Found on bargain book day at the Dearborn AAUW or St. Clare of Montefalco Used Book Sales. This one is going out in the Odd Duck Perpetual Bookray. Stay tuned for more details.

This book starts its journey today on the Odd Duck Perpetual Bookray. Here is the mailing order of the readers:

melydia
CasualReader
arugh48187
Kernow8
kkbjme
kymberlie (not actively bookcrossing? PM FIRST!)
qourcester
kalahari

This book is open to more members at the end or may be left in the wild. As it ends in Portugal, I guess European readers would be appropriate here! Here's a quick link to the members:

The Odd Duck Perpetual Home Page

Thanks and Happy weird reading!

Yay! My first Odd Duck came in the mail today!

My only previous exposure to Oz is in the form of movies (the Judy Garland classic as well as "The Wiz" and "Return to Oz"), so there was probably a lot of irony in this story that was completely lost on me. All the same, I enjoyed it. Its assertion that evil is in the eye of the beholder (and the writer of history) was striking. The ending was a bit rushed, and the author did not offer quite as many explanations as I would have liked (such as *why* she was making winged monkeys), but all in all it was a good book. Now I want to read Maguire's other fairy tales from the bad guy's point of view.

I'll mail this out next weekend.

Sorry for the delay in journaling this. It arrived in Orlando a little over a week ago. I'm currently reading it, and will pass it on as soon as I can.

Thanks lightwavz and melydia!

As much as I wanted to, I couldn't get into this book. It seemed very well written, but I think maybe I just wasn't in the right mood for it.

School's starting back up for me again, so instead of holding on to this any longer, I'm going to send it on to arugh48187. (And she seems pretty darned excited about that ;-)

I am PSYCHED! I have been wanting to read this forever. I have a few bookring books in front of it but I am hoping to get to it soon. An interesting point is that I just mailed off my very first Odd Duck book about five minutes before I found this one in my mailbox. Hee!

I must say that I was a little disappointed with this book. It was not nearly as fantastical and all-consuming as I had thought it would be. Perhaps I just had too high of expectations. The story itself was interesting, but I would have liked it better if the witch had lived up to her name.

Released on Monday, April 05, 2004 at Post Office at 153rd and Garrett in Apple Valley, MN, postal release USA.

Sending off to Kernow8 so she can quick read it before she defects...

Arrived today - thanks! This is fourth in line for reading and I expect to be able to mail it out again within 2-3 weeks.

An enjoyable read - I was able to dip in and out of it and pick up where I'd left off without having to re-read whole chunks, which is a big plus when you're in the process of shifting your life to another country! Reading this has provided some welcome relaxation. I found Elphaba a compelling and sympathetic character, although I too was left with a few unanswered questions by the end - I suppose that might have been intentional though. My favorite parts were the childhood in Munchkinland and the underground years in the Emerald City. Those parts of the story seemed really well developed. I think I missed many of the subtle connections between this book and its inspiration - I've only seen the movie, and haven't even seen that for many years - but that didn't detract from my enjoyment of this as a great bit of escapist fantasy...

Thanks all - in the mail to kkbjme now.

Got this in the mail last week. I'm about 100pgs into it and I love it so far. Sorry for the delay in journaling, but I'm using public library internet for now.

I loved this! The Wicked Witch of the West was the most feared creature of my childhood. She amazed me as a child and though I had nightmares about her chasing me I never missed a chance to watch the Wizard of Oz. I know her well now.
Will Pm Kymberlie and see if it goes to her or the next in line.

Received some time in the last couple of weeks - sorry for not journaling it sooner! Going to read it and pass it on as quickly as possible.

When our story starts off, we’re treated to the Wicked Witch of the West, Elphaba, swooping down on her broom to spy on Dororthy Gale and her group as they discuss her origin. The majority of the book is then told as a flashback, beginning with Elphaba’s mother getting ready to shortly give birth to her.

Honestly, I don’t feel like recapping the entire story, so I’m not. I liked about the first half of the book, but once Elphaba left for the Vinkus, I really felt like the story bogged down. Up until then, it had been interesting with political discourse, love affairs, and interesting characters. After that point, however, it seemed to just drag on and on with no real purpose.

Once the final events leading to Elphaba’s death start to get put in motion, I felt like they were very haphazad and didn’t relate well and were just rushed to finish the book up. The whole part about a possible conspiracy drawing the lives of the three witches together also never set very well with me.

I’m torn whether I would recommend this book or not. Ultimately I found it disappointing, but so many people really love it that it might be worth your time to read.