This is the second book by Gregory McGuire I have read. I tried Mirror Mirror in high school and didn't care for it. This book was highly recommended by several of my friends, so I reluctantly gave it a try. I remain unimpressed. McGuire mixes in poorly developed political strife and intrigue with overuse of words like "cock," and people call him brilliant. He's not. His writing ends up being pretentious, boring, and at times pointlessly crude and offensive. Yes, the alternative fairy tale is a fun idea, but my suggestion is to try Mercedes Lackey or Robin Mckinley, but stay away from McGuire. ( )

Hah! Finished! And it's going straight to Bookmooch.

Wicked: if you were thinking of reading it, don't bother. And if you've seen the musical, especially don't bother - there is no resemblance other than some names as far as I can tell, and it would probably offend you.

This book is... I don't even know where to start. This probably won't be a very coherent post.

My first and foremost complaint is the explicit content - totally gratuitous, adds nothing to the plot, and jumps out at you when you least expect it. Stop it! I hate that. There were points where I was on the verge of giving up every few pages.

It's inconsistently written. It's split into several distinct parts, and each one reads like it was written by a different author. The Shiz university section was the most coherent and readable, the rest was generally meandering and confusing. Plot lines makes no sense, characters' actions make no sense, and most of all, characters speech is completely random and makes no sense, especially towards the latter parts. It's a bit like the author had a big bag of actions and phrases and just reached in, pulled out stuff, and stuck it together at random.

The structure runs something like this:

Early years: weird, explicit
Shiz: readable, except for the gross explicit
Emerald City: random, slow
Vinkus: random, deathly slow, mostly pointless
Last few chapters: QuickFinishItNowWe'veGotToPublishTomorrow! Utterly inconsistent.

I liked Fiyero a little bit, but he has no characterisation at all. I actually like Elphaba a lot, which is part of why I'm so annoyed with this book. I feel offended on her behalf that her story was written like this! If I could write, I'd want to write the book again to do her justice. The other characters we're uniformly un-endearing.

It could have been done so much better. ( )

What an epic! I picked this book up after I had heard the musical soundtrack. The musical is lovely, but does not do this book justice. If you liked the musical, this book will take you twice as deep into their world. It is dark and a very good read. ( )

Wow! There is so much involved in Wicked. There is quite obviously a politcal theme to the book. Maguire explores several other themes as well: Good vs. Evil, Predestination vs. Free Will, Religion, Magic, Relationships, and the list goes on. It is a fantastic, thought provoking epic. ( )

I loved this & thought it was alot of fun..very entertaining & funny!!! Who would've thought..a book about the life of the Wicked Witch! She actually had friends? WOW! :) ( )