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Book Summary and Reviews of Out of Oz by Gregory Maguire

Out of Oz by Gregory Maguire

Out of Oz

The Final Volume in the Wicked Years

by Gregory Maguire

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  • Published:
  • Nov 2011, 592 pages
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About this book

Book Summary

Hailed as "bewitching," "remarkable," "extraordinary," "engrossing," "amazing," and "delicious," Gregory Maguire's Wicked Years series - a sophisticated fantasy cycle inspired by the classic children's novel The Wizard of Oz - became national bestsellers and the basis for a hit Tony-winning Broadway musical. Now, Maguire returns with the final installment in his transformative work, a thrilling and compulsively readable saga in which the fate of Oz is decided at last...

Once peaceful and prosperous, the spectacular Land of Oz is knotted with social unrest: The Emerald City is mounting an invasion of Munchkinland, Glinda is under house arrest, and the Cowardly Lion is on the run from the law. And look who's knocking at the door. It's none other than Dorothy. Yes. That Dorothy.

Yet amidst all this chaos, Elphaba's granddaughter, the tiny green baby born at the close of Son of a Witch, has come of age. Now it is up to Rain to take up her broom - and her legacy - in an Oz wracked by war.

The stirring, long-awaited conclusion to the bestselling series begun with Wicked, Out of Oz is a magical journey rife with revelations and reversals, reprisals and surprises - the hallmarks of the unique imagination of Gregory Maguire.

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Reviews

Media Reviews

"The language and imagery are rich, and the sense of love, loss, and regret palpable. For fans, this will be a revealing and satisfying end to the layered tale begun in Wicked." - Publishers Weekly

"Starred Review. Maguire pays subtle homage to Tolkien and Rowling and even Frank Baum while having a grand old time in the fantastically complicated world he has crafted." - Kirkus Reviews

"Starred Review. Engrossing, complex... continues to flip the world of Oz on its head while answering new and old questions about Oz and its denizens. Highly recommended." - Library Journal

"A worthy conclusion to an imaginative and emotionally searing cultural phenomenon... nobody does fractured fairy tales better than Maguire." - Booklist

This information about Out of Oz was first featured in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.

Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.

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Author Information

Gregory Maguire Author Biography

©2008 Andy Newman

Gregory Maguire is the author of several novels for adults and more than a dozen novels for children.

His few adult novels, include Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West (1995), Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister (1999); Lost (2001); Mirror Mirror (2003); Son of a Witch, the sequel to Wicked, published in 2005. His most recent work is After Alice published in 2015.

Wicked has been developed as a big-budget Broadway musical, with music and lyrics by Stephen Schwartz (Godspell, Pippin, The Prince of Egypt, etc.).

Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister was filmed for ABC/Disney and aired originally in the Spring of 2002. It starred Stockard Channing and Jonathan Pryce.

Mr. Maguire's work for adults and for children has been published abroad in England, Ireland ...

... Full Biography
Author Interview
Link to Gregory Maguire's Website

Name Pronunciation
Gregory Maguire: ma-gwire (rhymes with liar)

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