No one mourns the wicked — and no kid should read it either.
Before there was the “Wicked” movie starring Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo, there was the Broadway musical “Wicked,” which is based on Gregory Maguire’s novel “Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West,” based on L. Frank Baum’s characters in “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.”
Despite the popularity of the movie and the resurgence of interest in all that came before it, parents are being warned not to buy their children the book that inspired “Wicked” due to disturbing scenes of rape, murder and bestiality.
People on BookTok — the book nerds of TikTok — are slamming publishers for re-releasing Maguire’s 1995 novel with a cover image using the movie poster with Grande and Erivo, who play Glinda and Elphaba, respectively.
They point out key differences between the book, musical, and movie adaptations, which could expose children to “very adult themes.”
The book contains drinking, drugs, sexual assault, prostitution, crime, racism, murder and sex parties between humans and animals. One of the opening scenes in the book depicts puppets having sex, and when Elphaba is first introduced, she’s a ferocious infant who is muzzled after biting off people’s appendages.
Using the movie poster as the cover for the re-released version of the novel is misleading, TikTokkers claim, adding that it suggests that the book has the same PG themes as the movie.
“This is a serious warning for parents and children who have loved the movie ‘Wicked’ — do not buy them the book,” user @enchantednanny said in a video. “It is not a children’s book. They are explicit scenes, they are heavily detailed and very adult themes.”
She continued, “For some reason, they put the new cover of the movie onto the old book, which obviously as a parent who’s never read that book, would make you think, ‘Oh, this is just gonna be a book of the film.’ It’s not.”
“I would not want my children reading it — they would be traumatized.”
BookTokker @carlyaclements echoed the sentiment, saying that in her opinion, the book should be for people 18 years or older.
She then goes on to list “very vague and coded” details of what happens in the book that make it not suitable for children, adding that people should Google the trigger warnings and look at Reddit for a more explicit list.
Carly warned that the book depicts an adult party, sexual assault, murder, ritualistic murder, sexual assault “involving creatures that should not be involved,” feasting on sentient beings, “very young” people getting married — “a lot of adult topics, particularly explicit topics.”
“It’s not a warm and friendly book,” she warned. “It’s just because of the musical and the subsequent film that it is slightly misleading now. I’m still shocked by that book cover.”
People in the comments expressed their shock in finding out the book wasn’t as child-friendly as the musical and film.
“it ends VERY differently from the musical. Was more graphic than I was comfortable reading (15+ yrs ago). I pushed through bc I love the musical ending & wanted to see how they’d get there-they didn’t,” one wrote.
“The book is shockingly different! I read it after Wicked opened on Broadway and was very surprised about certain scenes,” a user commented.
“holy smokes I just read the trigger warning and would not have thought that! and hearing you say it in a bit more detail… I’m actually in shock,” another said.
“it’s amazing what they turned the musical into really considering the source material😅,” someone quipped.
“WHY? WHY? Why have they done that! NO!!!!” another exclaimed.
“I saw a comment from the author there’s a reason why he put explicit stuff early in the book so that people know it’s not for kids. Why on Earth would they have the film cover on it!!?” one questioned.
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