Wherefore Art Thou, Elphaba?

A Lion Among Men by Gregory Maguire

Sigh. I just finished A Lion Among Men, the third installment of the Wicked series by Gregory Maguire. I have to say you can only ride on the coattails of Elphaba, the Wicked Witch of the West, for so long. And that time came and went when he killed her off in the first book. I mean, so yeah, I read all three of them. All the way through. I really liked Wicked. Son of a Witch, although we all agree has a super fun title, just didn't add up. And now this. It kind of dragged. The glue that keeps these stories together, Elphaba, grows weak because the woman is dead. And Maguire has the habit of teasing hope out of us, showing bits of Elphaba before reminding us that, despite writing about a magical world where animals can talk and flying broomsticks exist, she is dead and is not coming back. I say it again, sigh. Would it have killed him to even give us a flashback of Elphaba? But all we see of her in the last two books come from the references of measurably inferior characters. The characters themselves would agree with this assessment, but that doesn't ease the pain of reading about them. So I apologize to all those I complained to while getting through this book. It was something I had to do, and am very glad I can move on to greener (hah! get it? Because Elphaba is green...) pastures.

Am I too negative? I need to read a really fun book and be really excited about it because I think I've been reading a lot of stinkers lately.

I don't care. I want to read it anyway.