Best book I've ever read, although, I got lost a few times and had to go back. and It was a little boring in some parts. If you like fairy tales you will love this book.

An intricate retelling of L. Frank Baum's The Wizard of Oz, moved into the perspective of the allegedly evil Wicked Witch of the West, this complex world is woven from what is accepted as reality combined with the fantastical elements of the world of Oz. I don't think the musical (what I know of it at least) does the novel justice. As epic a scale this novel is trying to reach, readers must be patient enough to get past the first few handfuls of pages to get into the story itself and not the expansion of the universe that is its setting. All good things come to those who wait, and WICKED is very good. I highly recommend this novel, but I don't think reluctant readers will enjoy WICKED as it requires perseverance through those first few pages.

I'm not familiar with the musical at all. Still, I didn't expect the book to be so... political. The complicated politics and race oppression of the various regions of Oz are imaginative, but the the Witch, as a title character, is under-developed and the frequent talk of the nature of evil and of the soul, hackneyed.

Unfortunately while a potentially great premise, tremendously boring. I'm not quite sure how this was managed as the idea has merit and could have been better worked up

I just finished this book, I have heard about it for ages. It was a good book although sometimes it was hard to keep attention because it kept jumping through time and characters without much explaination.

I, very reluctantly, read this book after receiving it as a gift. Much to my surprise I enjoyed reading it and found it to be a quick and intriguing.

A very dense, character-filled novel focusing on the theme of good vs. evil. Well written but, hard to get through at points.

I thought the book was well written, and interesting from cover to cover. It was nice getting to know the character of the Wicked witch of the west and her thoughts about the character Dorothy. The events near the end seemed a bit confused and desparate but overall I found this a good read.

Wicked is more of a philosophical treatise on evil than a novel. The characters are well-developed, but nothing ever really seems to happen. It wasn't awful, but I would only recommend it to readers who enjoy pondering politics and religion more than plot twists.

This is an extremely confused book. Not necessarily confusing: it is not terribly hard to follow the plot, even though it twists and turns like a snake in death throws. But the author doesn't seem to be able to decide what the book is. Is it a pastiche? A comedy? Social satire? Social diatribe? A thriller, following the "One D$%#ed Thing After Another" school? There is some humour, butr it doesn't get developed. There is some outrage, but it doesn't get maintained. Therefore, it's hard to say that there is any point. And, by the end, it's really hard to care.