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| | Son of a Witch: Volume Two in the Wicked Years | | | Music Style : | | Contemporary | | Record Label : | | Harper | | Release Date : | | 2008-09-30 | | Store Price : | | $7.99 | | Artistopia's Price: $7.99 | | Usually ships in 24 hours | | |
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Customer Reviews of This Album/CD |
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 Disappointing sequel
Submitted on: 2009-11-17 |
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A disappointment after the terrific "Wicked," which imagined the life of the Wicked Witch of the West as the stuff of Greek tragedy -- with a canny sense of politics to boot. By comparison, her maybe-son Liir, the protagonist of the sequel, is kind of a pill. Frequently whiny and self-pitying between uncharacteristic bouts of heroism, he spends much of his time complaining that nothing in his life matters, and eventually we're forced to agree.
Surprisingly bleak, "Son of a Witch" takes us through Dickensian squalor, down along something resembling Brokeback Wicked, through overlong passages of nature that confuse Oz for Walden pond, and finally to an untenable soap opera in which Liir contemplates love for companions he's only just met. The novel is very lean on story, making it all the more frustrating to be left with unresolved plotlines, while Liir, as a character, shows precious little growth. Gregory Maguire ends the novel in such a way that he seems not to know why he started it, marking one of the least satisfying conclusions I've read. What becomes of our Liir? It hardly seems to matter to him, and it matters less to us. |
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 An ok sequel to Wicked
Submitted on: 2009-11-04 |
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This story picks up a short while after Wicked ends. Liir is struggling with life after the death of the Wicked Witch of the West. There are many questions that he has, most pressing - is he Elphaba's son? Liir sets out on a journey to try and find some answers to his life. This path leads him into interaction with Dorothy, Glinda, the army, and the maunts (like nuns). Liir has to find out who he is and this story really is about him coming of age in the shadow of a well known Witch.
I would definitely recommend reading Wicked before picking up this one otherwise you will be completely lost as to who the characters are and what is going on in the Land of Oz. Like Wicked, a lot of what happens in the story is based on the political upheaval in Oz. I had read Wicked a couple of years ago, and I still had some trouble following the politics of the land. In this book, Dorothy and her 3 friends (4 if you count Toto) have more of a role. Other than them, Liir and Glinda, you really won't recognize any of the characters from the traditional story of Oz. This was a little bit of a problem for me as a reader. Unlike Wicked, I couldn't connect with the characters - even though they we mentioned in passing or were related to the traditional characters, I just didn't feel for them as much.
The narrator of this audio book was the author, Gregory Maguire, and I'm not sure that I liked him as the narrator. He gave individual voices to all of the characters (and even did a little signing too!) but somehow it just didn't keep me interested. I think that my opinion of the book might have been changed if I had read the book or if it had a different narrator. Sometimes the author is just not the best choice.
I found the book hard to get into at the beginning, but by the end I was rooting for Liir on his quest and hoping he would find what he was looking for. I want to read the third book in the Wicked series, A Lion Among Men, focusing on the life of the Cowardly Lion, but I think I will take some time before I jump into that one.
3.5/4 out of 5
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 Wonderful
Submitted on: 2009-10-09 |
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| This was just as good as the first book..I loved it and will continue to read all books from this series...B.W. |
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Great seller
Submitted on: 2009-06-28 |
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| The product was as described and sent in a acceptable amount of time. I couldn't be happier. I will buy again |
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Book review
Submitted on: 2009-06-24 |
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| I bought this book (in a series) for my teenage daughter. She was not very impressed with them. |
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