I am not giving a public review for this book because I did not finish it. I found the writing too odd, the plot unfocused, and nothing truly about Elphie. I was extremely disappointed.

I wanted to like this book, I just couldn't get into it. It's hard to explain. I get that there's world building involved, but I was just not enjoying it.

This is my last Gregory Maguire Book.

Wicked was wonderful and its rise to a Broadway superstar was well deserved. I wanted to love this book.

I have read Maguire's two books post Wicked and now this prequel. They don't seem to capture me as Wicked did. I could barely make it 20% through before I decided to DNF. I can't pinpoint what is so different, but it is and it's disappointing

Thank you to William Morrow and NetGalley for providing an advance copy in exchange for my honest review.

As a huge Gregory Maguire fan and a lover of all things Wicked, I was super excited to receive and read Elphie. The fairytales he has written were pivotal in my younger days as a reader and I feel like this short but complex book continued the journey. While the story itself didn’t follow a lot of plot action, what it did bring to the table was meant solely for those of us dedicated to the world of Oz, a comprehensive character analysis that truly added depth and clarity to what we already know and love about our Wicked Witch of the West. After reading this, I can confidently say that legions of Wicked fans everywhere are going to love the extra morsels Maguire weaves together and the look into Elphaba’s childhood and into more of what makes her who she becomes. I also loved how the book gave subtle fun nods to the Broadway adaptation that brought the two together in a thoughtful and brilliant manner. So cool. As a side note, I personally would recommend reading in the order of publishing and not as a prequel. Going into this book without the experience of the Wicked quad may make picking up the finer details and symbolisms slightly more difficult to recognize.

I just....... I love Gregory Maguire!! This book seems to be a bit polarizing so far and I understand why. The style isn't to everyone's taste and sometimes things in the first half are a bit slow.

As for me? I loved it. I loved filling in the gaps, learning more about Elphaba and her life before we meet her at Shiz. What shaped her into the person she is? Oh, you wanna drop some Easter eggs in there? Don't let me stop you!!

I believe I have never been more excited to be approved for an ARC than I was for this one, and I was not disappointed.

If you love Maguires other books (and style of writing) and want to dig deeper, dive right in. The water is fine, even if Elphie can't join you (I'll see myself out now).

Long story short, I was unimpressed and let down. I’m not sure what I expected, but what I read wasn’t it. When I first heard about a prequel in the Wicked series, I jumped at the opportunity for an ARC, but sadly I just couldn’t get into the book. I found the writing to be all over the place and way too complex for my liking. I thought I would be entranced into a whole other world, just like in previous books, but this story fell flat.

Gregory Maguire continues to make every ounce of the Elphaba/Wicked storyline more and more rich and incredible. I was so grateful to get an advanced read of this beautiful book and can’t wait to buy it and read it again when it comes out!

I will admit it’s been a long time since I’ve read Wicked and that may have been my mistake. With the book and the play being so vastly different it was hard to remember what was what. I did like the way that Gregory Maguire added little things to little Elphie that we only saw during the play. I would recommend reading this book just think you should do a reread of Wicked if you need a refresher.

I give it 3 stars. The overall story is written the same way the book was as well as the story bouncing around from whomever the narrator is talking about at that moment.

Thanks to NetGalley for this ARC read.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for this digital ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Elphie wasn’t quite what I had hoped. Having read Maguire’s other books, I expected more out of this one. Had I read this book before the others in the series, then I think I would have enjoyed it a bit more.

Thank you NetGalley for the chance to review this book in exchange for my honest review!

As a huge Wicked fan, I was so excited to see this book announced but it just wasn’t for me.

It is quite difficult for me to decide how to rate this book. I found it extremely different from what I remember of the novel, Wicked. In this story, Melena is a rather wanton/loose woman who craves the attention of men. In Wicked it is implied that she was drugged and basically raped while she was unconcious.
Nevertheless, I read this book as it is with a suspension of disbelief. I enjoyed the story although at times it did seem a bit disjointed. It was quite interesting to see how Elphie's childhood as a widowed missionary's child could have shaped her into the person she became. While she wasn't a wicked child, she was very curious about everything and did make some mistakes.

