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Confession: I never had any interest in the Oz stories. Not as a child, when I felt pressured to read them...and not as an adult, when I never gave it another thought.
That is, until my sister couldn't stop raving about the musical and was so obsessed she scoured her local bookstores for the book.

When she first approached me about it, I felt obligated to smile and nod, because aside from Twilight, this was the only other story that she's ever spoken to me about. I really couldn't be bothered.

Confession #2: I was upset when she forced me to borrow her copy so I, too, could be amazed.

You can't imagine how happy I was when I fell into a reading rut. I overdosed on horror books and needed something to break the monotony.

Enter, Wicked.

Let me say that I expected to be bored. I expected to be annoyed. I expected to hate it. None of these things came to be. From the first page, I fell into a trance. I couldn't imagine what I thought would be a cheesey childrens' book would actually be more of a grown up's fairy tale with characters a lot more multi-dimensional than I could ever hope for.

I loved Elphaba. Green, harsh, cold little Elphaba. She, who wasn't evil at all. She, who endured being virtually invisible to her parents, neglected, yet a spectacle to everyone else.

Her family's background was also fascinating.

(view spoiler)[ From her lonely, self-centered, cheating mother...to her pious, yet self-indulgent father that couldn't stand to look at her without feeling as if she was his punishment.

Elphaba's supposed "deformities" actually had nothing to do with her father, though. They had to do with a potion her mother drank before fornicating with some whimsical stranger.

The true wicked witch, Elphaba's younger sister, also had a deformity, but this was due to pills their mother took during pregnancy to keep the child from suffering the same fate as Elphaba. (The meds come from Elphaba's grandmother)

The younger sister is also not biologically their "father's," but it's eluded that he knew but didn't care...and at the same time, he seemed to love the child he knew wasn't his more than the child he assumed was his.
(hide spoiler)]

This is just some of the drama in the book.

There is so much more to it than that. This book focuses on how she was destined to play a role that she physically fit, but internally, she wasn't. (She did have her bad moments, but who doesn't?) The book is written in such a beautiful way...almost poetic, but not to the point where it'd lose the reader or distract.

If you have a taste for drama, love/hate relationships, infidelity, sibling rivalry, and a wee bit of sex, this is the book for you.

There's also a big surprise at the end. I'd love to spoil it for you, but I can't bring myself to do it.

I just want to thank my sister for not allowing my disinterest to sway her. If she hadn't been pushy about me reading Wicked, I would have lost out on one hell of a story. I also thank the author for making me a fan of an Oz character.