Wicked : The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West (Wicked Years)
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3.9 • 105 Ratings
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- $16.99
Publisher Description
The New York Times bestseller that inspired the Tony-winning hit musical and major motion picture
OVER 6 MILLION COPIES SOLD
Years before Dorothy and her dog crash-land, another little girl makes her presence known in Oz. This girl, Elphaba, is born with emerald-green skin—no easy burden in a land as mean and poor as Oz, where superstition and magic are not strong enough to explain or overcome
the natural disasters of flood and famine. Still, Elphaba is smart, and not long after entering Shiz University, she becomes a member of a charmed circle of Oz's most promising young citizens.
But Elphaba's Oz is no utopia. The Wizard's secret police are everywhere.
Animals—those creatures with voices, souls, and minds—are threatened with exile. Young Elphaba, green and wild and misunderstood, is determined to protect the Animals—even if it means combating the mysterious Wizard, even if it means risking her single chance at romance.
Ever wiser in guilt and sorrow, she can find herself grateful when the world declares her a witch. And she can even make herself glad for that young girl from Kansas.
"An astonishing achievement."—Philip Pullman
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
When we first went over the rainbow in L. Frank Baum’s The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, we heard the story from a simple Kansas farm girl’s perspective. Gregory Maguire’s delightful Wicked gives us the real dirt on what happened. Elphaba Thropp, later unfairly dubbed the Wicked Witch of the West, is a real piece of work, but you’d be prickly, too, if you grew up with green skin, deathly allergic to water, and having everyone calling you horrible names. Far from a stock one-dimensional villain motivated by mindless evil, Elphaba’s pushed to extreme measures by her rough childhood and Oz’s sociopolitical turmoil. Maguire compassionately fleshes out Baum’s source material with echoes of Catholic theology, ancient Greek theater, and Dickensian literature, making Elphie’s triumphs and tragedies hit way harder. Narrator John McDonough embodies the diverse universe of characters with the passion of Broadway. Politically charged and emotionally resonant, Wicked demonstrates that there is often more to a story than you first hear.
Customer Reviews
Good but…
It could use an updated narrator, like a lady since it’s mostly women talking 🤷🏻♀️
So quiet
It didn’t matter what I was using for audio output, I could turn it as high as it would go and I still couldn’t hear it well enough to listen. The recording is from 2000 and likely needs some adjusting. Pretty bummed.
Amazing
A very compelling if not intriguing account of the origins of the Wizard of Oz and all the wonderfully developed characters we have all heard about as children.