No one mourns the wicked – and no child should read it either.
Before there was the movie Wicked 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 in L. Frank Baum’s characters in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.
Despite the film’s popularity and resurgence of interest in everything that came before it, parents are being warned not to buy their children the book that inspired The Wicked because of disturbing scenes of rape, murder and animals.
The folks over at BookTok — TikTok book nerds — are blasting publishers for reprinting Maguire’s 1995 novel with a cover image using the movie poster featuring Grande and Erivo, who play Glinda and Elphaba, respectively.
They note key differences between book, musical and film adaptations, which can expose children to “very mature themes”.
The book contains drink, drugs, sexual assault, prostitution, crime, racism, murder and sex parties between humans and animals. One of the opening scenes in the book depicts dolls having sex, and when Elphaba is first introduced, she is a feral baby who has been muzzled after biting people’s appendages.
Using the movie poster as the cover for the reprinted version of the novel is misleading, TikTokkers claim, adding that it suggests the book has the same PG themes as the movie.
“This is a serious warning to parents and kids who enjoyed the movie ‘Wicked’ – so don’t buy them the book,” user @enchantednanny said in a video. “It’s not a children’s book. They are explicit scenes, they are very detailed and very adult themes.”
She continued, “For some reason, they put the new movie cover on the old book, which obviously as a parent who’s never read that book, would make you think, ‘Oh, this is just going to be a movie book .’ It’s not.”
“I wouldn’t want my children to read it – they would be traumatised.”
BookTokker @carlyaclements echoed the sentiment, saying that in her opinion, the book should be for people 18 or older.
She then goes on to list “very vague and coded” details of what happens in the book that make it unsuitable for children, adding that people should Google trigger warnings and look on Reddit for a clearer list.
Carly warned that the book depicts an adult party, sexual assault, murder, ritual murder, sexual assault “involving creatures that shouldn’t be involved”, feasting on sentient beings, “very young” people getting married – “lots of themes of adults, particularly clear themes.”
“It’s not a warm and friendly book,” she warned. “It’s only because of the musical and the subsequent movie that it’s a bit misleading now. I’m still shocked by the book cover.”
People in the comments expressed their shock when they discovered that the book wasn’t as kid-friendly as the music and movie.
“It ends very differently from the musical. It was more graphic than I was comfortable reading (15+ years ago). I passed BC Loved the musical ending and wanted to see how they got there – they didn’t,” wrote one.
“The book is extremely different! I read it after Wicked opened on Broadway and was very surprised by some scenes,” commented one user.
“Holy Tihan I just read the trigger warning and I wouldn’t have thought of that! and to hear you say it in a little more detail… I’m actually in shock,” said another.
“It’s amazing what they turned the musical into actually considering the source material,” someone said.
“WHY? WHY? Why did they do this! NO!!!!” another shouted.
“I saw a comment from the author that there was a reason why he made things clear at the beginning of the book so people know it’s not for children. Why on earth would they have the movie cover on it!!?” one asked.
#Parents #horrified #original #Wicked #book #warning #kids #Theyd #traumatised
Image Source : nypost.com