Wicked is advertised as a retelling of The Wizard of Oz from the Wicked Witch of the West’s point of view. When I started the book, I was surprised to find it was much more than that. Yes, the story follows the life of Elphaba (a.k.a. the Wicked Witch of the West) and some of the characters from L. Frank Baum’s stories appear, but other than that, Wicked stands on its own. Gregory Maguire completely reinvents the Oz we all knew and loved in our childhood. But it is definitely not meant for children. The Wicked series is extremely dark, and includes a lot of political and social commentary, and is very explicitly sexual at times.
Here’s a quick breakdown for each book (I guess I have to say it: SPOILER ALERT):
- Wicked follows the life of Elphaba, later known as the Wicked Witch of the West, from before her birth, to her childhood, through boarding school, her work undercover, her love affair, her life with her lover’s family, to her death. Unlike L. Frank Baum’s book, Dorothy plays only a small role in Wicked. This was, by far, my favorite book in the series.
- Son of a Witch focuses on Liir, Elphaba’s son and his journey to find his half-sister, Nor. Along the way, he tries to help a Princess of a nomadic tribe, becomes involved in a political plot, gets attacked by dragons, and fights against the government of Oz alongside all the birds of Oz. Son of a Witch took me the longest to get through, and I found it to be the darkest book of the three, especially the scenes involving Shell, Elphaba’s brother, who works in the prison in the Emerald City.
- A Lion Among Men sounds like it would be mostly about the Cowardly Lion. And that’s true, to an extent. Brr, or the Cowardly Lion plays a large role, but so do Nor (the child of Elphaba’s lover Fiyero and his wife, half-sister to Liir) and Yackle (the old crone who mysteriously shows up all over the previous two novels). Basically Brr is working for the government, trying to track down Liir, the son of Elphaba the Wicked Witch of the West. While interviewing Yackle about her involvement with Elphaba, we learn his story, as well as get a lot of questions answered about who Yackle is, who the dwarf is (he, like Yackle randomly pops up in the other books), and what happened to Nor. I thought A Lion Among Men would be the last book in the series. It definitely seemed to be tying up a few loose ends, but it raised a lot more questions and the ending suggested that there would be a fourth book sometime in the future.
I would definitely recommend the Wicked series to anyone who enjoys books that allow for an escape from reality. They are not strictly fantasy books. They are heavy with political and social commentary, and it’s easy to see references to many controversial issues. They aren’t exactly fast reads. They’re pretty heavy. But if you like dark stories, and re-tellings of classic tales, you’ll enjoy them.
