Coming of Age in the Age of Coming Zombies: A Book Review

[lukadia]

Read "The Forest of Hands and Teeth." The main character is a small-town girl whose dreams of greatness are being slowly drowned in a sea of zombies on the other side of the fence

Comments

[renatus]

It felt like I was reading Wicked all over again, and I do not forgive that lightly.

It is such a relief seeing that there's someone else who didn't like Wicked. It's seemed like the entire internets adooooores that damn book.

[ambrmerlinus]

You are not alone. I was bored to tears by the end of it. And apparently it's all some giant political metaphor that I'm not getting?

[renatus]

My very dim, hazy memories of the book feel some stirring at 'political metaphor', but what it might have been I have no idea. I, too, was crashingly bored (and incredibly irritated) by the end of it (you'd think a novel with a misunderstood girl protagonist would appeal to a misunderstood girl, but no!), and have zero urge to go back and re-read to see if I like it any better now that it's ~15 years later.

[lukadia]

Fans tell me it's because the musical fixed most of the problems and is supposed to be amazing.
But do I dare risk chapping my ass a second time?

I know. I will watch clips of Kristin Chenowith's scenes and her personal awesomeness will protect me from infection.

[renatus]

I only read Wicked once some... uh, fifteen years ago, god. XD But what I do remember I don't think a musical would fix, as one of my primary complaints was "Well aren't we all ~edgy~ making a children's classic adult" and the other was "Oh goody, another male author expounding on the female condition". Some of my judgement might've come from being a snooty seventeen-year-old, but as I haven't yet felt that re-reading it would give me any fresh insights other than 'yep, still hate it', well.

[lukadia]

It started off so promising, with Elphaba looking like a character who was gonna own in a Hermione-ish way. And then she spent the second half of the book in this nightmarish inertia while history happened barely-described all around her.

Why does she pine about the nature of evil? She's never shown to have real inner conflict, it just gets sold to the reader as a fait accompli while she sits around and does nothing to rescue her stolen loved ones.

BLAGH. A musical at least promises people will move around once in a while...

[renatus]

YES, THAT. That and the summary I read last night brought back a lot of memories of why I disliked the book so much.

That Maguire chose to use Oz as a setting also irked me from a craft standpoint (even when I was relatively noncritical teen reader). It seemed his main reason was for some "This is the DARK AND EDGY side of your innocent childlike fantasy!" bullshit, as he threw away the main constraints of the setting. I considered that perhaps he only based it on the first book (which is a little inconsistent with the rest of the series), except that he folded in things from the other books. The pick-and-choose nature of it makes me think he would have made a more interesting, impacting book if he'd written in his own setting that he spun off from Oz as a response to the Oz books, rather than going for the ~dark and edgy~ kids' classic angle.

Then again, apparently people eat that sort of thing up (and it wouldn't have solved the 'protagonist sits around wringing her hands for half the book), so...

I only read the sequel cause I was on a road trip and bored

[lissa_quon]

Oh the sequel gets even BETTER. Elphaba's forgotten brother spends a part of the book drugging female prisoners and having sex with them and then goes on to become some sort of prophet Emperor or something.

And Elphaba's son/not son spends a big chunk of the book in a coma and gets coma raped, to heal him? help him not die of the cold? I don't even know.

The rest of the book not devoted to creepy non consensual sex is focused on the fact that everything is really boring since Elphaba is dead.

Re: I only read the sequel cause I was on a road trip and bored

[renatus]

Ewwwww. Wow, my seventeen-year-old self's evaluation of Maguire as a total creeper (or at least, making a good imitation of one writing a BOOK FULL OF RAPE ewww) was way more accurate than I thought. O_o Thank you for the warning!

Re: I only read the sequel cause I was on a road trip and bored

[lukadia]

No facking way. Really!?

I almost need to read this trainwreck now.

Re: I only read the sequel cause I was on a road trip and bored

[lissa_quon]

I might be hazy in remembering, I THINK there was more in that book but really nothing worth remembering. But yea, there is the drug rape of prisoners thing that Lir only sees hints of and doesn't get what it is cause hes stupid.

And his own coma rape (which results in the girl getting knocked up and staying with him.) Though he doesn't seem to like her much due to the whole being raped while in a coma.