything else that he's written.