You have a favorite restaurant, and you have your favorite dish from that spot. It’s incredible. So tasty.

But one day, you decide to branch out. Same eatery—gotta be other good stuff on the menu.

But—it’s not the same. There’s evidence of the same quality, the same attention to detail, the same love. But the parts don’t add up to same cohesive, incredible whole as your favorite item on the menu does.

Such is the relationship of Son of a Witch to Wicked. SoaW has rich writing, nuanced characters, some tantalizing details, but the coherence of the plot fades in and out of existence, characters mostly feel like devices to move the plot forward, and there are too few moments of genuine delight.

There were moments throughout the novel that teased me—we’re going somewhere here…these characters are going to have a genuine interaction that builds into something memorable—but ultimately went nowhere. There are a few neat character details—Glinda’s fleeting moments on stage and Liir’s grappling with his place as Elphaba’s maybe heir—but they are so slight and so few they offer little propulsion to the stagnant narrative.

I was disappointed not to like SoaW better than I did.