Thanks to my friend for getting me an arc, you've won friendship!

I do not understand why we needed this book. Wicked covered Elphaba's childhood sufficiently. Nothing more was needed. I was curious when this was announced if it would contribute anything of value to the novel's canon. After reading this, I have concluded it doesn't. I keep thinking why this was written and I think I have an idea. This book is written for people who have seen the films, but don't want to read the 400-page behemoth that is Wicked and have the film's versions of the characters spoiled.< I will be rereading Wicked and this when the full version releases in March, but as of right now I feel like Elphie takes a different tone towards Elphaba. She is no longer Elphaba as she was in the books. This book felt like it was kinder towards its characters, which supports my idea that it is a prequel to the film in spirit, forcibly bound to the lore of the original book to "justify" it.

Magurie's writing style is best when he's doing plot. The first 1/3rd of this book is hard to get through even as a seasoned Maguire reader. Nothing much happens. Every little thing that was mentioned in Wicked gets its own chapter and explanation, yet it takes the tone that we've read Wicked and understand these things to be a fact. Like Elphaba's sharp baby teeth. I don't blame anyone for DNFing it at that point, I was tempted. It does get better when things start happening and Elphaba starts doing things, though I wouldn't say the book ever picks up at any point. That's not the way of the author.

I found the short sentences and short chapters hard to read. All the full stops made the page feel so long, and then you'd get to the end of the chapter a realize you'd only read a couple of pages and were making no progress in the book. I always find Maguire's books slow, but this one felt exhausting despite being so short. A frustrating paradox that had me putting down this book quite often. It also failed to grab my attention most of the time. This book is quite mute in the way all prequels are. It is hard to build tension when we know where the characters must end up. Not only that, but we already know the results of many of the events. This isn't bringing anything new, it's expanding on events, characters, and things we know about. This isn't a book covering things that happened before the book Wicked began, as the book Wicked begins in the same place this one does: the circumstances of Elpahaba's parents and her unfortunate birth. This only elaborates further and ends before any of the real exciting parts of the story happen. 

Got bored at this one

This plot is the plot of a hallmark movie. I found it very surface level and characters go on a lot of rants about right and wrong and morals and it bests you over the head with its message. Unfortunately, it show a very inaccurate portrayal of how social justice and change within the government happens. It's not a fight, or an affair that takes years of organization. It takes one employee having a little outburst at upper management and spreading some papers and suddenly everything is solved within a few months.

This book is fantasy for people who don't read fantasy.

No notes, phenomenal. A bit too short. 

I struggled with this one in the beginning when it was stubbornly character-focused. Unfortunately, this series is not being written like a traditional fantasy series and I think It suffers in these "contemporary" books where it is trying to be. It's hard to tell an overarching story when the characters have little development and pop out of nowhere. I'm not attached to Cora. Her introduction to the series put me off. If we'd had actual characterization for her before book three, I would have been more on board, but I've spent two other books being annoyed and confused about why this character was here in the first place. If it was to get her to this point, I still think it's dumb.

We don't what happened to her in the trenches. We don't know what happened to her with the Drowned Gods. We have no connection to her. There's no satisfying payoff. Of course, I wanted her to get out of WI. It's a bad place. But I still don't particularly feel attached to her character. This entire arc could have been done with Rachel from the last book since she makes an appearance in this one. Cora continues to be unnecessary. 

The second half of this book is very plot-focused. It did feel a bit rushed. This was the best part of the book, very enjoyable. I do think it would have been more interesting if instead of being blanket evil, they explored the idea that some kids need to forget their time/want to forget their time for various reasons. The staff here have to learn to let those who don't go, instead of being blanket evil. I was hoping for a bit more nuance. 

I thought this was going to be shorter but here we are. 

This one, this one got me. Masterpiece. That's all I'll say.

Mixed feelings on this one. I liked getting a follow-up with Jack and Jill. I was worried it would somehow cheapen "Down Amoung the Sticks and Bones" but it did not, which was a pleasant surprise. I absolutely LOVED the idea of monsters being in balance. Those lines hit HARD. Especially at the end. If this book was only the ending, 5/5. The drowned gods stuff was a but "meh...." for me, I feel like it could have been omitted. 

I'm also glad this book didn't cheapen death the way "Beneath a Sugar Sky" did. The stakes and consequences were well defined, and Jill's death didn't feel cheapened becuase we already knew that resurrection was possible in the Moors. I'm still not a huge fan of Sumi coming back even though she's a fun character.

On that note, I'm still not quite sure why Cora is here since she again has zero connection to anything happening. She's starting to feel like a character that Maguire forgot to include in the first book and decided to put her in anyway without any of the relevant introductions. 

My issues with both Cora and Sumi tie  in with.how I feel about this installment of the series. It seems weird that doors are supposed to be rare yet we have all these characters that have gone to multiple different worlds. On top of that, there was the whole issue about not being suited to the different worlds in tje first book when Eleanor wanted to protect the students by sending them trhough her door. That issue hasn't arisen in these books. I get wanted to have a cast of returning characters for people to get invested in, especially when there's not enough room in these books to properly develop new characters every time, but it doesn't sit right with me the way all of this door business seems so easy as long as you're on a quest. If it were different characters in a different time it would make more sense, but them we'd have to sacrifice precious space for character development at the cost of worldbuilding and plot. I don't think there's a perfect solution here given the lengths of the novels, but sometimes this series feels more like a collection of story ideas than actual stories and I find myself engaging more with the premise than the actual contents of the book.

The writing in this one felt a bit different than the rest in the series. It doesn't cover a very long period of time, so there's a bit more room for the story to breathe instead of shoving down your throat which I appreciated as well.