Wicked (the musical) is one of my top 5 favorite musicals but I’ve never had a desire to read the book it’s based off of until I saw the movie. I spent the last three days listening to the audiobook and all I was left with was overwhelming disappointment.
Wicked takes us through the life of The Wicked Witch of the West, Elphaba Thropp. It’s written to be a political allegory and does a great job at covering racism, classism, and what happens when the masses let a person of power think for all.
I was really expecting this to be like the musical (minus the songs, of course) and it wasn’t at all. It’s actually a completely different story and while there were several parts I liked, there was more I didn’t.
I enjoyed Mr. Maguire’s writing style and his creativity, but I feel like he completely missed the point of humanizing The Wicked Witch, which I thought was the objective of this book. All in all I’m glad I read it, but I definitely prefer the musical version- and not just because of the songs.