Nia's book #5: Elphaba should be allowed to rest in peace

It took me over 2 weeks to read this book (I actually started it before I read The Glass Castle), but as you may be able to guess, I had a hard time reading it. And no, it wasn't because of the big words. So, I read Son of a Witch by Gregory Maguire, after having read his other 4 books, and I was sorely disappointed.

Liir was raised by Elphaba (the Wicked Witch of the West, to those unfamiliar with Wicked, his earlier novel), but throughout the book, he is not sure if he is actually her son or not. Generally, I found him to be an unlikable character, whining that he can't be of any use because he lost her flying broom. He is generally lame and ineffectual and I had no sympathy for him.

Even Liir's savior, Candle, was boring and entirely unsympathetic. Towards the end, she was hugely pregnant, had been abandoned in a run-down barn for 6 months, and was endlessly imposed upon by a tribe that suddenly appeared in the farmyard, and it was still written in a way that I really didn't feel bad for her. I guess I just couldn't care about these characters at all.

Despite the fact that Elphaba met her final bucket of water before this book even began, she played a significant role in this book. The poor, poor girl, hadn't she suffered enough? And the final reveal, the secret of her connection to the bland Liir (couldn't even be spiced up by a gay relationship, jeez) simply elicited a "well, duh" from me. Very big disappointment, since I enjoyed the story of her life so much.

I think that at least a portion of the problem I had with this book was due to the fact that it had been so long since I had read the original Wicked, having come out 10 years ago. In so many ways, I felt like I was totally missing something.

By the way, the anti-dragon message in the book hurt me deeply. It is just wrong. Some of my best friends are dragons, and none of them behave in any way like the way they are portrayed in the book.

Disappointment all around.