Verses is where I put two mediums of the same story against each other 
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First Off: the spoiler free points
So it’s been a couple years since I read then saw Wicked. I was first captivated by the soundtrack, which is also what caused my dad to buy tickets to the Chicago show. When I knew I was going to see it, I decided to read the book, because the book is always better, right?
The Rounds: this is where I put them head to head to see who the winner is, and warning there will be spoilers
Main Character: From what I remember Elphaba was a little crazy at the beginning and a lot crazy by the end of the book. Glenda doesn’t really stand out to me in my memory of the book, and I can’t really remember what I thought of her. Fearo was some kind of Munchkin prince that I think actually died in the book which caused Elphaba to go over the top crazy. The Broadway however, each character’s juxtaposition of the other makes you love them individually all the more. They each have their own struggles and difficulties that ultimately determine the decisions they make, for better or worse. The book just seemed to be for the worse.
The Story: I’ll start by saying as I read the book, I was trying to place how the Broadway soundtrack fit the story the book was telling me. That was probably the wrong way to go about it, but I didn’t realize at the time how different the story in the book and the Broadway would be. Really, it’s hard to compare the two stories because the only real similarity is that the story you know about oz isn’t the full story. The book was a very political book and from what I remember, I don’t think magic was really a thing in the book. There was some bestiality in the book, which really made me dislike the book and a lot of drug use, and by the end I was so confused about what was going on that it was hard for me to follow. I went into the Broadway really worried that it was going to be a terrible show. I was really glad that the Broadway was so different. The music is fantastic and is still one of my favorite musical scores (and yes, I’m listening to it as I write this post.) All the costumes and characters of the musical were excellent and really it is really a great story that address the question of “what makes you wicked?”
So the Broadway Wicked totally beats the book. I’m usually a big fan of books as the original story, but I really really really didn’t like the book. I’ve tried to block a lot of the book from memory because of how much I didn’t like it. Some of it was probably because I was trying to make the soundtrack fit the book, but a lot of it was just the components of the book, a lot of which were some kind of political moral mix up trying to play with the boundary of right and wrong, crazy and normal. I’d much rather see the a play out of friendship and the tension of do people choose to be wicked or is it trust upon them play out.