In the story, Elphie survives a lot of childhood trauma and family difficulties. As she matures, she finds her own voice although she doesn't learn to trust it until later in the story.

The language at times is a bit overly high-browed, using "$20 words" when a "50 cent word" would suffice and be clearer to a larger audience. This I feel will be off-putting to some readers.

Rating this book is quite difficult for me. I am giving it a 4 star rating although I think 3.5 stars would be more accurate.

It pains me to do this…. Wicked is one of my all time favorite books. Gregory Maguire made Oz his own in that epic book. I was so excited to see this and be immersed in his words again but the book fell flat in my opinion. It was hard to understand with meandering povs and just generally disappointing. It does not capture the magic the original book has. I’m sorry.
Thank you to NetGalley for allowing me to read and review this book in exchange for an honest review.

Elphie, by Gregory Maguire, is such an entertaining and intriguing prequel to Wicked. Though, maybe it's more of an origin story. I thoroughly enjoyed reading Elphaba's early years and and family being more fleshed out. It gave me a much better idea about what made her the young woman that we see in Wicked. Not just her experiences but also those of her parents, Melena and Frex and how they saw and responded to the world around them. Of course Nanny, Nessarose, and her brother Shell are a large part of her story as well.
Perfect for fans of Wicked and those who enjoy fantasy.

1.75⭐️ rounded up. Being such a big fan of Maguire’s work it truly pains me to give this book such a low rating. The first third of this book was very difficult to follow: multiple POVs, rambling descriptions, hard to follow action/movement, and a nonstop host of characters that GM went into detail describing that were never heard from again. The second third felt like a fever dream wherein we watch Elphie’s father’s obsession with making amends for the murder of Turtle Heart and some interaction between her, Nessa, and Shell. I’m still not a 100% sure what I read. Maybe that’s the point? That Elphie was so dissatisfied with so much and lived such a removed life from everyone around her, that details/characters/scenes all feel half there, like water color, fading and difficult to understand? It is constantly remarked that Elphie will not remember this later.. so mayhaps that is why the book feels so disjointed? Sadly, that style did not work for me.

Thank you NetGalley and HarperCollins for the chance to review this book in exchange for my honest review.

Thanks to William Morrow and Netgalley for the digital ARC. I tore through this in a day. It is less plot driven than the other Wicked Years books, but has some incredible character studies of characters we all have come to know and love in Maguire’s Oz.

This was extremely disappointing 😭

If you know me personally, you know I grew up in theatre and, up until recent years, it was a giant part of my life. My college minor was even musical theatre! Wicked the Musical was pivotal for me falling in love with theatre, and some years back I read Wicked (the classic novel by Maguire) and, while it wasn't exactly the same as the musical I had grown up loving obviously, I still appreciated seeing where the work came from and enjoyed my time reading it. So when I saw this prequel was coming out, I was SO excited to get to learn more about Elphie, who I have grown up loving so much in varying forms of media. I could not wait to get my hands on it, and when I received this ARC today, I literally dropped everything else I had planned and anything else I was reading to sit and binge this.

This did not deliver how I hoped. First and foremost, the writing did not flow well to me at all. I had an extremely hard time focusing on the book and understanding the story due to: 1.) The incredibly short simple sentences. It was all written so choppy. 2.) It was SO overly flowery that I genuinely had to sit and puzzle together what was even being said (just for it to be nothing relevant most of the time). For example, at one point Elphie's teeth were called "little gems of standard design". Huh??? I know some people love very academic, flowery writing, so perhaps this is just a me issue. For me, it was so unnecessarily difficult to read for absolutely no reason, and a major turn off for the book.

