Title: Missed Opportunity
Review: After seeing the new Broadway musical version (loosely stated), I was excited to read Maguire's book...which came highly recommended by several friends. I couldn't have been more disappointed. The musical's script is a vast improvement over this aimless sprawl of a novel by bestowing the characters with MOTIVATION. In the novel, I found the characters poorly defined and the plot ill-focused. It's a shame, because Maguire's prose isn't without merit...he's just given us a real, real mess of a book. He starts so many threads without direction, and without wrapping them up. It is not a page-turner, and has no narrative sweep. If this is the "prequil" to The Wizard of Oz, it certainly wouldn't make anyone want to read Baum's classic.Anyone who wants to see a GOOD story inspired by Maguire's characters and a few of his ideas would do well to credit Winnie Holzman, who wrote the script to the new Broadway musical Wicked.
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