Son of a Witch

By Gregory Maguire
Shame on you Gregory Maguire. As if you didn't have enough money from the publication of Wicked, and other fairy tale retellings, and your children's books. And let's not forget Wicked the Broadway musical, which if you're smart-you negotiated residuals. So now you further capitalize on the success of Wicked that you write a sequel. Folks were skeptical, but I believed in you. I believed that you had been so clever in all the other books of yours, you'd be clever with this too. And have to say I am sorely disappointed.
Mr. Maguire spends 350 pages essentially telling us that Liir is indeed the son of Elphaba. Now while it is not explicit in Wicked it is implied and I came away with the understanding that Liir was Elphaba's son. While Son of a Witch does have Mr. Maguire's sardonic voice (which I love) I was constantly thinking it would get somewhere and it never really did. It constantly fell short for me, which I'll admit is the point of Liir's life really-that it never really lives up to Elphaba's. But then why write a book about it?
Now it's certainly not as bad as some sequels (cough...The Lost World) and I don't feel my time was completely wasted. But I wouldn't recommend it to anyone other than a die hard Maguire fan.