Which brings me to my next issue--nothing happened. If I'm going to read a prequel, I need it to add something to the experience I already knew and loved. Realistically, I was mostly reading this to spend time with and further get to know Elphie, but I don't even feel like I further got to know her, at least not to any degree of importance. At that point, I'm unsure what the point of this was.

Very sad about this one and will be bummed until I get more Elphie content (Wicked movie Nov 22 cannot come sook enough!!!). This one's a 2🌟 from me.

Thanks so much to William Morrow and NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review!

I was beyond excited to get approved for this ARC and revisit the World of Oz, especially Wicked with the movie coming out. However, not sure why but Maguires writing did not work for me this go around. I enjoyed Wicked and Son of a Witch so I am unsure what happened here but I found myself having to reread sentences over and over because half the time, they read like fairy tale non sense. The pacing is super slow and some of the dialogue is repetitive. We also spend a lot of time with other characters and their histories other then Elphaba which is okay but I found most of it boring.

I think it is finally time for me to accept that no matter how much I love The Wizard of Oz and Wicked the musical, Gregory Maguire's writing style is not for me. I really wanted to love this book but I found the writing to be difficult to get through and the story itself unfortunately did not wow me. Despite these feelings, there was still a lot about this book that redeemed it to me. I do recognize that although not necessarily a constant exciting and riveting story, what we did get filled in a lot of the gaps that had existed for Elphaba's background from the previous stories in the series. I also did enjoy the small nods to the story that is well known today and how it took care to ensure continuity and set up for those "future" storylines. I especially loved the mention of Elphie's singing! I think Maguire's revisiting of this world ahead of the movie release is a great idea as well, especially as it will most likely bring more people to read the OG Wicked novel. This story will be a great companion for the other books in this series to help readers gain a better understanding of how Elphie became the witch we know and love. And lastly, as I am a huge lover of book dedications, the dedication to Cynthia and Ariana was so so sweet. Thank you for the opportunity to read this story ahead of its release.

Firstly, want to say that I received Elphie: A Wicked Childhood" free from the publisher in exchange for an honest review! I received an electronic ARC (advanced reader copy) and read it fairly quickly!

Elphie, is a prequel to Gregory Maguire’s Wicked series of books. I am a huge Maguire fan so was super excited when I read about how he would be publishing another book in the Wicked series! (Elphie will be published on March 25, 2025.) Elphaba, or Elphie, as she is called in this book is known later in life as the Wicked Witch of the West. She is green, can’t handle water, and talks to Animals, mainly flying monkeys. As you can guess by the title, this book is about Elphie’s childhood, and the majority takes place from her infancy to when she’s thirteen. Elphaba was odd even as a child, born with pointed teeth, and ignored by her mother. And even as a child, she had an affinity with both animals and Animals alike. She is the oldest of her mother’s three children and like any older sibling, doesn’t really care too much for her younger siblings, especially since she has been charged with taking care of them.

It had been a while since I last read a Maguire book, but it was easy to get into the flow of his prose and narration. One thing I love about him as an author is that he often uses antiquated words along with the words he created just for his worlds. It makes it feel more authentic somehow.

My favorite aspect of this novel is the characterization of Elphie and her siblings. We see even as children who they’ll shape up to be as adults. Elphie is charged with watching her siblings, gets little love or attention to herself. Nessa is what some would call a white lotus, using her weaknesses to her advantage. Shell is an overactive and slightly rude little boy with far more energy than Nanny can keep up with. Considering we don’t get all that much into how they grew up, it was interesting to see. And as a reader, I really felt for Elphie wanting to stay in the jungles and forests because at least her green skin fits in there, among the trees and brush. And we also get to see her “wicked” tendencies. (No, that’s not a spoiler since Wicked is basically a household name and you probably know at least the basic plot!)

With all his books, I found Elphie hard to put down when I picked it up! So if you like retellings and remixes of stories you know, I would check it out!

I love Wicked, so I was eager to try this book. I can say that it didn't fulfill my expectations. I think it was unnecessary to read before Wicked. I would consider future novels by the author.