I saw Wicked the musical and LOVED IT! I really wanted to read the story, and find out what happened after Elfaba and the soldier escaped and get all the details. You WILL NOT find that in this book. The screen writer for Wicked told a wonderful story of hope and love. The writer of this book did not. I stopped reading partway through, because I didn't enjoy the depravity. I love romances, so it's not that there was sexuality in the book that was the issue, it was the darkness of the book that made it impossible for me to finish. Do not read this thinking it's like the musical. I'm really not sure how this is the basis, unless someone read it and thought, here's how to make this good. A friend read it at the same time all the way through (and the following books for some reason), I wanted to find out if it got better, turned around, anything. It doesn't, so I stopped reading.

I am a 13 year old girl and like to read books about Witches and spirituality. I also saw the wizard of Oz movie and loved it so i thought I would read the Witches book and learn the wicked witches backstory. Unfortunately I read up to the 3rd chapter and gave up on the book. It had a lot of words and language I didn't understand. An example of that would be ¨every itinerant witch and toothless gibbering weer in oz could perform even the most transparent of spells had seized on the outback district of Wend Hardings." It was really a bummer that I could not understand it because I liked the plot a lot. I would not recommend this book to anyone under like the age of 15 unless you can understand old English. Ill probably try and read it in a few years when I have more experience with other books and I am a little older

This retelling of the 'Wizard of Oz' from the green Wicked Witch of West's perspective, served as the basis for the hit musical 'Wicked'. That being said, there's a great deal of difference between the literary novel based on the Oz characters, and the stage adaptation of the book.

This is a retelling of the story of the Wizard of Oz, from the point of view of the supposed villain of the original, the Wicked Witch of the West (Elphaba in the novel). I was familiar with the story from the Broadway musical version of the work, but there were many stark differences. The musical is family-friendly whereas the book is far more mature. Characters such as Elphaba, Nessarose, and Boq were far more fleshed out in the book. The characters of Fiyero and Glinda are exaggerated in the musical, and Elphaba is crueler in the novel. I thoroughly enjoyed this and provides me with a better understanding of the musical.

This is not for young people! There was some very questionable and uncomfortable scenes in the book. However, the imagination that went into the story is amazing. I thoroughly enjoyed getting some back story on the wicked witch of the west.

I LOVE THIS BOOK!

I hate to give a bad review about a book that was made into an amazing musical, but I just couldn't do it - I think I read about 50 pages, and just hated every page, so I had to put it down. Perhaps it gets better, but I don't think so. I would suggest you see the musical instead - I've seen it 5 times, and loved it each and every time.

Took a while to get through but all in all I loved the book and cant hardly wait to read the rest of the books in the series!!

I heard a lot about this book from my daughter and her friends. They are late teens. But I went into reading this story with an open mind. For one, I never found myself feeling sorry for the Wicked Witch of the West. She was definitely annoying at best. I wondered why the author didn't write the book from her perspective. The other characters were interesting, except I never understood what made Glenda, the good witch. It wasn't a terrible story but, I guess it depends on one's taste.

The play must be the thing 'cause the book sure ain't. Could hardly get through it, genre keeps changing not a book for kids r/t sex especially (of course) - what else is new? MIght as well be The Poisonwood Bible for the way it handles "sprituality" issues I would say.