The Witch of Maracoor by Gregory Maguire

“The first rule of witchery is to acknowledge your deficits.”

The third and final installment of the Another Day trilogy brings us Rain with her memory restored. Now that she remembers who she is, she can’t wait to return to Oz and figure out who she is meant to be.

As with the Wicked Years and the first two installments of Another Day, I found the settings to be imaginative even though L. Frank Baum was there first. GM creates a world that makes you feel transported and strangely at home.

Despite my appreciation of the setting, I found that this book lacked the charm of the first two books. 

The beginning was a bit wishy-washy. It opens with Rain, Iskinaary, and Lucickles on a ship. Eventually there’s an explanation for how they got there but it didn’t come soon enough and it felt really random. 

I didn’t find the subplot of Rain and Lucickles to be on par with their characters unless it’s to be considered a weird kind of character evolution…Which doesn’t make a whole lot of sense since they devolve back to their usual selves when the subplot is complete.

I liked the idea of the plot; Rain’s been angry and jaded for so long, it’s about time she worked toward healing her heartaches and working her way toward happiness. It’s a lighter read than the first two, losing its existentialism after Rain leaves Cossy behind, and while a light read isn’t a bad thing the tone isn’t particularly light itself (she’s still Elphaba’s granddaughter after all.) It feels like GM was in a rush to wrap things up; the story moves abruptly from one event to the next making it a little less of an adventure and more an itemized list of occurrences.

The story’s abruptness contributed to a weak ending. Rain’s life had been filled with so much angst, it had to be happy one, right? I’m a sucker for a happy ending, (those are my favorite kinds) but it felt too easy. It was happy but after all she’s been through, it seemed improbable that Rain would have to exert so little effort to acquire it. She simply went home. (Which to be fair, it is where the heart is.)

It's an okay read but I expected more from this book than what I got.