The Savvy Bookworm

by Gregory Maguire

I’ve been meaning to read this book for sometime.  I’ve always been a fan of The Wizard of Oz, and I thought the idea of digging into the past of the Wicked Witch of The West was a fun premise.  After being completely disappointed by the last read though, I approached this with a sense of caution.  I was wary of being disappointed.

Lucky me, I was not disappointed.  It was a fun fantasy through and through.  It was very fun to see glimpses of the Oz I’m familiar with within this new land of Oz which the author created. I was enchanted by all the characters, and I especially enjoyed the friendship and its complexity of Galinda and Elphaba.

I’m not going to spoil this book by going into much detail, but I will say that if you are a fan of the musical, this is a different story apparently, so keep that in mind before curling up with the book.  I also should mention that there is one scene in the book which is pretty disturbing.  It takes place in “The Philosophy Club” and I most certainly will not go into details, but I will say that I didn’t find the scene necessary to the story at all, and I thought it could easily have been done without.

Overall though, this was an enchanting read and a fantastic choice to take me away to another world for a few hours.  I definitely recommend this book, and I’m looking forward to reading the sequel, Son of A Witch.

by Matthew Pearl

After checking this book out from the library four times, I can finally put it to rest.  A while back, I had read The Dante Club by Matthew Pearl, and loved it.  It quickly became a favorite book.  The thing about The Dante Club though, was that it took a while for the story to become engaging.  But once I got into it, I was unable to put the book down.

So I had high anticipations for The Poe Shadow.  It took me a long while to get into it in the first place.  I would pick it up, begin reading, and then quickly become bored.  But I trudged on.  I remembered the reward of continuing with The Dante Club, and I was looking forward to The Poe Shadow taking off, but sadly, it never did.  I had hopes, in fact, around page 120 it picked up a bit, and I became excited that the book was finally going to become exciting and enchanting.  But it wasn’t long before it became mired down in fact and truth and it was just plain boring.  There was a good story in there, it just didn’t get an opportunity to overtake what seemed to become a dissertation on Edgar Allen Poe’s demise.

I can’t recommend this book.  Not even slightly.  I just kept reading and trudging, and then I got to the point where I thought I might as well finish it, and I had to force myself to keep picking the thing up.  I was so relieved to finish this book, and I will be thrilled to drop it off at the library and never see it again.

Come on Mr. Pearl.  Do better next time would you?  Based on The Dante Club alone I will be checking out his next work as soon as it’s available, I just sure hope it delivers better than this one did.