David

Big fan of all the Oz stories, the film, and most of the film spin offs...this is by far the worst and most overrated contribution to the world of Oz. Horribly written (what is this style of writing!?), very anticlimactic, and complete absence of character development. Also what world does this book take place in exactly!?!? These whimsical characters live alongside humans yet Kansas is still an alien world...They refer to the Unnamed God over and over yet these people have a concept of hell and heaven...the random uses of the words 's**t, f**k, and c**k' do not fit in with the patterns of speech or the context of the story. It's a desperate attempt on the author's park to make this feel modernized and appeal to an adult audience and it fails miserably. Apart from an elephant character declaring Elphaba a witch, what exactly makes her a witch!?!? There's nothing in her way of life or daily habits that would constitute her as a witch - no real use of spells or potions, shes an introvert with green skin and an elephant told her she's a witch...ok..Any significant turn of events is spat out in just a couple sentences, so there is no build up of story or plot turns. The only twist of this story - the reveal of the truly wicked one - goes absolutely nowhere and has no impact on the outcome of the witch's fate whatsoever. As it's written, her death is accidental and not the result of cunning manipulation orchestrated by wicked characters, it's the result of a innocent characters' innocent mistake and attempt to protect her. As if Dorothy wasn't traumatized enough by the death of her parents, the murdering of someone she doesn't know (the "wicked" witch of the east) and her sudden appearance in a world she wants desperately to leave, now she has this on her hands..I don't understand how this became a play, or now a movie, but I think in due time audiences will reflect on what an utter waste of time this story was from their lives. I want my 19 hours wasted on this audiobook granted back to me. The fact this horrible story took that long to get through is truly the only wicked thing about it.