Son of a Witch – Gregory Maguire

2005, 352 pages.
Sequel of “Wicked”.

*** SPOILER ALERT: contains spoilers to the previous book “Wicked” ****

“Wicked” is one of my favorite books ever. Very few heroines touched my heart like Elphaba. Unfortunately, Elphaba died at the end of the book. I wasn’t too compelled to go on to the next book in “The Wicked Years”, “Son of a Witch”, because I knew Elphaba wasn’t there, but I decided to read it anyway, hoping she will at least be mentioned, or appear in memories and recollections (kind of desperate, I know…).
This book focuses in Liir, who could be Elphaba’s son – nobody really know. The book starts about a decade after the end of the previous book and the death of Elphaba. Liir is found bitten, unconscious, almost dead, and taken into a Maunt, where he is treated. From here the story go back to his memories from the death of his – maybe – mother to the present. We learn how Liir tries to find his place in life, and what had become of Oz during this time. We meet some of the characters of the previous book, like Glinda, and we get to know Dorothy and her companions a little better.
The book is called “Son of a Witch”, though Liir (and the reader) does not know if that is true. But Liir finds out that he can have a saying in this issue – he can choose to be the son of Elphaba, the rebel, the only one who dared to defy the Wizard and what he did to the Animals in the previous book. He has to make that decision and make up his mind if he want to be her son, no matter if they share a DNA or not, or if he wants to run away from her legacy and memory – memories that are not necessarily pleasant, since Elphaba wasn’t the example of a maybe-mom – or find himself, what he really is, not as a son or not-a-son of somebody else. Liir goes through a big change in the book.
I didn’t like the Liir at the beginning of the book, and I didn’t enjoy the first half. After about half a book I was much more interested in what is happening and what Liir is going through. All in all I enjoyed the book, though it took a while to get caught by it. It has all the good things I loved about “Wicked” – the witty and shrewd writing, the words play, the moral discussions, the analogy to our reality of this fantasy world, the cynical use of war and suspicion by the rulers. What I didn’t have is a captivating main character as Elphaba that made Wicked to what it is. I am still glad I read it after all. I also guessed the end, but still liked it.