A book review: Wicked

After reading about in on isorule I was intrigued but I wasn't planning on getting it. However I was at Borders and when I spotted it on the shelves naturally I was tempted to read it.

Wicked simply tells the tale of the wicked witch of of the west from the book Wizard of Oz. It describes her childhood and in particular, her days at school. Gregory Maguire illustrates the journey from a child named Elphaba to her emergence as the Wicked Witch of the West.

I would say Wicked is not exactly a good read but it isn't bad either. The author did give a new portrayal to the wicked witch of the west (Elphaba) we all know so well, making her misunderstood and not evil but I felt the other characters in the book were not clearly developed. I felt the sister (Nessarose) was pushed into the role of the wicked witch of the east haphazardly as it was conveniently so and I didn't see how the character developed into that. Furthermore, her long time acquaintance from university (Fiyero) suddenly bumped into her after a couple of years and oddly they developed a romance. Convenient huh?

The book challenges the conventional notions of what's good and what's evil and it pushes the boundaries of societal norms. The tale also has a lot of political agendas weaved into it and I felt that the author left too many loose ends in his tale. Overall I enjoyed the idea of the story but I wasn't impressed by the details.