Review of Gregory Maguire's "Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West"

(Written Dec. 1, 2011) 

When I got this book for my birthday back in 2002 and tried reading it, I wasn't able to pass the very first page. It annoyed and angered me. But since it had so many good reviews (and so many bad ones, as I discovered later on), I thought it wasn't my time and put it away for later perusal. 

Now, nine years later, I couldn’t put it down. This, I realized, wasn’t because this is such a great read, or because it’s such a good story. For one the language annoyed the hell out of me. I had to read several passages numerous times, and even then had a hard time understanding what the author was trying to say. I think he was trying to write in an older tongue, but I don’t see the reason for that. Was it because he wanted to make it more of a period piece? Because I'm positive he doesn't speak like that in life, no one in this century does or did in the 20th. I didn’t mind that there were words I had to look up in a dictionary, but I did mind that the language and the phrases were so coy, that they needed deciphering. 

I looked through some of the reviews on this book and realized that it got either “hate it” or “love it”. It’s not a very universal read. Lots of people, who like the musical, hated the book. I think it’s because the book and the musical are different entities now; very different in their genre, their style and their content. The book is philosophical and very dark. By ‘dark’ I don’t mean the story, I mean the journey the heronine of this book takes. 

I also disliked some of the strong sexual content in it, not because I’m close-minded (not at all), but because I didn't think  it added anything to the story. While some of the sexual scenes were necessary for the story and the book wouldn’t be without them, I thought most of it was there merely for shock value. 

All the way throughout the book I asked myself “would I recommend it to anyone?” I still don’t have an answer to that. But still, I went on. I wanted to see how it would tie up with "Wizard of Oz". 

This book didn’t demonstrate its advertised “how evil became evil” theory. But rather it showed the cause and the reasoning of doing what’s considered to be evil. It showed how often the evil we are presented with by the society isn’t evil at all; on the contrary the one that offers us this theory is the evil one. There was also the element of “what is evil to begin with?” which I think was the best part of the book. Indeed, what is evil? 

But one thing is for sure – this is a very readable book if you read it at the right time of your life. And so 3 stars.