Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West

Since I was going to go see the musical Wicked, I thought I would read the book before I went to watch it. I knew in advance that the musical was way different than the book, but I still wanted to read the book.

The book follows the life of the Wicked witch of the West also known as Elphaba. Elphaba is born green which her father sees as disgrace towards him in away. Elphaba had a hard childhood, growing up green with a mother who wasn't all there and a father who would leave for long periods of time, then when her sister was born she had to take care of her because she was armless.

Elphaba grows up and goes to school at Shiz and a little while later she is joined by her sister Nessarose. Shiz is where Elphaba meets Galinda. Reading through the part where she is in Shiz, and before that with her childhood were my favorite parts of the book. After that, the book begins to get a little darker and harder for me to understand exactly what is going on.

Although, after the Mauntery time and the trip to Kiamo Ko, I start enjoy it again with Liir involved. I really liked the character Liir, which is one of the reasons I am excited to read the next book in the series.

I don't think I would give this five stars because it wasn't as good as I was expecting it to be. There were some confusing parts that I thought were left unanswered. Like, how did Elphaba become all bloody and messed up when she arrived at the mauntery. What really happened to Fiyero. What happened with Nor (I think this one is answered in the second book). I did enjoy the musical and even though it was very different to the book I felt like it went better along with the Wizard of Oz and explained things better than this book.

The Vanishing of Katharina Linden

First off, it took me about a quarter of the book to realize that there was a glossary at the back of the book with German terms in it. The book is riddled with German words and at first I thought I was going to have to guess my way through the German words, as only a couple of them had the definition of the word in the text. But, I was happy to find the glossary, and I was repeatedly flipping back that for the definitions of certain words.

The book is about Pia who wants to be the girl who solves the Katharina Linden case, no the girl whose grandmother had exploded. This book is not particularly about the disappearance of Katharina Linden but of a chain of events that has changed Pia's life in the span of a year.

Everything takes place in a small town, in which everyone knows everyone business. And, they think they know everything that is happening in there town, except for one small thing the disappearance of young girls in the town.

Pia, is a normal ten year old girl in this town, that is until Pia's grandmother dies an unexpected death, death by explosion. With everyone knowing everyones business this piece of news spread like wild fire and now Pia is the girl whose grandmother exploded. Then, girls start to go missing, and to try to wipe her name clean as the girl whose grandmother exploded Pia goes on the hunt for the missing girls with her sidekick StinkStephen.

I really enjoyed the book, it is all in Pia's point of view. Although, at the end, I felt as though maybe everything didn't all go together as nicely as it should have. Not, to give anything away, I will just say I wanted more explanations at the end.