Gregory Maguire

Wicked (the Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West), Son of a Witch, and Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister:

They are super duper good! I just can't stop, when I read them! Wicked and Son of a Witch both have the good against evil theme, and also, the same sort of love theme. Wicked is GREAT, yet not as G-rated as the musical. It tells all about Elphaba (the witch) from her birth, to college, to trying to bring down the Wizard of Oz, who is the dictator of the Land of Oz, to her death, which we all know was Dorothy's fault. She has a love life, and a family, and all that stuff, and then stupid, ditzy Dorothy comes along and dumps water on her! The book really makes you hate all the characters of the Wizard of Oz, who in those books were the good ones. I mean, they're good, they're just stupid, and do stupid stuff, and most people in Oz don't like them.

Son of a Witch, of course is about the son of the witch, Liir. No one is quite sure he even is the son of the witch, but he flies on her broom, so that's what people think. In this one, the Wizard is gone, but the new Emperor is a bit insane. So Son of a Witch is about Liir growing up and falling in love, and killing some dragons on the way.

Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister shows Cinderella in a whole new light. This Cinderella doesn't go anywhere, because she doesn't want to. She cleans the chimney because she likes to. She is slightly spoiled though, because she's the rich one, not the stepsisters, and pretty stupid, too. Basically the only good thing about her is she is beautiful. So the book tells about how Iris and Ruth (the ugly stepsisters) come to be Clara's (Cinderella) stepsisters, and how Clara gets the Prince. It's the same story of Cinderella, but it's got a twist.

Read away! They are GOOD!