First off, if you are familiar with the musical/movie, but not the books, be aware that the books are very different from the musical, they are much darker.

That said, this new book is a prequel centered on Elphaba and the Thropp family. There's not much of a plot to follow, as it skips time several times (it starts when Elphie is about 3, and ends when she is around 16 or maybe a little older, as she's entering Shiz). That said, there is a small plot about trying to find the family of someone they were once acquainted with. It's a nice little backstory about Elphie growing up and her upbringing and ultimately how she ends up going to Shiz. It also alludes to some other things about her future at different times.

I enjoyed it, but be aware that the language Gregory Maguire uses is a little different than most modern books, and it can be a little challenging to follow at times.

Dnf at 60%. I felt like this was more of a political backstory of Oz, rather than a story about Elphaba’s childhood in Oz.

I really wanted to love this book. I enjoyed both the broadway musical and part 1 of the recent Wicked movie. I haven't read any books for the OZ characters, so I thought I'd start at the beginning with this one. The sentences were formatted in an odd way. I would read a paragraph over and over again because I wasn't sure I understood what it was trying to say.

Thank you NetGalley, William Morris and Gregory Maguire for the opportunity to read this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for access to the ARC 😍I am obsessed with Wicked and was so excited to be able to read this so soon. I enjoyed this book. It gave you more insight on Elphie’s childhood and how she became who she was. This was great! I wish I could have read this before reading Wicked.

I am very grateful to have been chosen as an ARC reader for Elphie in exchange for an honest review.

Bad news for the folk that like reading things in chronological order… this prequel book is much better enjoyed after reading Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West.

Gregory Macguire’s writing style is unique and takes some getting used to. You really are just thrust into his world with little to no backstory. If you have not read the main book/series recently, you may be a bit lost starting this book. A lot of names and places are thrown around and it is a little overwhelming.

That being said, I really enjoyed the writing and I will eat up any bit of Elphaba and the Wicked universe you give me.

It’s hard for a novella to wow me, hence the three stars, but it was an enjoyable read and a great little addition to the main story.

3 stars.

The writing was okay. It wasn't really as captivating as I thought it would be. There wasn't really a good flow to the book either which is why I had trouble getting into the book.

Let me start off by saying I absolutely LOVE Wicked (the book). I read it back in 2006 for the first time, and it helped me during a hard time by transporting me to the world of Oz. When I saw Maguire wrote a prequel (to the prequel?) I couldn’t wait to get my hands on it. Sadly, I was very disappointed in “Elphie.” It felt like Maguire was trying to shoehorn the musical’s versions of Elphaba into her already established book characterization. Elphaba of the book and musical are two very different iterations, and Elphie tried to straddle the line between the two, making it feel disingenuous to the character.

Beyond the odd choice in characterization, the story itself was not compelling. It was quite slow without any sort of action at all. No climax or stakes. The plot simply rambles on with uninteresting settings and forgettable characters. Even the Elphie is this book is quite forgettable.

This one hurts, but I couldn't finish. Made it almost halfway, but I can't anymore. It just feels like the author saw an opportunity to cash in on the movie and threw this together quickly. Wicked is one of my favorite books, I was very excited about this one. But in all honesty, it's just not good. Thank you, NetGalley and William Marrow, for an e-arc in exchange for an honest review.

I have mixed feelings about this book, which obviously will capitalize on the current popularity (and Oscar nominations) for the film, Wicked: The Musical. The writing is difficult at times -- very dense descriptions of characters and their feelings mixed in with short bulleted sentences that seem out of nowhere. Despite that, it is Elphie -- and her younger, armless sister, Nessa, who are the heart of the story. The parents -- the bombastic minister father and the mother who died in childbirth, are presented in a dichotomy that helps the reader see where lonely, conflicted green-colored Elphie will later become the Wicked Witch of the West. We see the beginnings of her intolerance of water and her beautiful singing voice. But we also see the darker sides of the developing personality. Other characters, sweet Nanny, rascally baby brother Shell, and father figure Unger also are described in ways that definitely influenced Elphie's eventual change into Elphaba, in my opinion.
And more than a cohesive plot, this novel is solidly a character-driven piece. I found myself skimming over parts, but then I would come across beautiful passages that I had to go back and re-read. A few of my favorites:
From Nessa: "my great moral strength is that I don't lie, either. A paradox: I may not have arms, but I am armed with the truth."
From Elphie: " 'You don't know me, nobody knows me.' Not even myself. She doesn't understand why her reaction is sudden outrage. Or is it fear."
Thanks to NetGalley, the author and William Morrow for the e-ARC and the opportunity to read and review this book.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for the advance reader's copy of the book. I wanted to enjoy this book, I really did, but I didn't. I honestly feel like this is a cash grab written book riding the shoulders of the popularity of the Wicked movie. In my opinion and this is just my opinion, nothing new was learned nor was this a necessary book. I loved the original Wicked book and enjoyed the continued story through the follow up books, but this was a pain to read as I just couldn't get into it and it didn't hold me.

As a huge fan of Gregory Maguire’s “Wicked”, I was incredibly excited to receive this arc of “Elphie”. The idea of learning more about Elphaba’s upbringing was just so enticing.
That being said, this book was a big let down for me. Being one to give it a thorough chance, I painstakingly pushed through this. It took me over a month.
While I found the majority of this book to be extremely boring, I did like to see how the ending ran into the beginning of her journey at Shiz University.

Thank you to NetGalley and William Morrow for this advanced copy in return for my honest opinion.

