Recently I started in on a new author - okay "new" is subjective as his books have been around for a better part of a decade. Gregory Maguire is probably most known as the author of Wicked which became a hit Broadway musical. I saw that book in paperback recently at the store and decided to grab it. I heard his style is taking classic fairy tales and such and spinning them in a different way for adults. Sounded fun.
I actually didn't read my purchase first though (still need to do that). Instead I went to the local library and checked out a couple of his earlier works first: Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister and Mirror Mirror. The first is a spin on Cinderella while the later is one on Snow White. What did I think? Well...
Both of these books are period pieces, set in Europe in the middle of last century. So, you've got to adjust for that. The first is written in present tense mostly - which for some reason always puts me off (not sure why). The later actually ties in Lucricia Borgia as the "wicked queen". In both, it took an awful long time doing the set-up and the action seemed rather drab. Not sure why. I had hoped for more but was woefully disappointed.
I will likely start Wicked some time next month - or perhaps wait a bit longer to get that first bad taste of the author out of my head.
Well, I can't speak for his othe tales, but Wicked is a great play. I've seen it twice - once in the far, far back row where I bumped my head on the ceiling and tickets were only $15 (for a reason, it turned out) and then down on the main floor where you could actually see the performers. Wonderful show, I thought.
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