An amazing novel. The best written, most well-crafted piece of writing I have had the pleasure of reading in years. Satisfying on so many levels. For all his flowery prose, Gregory Maguire nevertheless has such a gift of economy with words, a capacity to capture character in sly turns both comic and bittersweet. There are passages here that I had to revisit over & again, in awe of how many things such few words could accomplish to advance plot, reveal character, challenge the reader. Much more so than he's even done in his more well-known Oz reinventions (Wicked, Son of a Witch, and A Lion Among Men), here he really succeeds on so many levels to turn the familiar into something brand new and meaningful, yet simultaneously manages to preserve and honor the source material. A triumph. Anyone who wants to be a writer had better pay heed: this is how it is done, folks. An amazing novel.