Pub date: 25 March 2025

Thank you to NetGalley and William Morrow for an advanced reader copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. I’m sad to say I did not enjoy this book as much as I thought I would, mainly because I could not get past the writing style. I absolutely loved The Wicked Trilogy that was written years ago and thought this would be a perfect read to start out the new year, and while the tales regarding Elphaba’s past were enjoyable, the writing style really affected my rating of the book.

I'm sorry; I was really excited to read this, especially an ARC. I reread Wicked recently and liked it a lot, and was interested in continuing with the rest of the series. But Wicked was written thirty years ago, so I tried to give the author the benefit of the doubt. Surely if it had been written today, there wouldn't be all the racism and ableism. But I'm only a few chapters into Elphie and I just don't want to read it anymore. There's already enough questionable or concerning bits to the point where I'm worried I gave too much benefit of the doubt with the original book. I'm sure if I'd finished it I would have enjoyed a lot of it, and I'm sorry to not get more insight into her childhood and upbringing. But it was soured for me too early and I'm just not interested anymore.

Thank you to Netgalley and William Morrow for the chance to read and review this ARC. I really do mean that; this is the first ARC I've ever DNF'd.

It’s been over a decade since I read the Wicked books, but I enjoyed them so much that I was thrilled to find out Maguire had written another book in the world. I went in knowing it would not be my typical read, and I intended to have patience.
Unfortunately, I just couldn’t do it. The first half of this book read like the author’s plotting notebook rather than a fully completed, ready-to-publish manuscript. Being as it’s been so long since I read the other books and have forgotten what his writing style was like, I tried to push through. That handy little note at the bottom of my kindle page kept informing me the book was getting longer the longer I read, and I found myself coming up with excuses not to read.
In other words, I wasn’t enjoying it.
I’m sad about this, because I loved the Wicked world and really, really wanted to love Elphie.
Will I continue to think about this book and wonder what happened at the end? Most likely. Do I regret not finishing? Unfortunately, no.

I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

This was my first foray into the literary world of Wicked and boy was it a jarring one. Maybe I’m the problem for starting with the prequel out of all the books, and for primarily being interested in it due to my love for the stage musical, but this book was such a let down on all fronts I’m not sure that’s the case.

For starters, the writing style was hard to follow. It was somehow choppy yet overdone, saying everything and nothing at all. I believe the author was going for a style that mimicked memory, pulling snippets from Elphie’s past and weaving them into a narrative that made no sense. I was never quite sure what was happening, and whether what was happening was actually happening. The author gives no answers, only clues that aren’t interesting enough to follow.

I might have given the writing style a pass — even liked it — had the author given us a plot to hold onto, but he didn’t. The characters were also written so evasively that I couldn’t connect to them either, and I found the setting to be uninteresting and mirage-like.

I’ve been a devoted fan of the Wicked series since my teenage years. I’ve read all four of the Wicked Years novels, as well as the three Another Day novels, and throughout it all, the one thing I’ve always craved was more of Elphaba. I wanted to understand who she truly was and the events that shaped her into the person we meet in Wicked.

So when I saw that Maguire was releasing a story about her childhood, I was over the moon.

Unfortunately, I fell back to Earth pretty quickly.

The book begins with Elphaba as a very young toddler, with the focus on her parents and Nanny. This sets the stage for the dominant theme of the book: that Elphaba became who she was because of the people around her, how they treated her, and how she saw them treat each other.

This first third of the novel was very slow. Like, push through because I have faith in the author it’ll get better.

As the book progresses through Elphaba’s childhood, the pace picks up, and by her pre-teen years, I found myself fully engaged and invested in the story. I finally started enjoying it toward the end.

However, the biggest letdown for me was that, with one or two minor exceptions, there were no major revelations—no big epiphanies or deeper insights into who Elphaba is or how she became the witch we know and love.

I struggled with my rating because it felt almost blasphemous to give a Wicked book less than three stars. However, since I wouldn’t recommend this to anyone who isn’t a die-hard fan of the series, I settled on two and a half stars. ⭐️⭐️.5 (Rounded up for NetGalley)

Thank you to NetGalley for my free e-reader copy in exchange for an honest review

I was so excited for this book & it didn't disappoint. For fans of Wicked - the novel - this is a fantastic addition to the series. I thoroughly enjoyed this book.

Exquisitely written book, and after watching Wicked, this was a great way to start the story line from the beginning. Appreciate the details that Maguire puts into the book, a lot of thought goes into the descriptions. While the book seemed long in some parts, it ended wonderfully and kept me feeling fulfilled. It has been ages since I read the Wicked series, and will soon be re-reading them shortly.

The style of this book is somewhat atypical, and takes some time to adjust to. Overall an interesting exploration of the character Elphaba. I strongly recommend reading Wicked first as fans who have only seen the musical (or seen the Part 1 film!!) will find themselves lost. A generally enjoyable read.

It’s been at least ten years since I read Wicked and its sequel, so I remember very little except the books being dense. As a result, I went into this with low expectations and even then it was a disappointing read.

The prose is oddly poetic but also disjointed. I understand why some people don’t like his writing, but I liked its originality and some of his cleverer turns of phrase. The lilting style however can’t save the book from its lack of a plot. Nothing happens. There is no discernible storyline outside of Elphaba’s family wandering around the countryside. When anything remotely interesting does occur, it’s oddly anticlimactic and without urgency.

I suppose you gain some insight into Elphie’s upbringing, but I’d just recommend you read the TLDR.

Thank you to William Morrow and NetGalley for the ARC.