Dorothy Must Die by Danielle Paige Series: Dorothy Must Die #1
Published by HarperTeen on April 1st, 2014
Genres: Fantasy, YA
Goodreads
I didn't ask for any of this. I didn't ask to be some kind of hero.
But when your whole life gets swept up by a tornado—taking you with it—you have no choice but to go along, you know?Sure, I've read the books. I've seen the movies. I know the song about the rainbow and the happy little blue birds. But I never expected Oz to look like this. To be a place where Good Witches can't be trusted, Wicked Witches may just be the good guys, and winged monkeys can be executed for acts of rebellion. There's still the yellow brick road, though—but even that's crumbling.
What happened?
Dorothy. They say she found a way to come back to Oz. They say she seized power and the power went to her head. And now no one is safe.My name is Amy Gumm—and I'm the other girl from Kansas.
I've been recruited by the Revolutionary Order of the Wicked.
I've been trained to fight.
And I have a mission:
Remove the Tin Woodman's heart.
Steal the Scarecrow's brain.
Take the Lion's courage.
Then and only then—Dorothy must die!
Ok before I get into this review how about we get this “Full Fathom Five” stuff out the way yes? I’m going to tell you know your views are your, mine are mine and that’s all there is to that. Today I’m going to review Dorothy Must Die by Danielle Paige. Nothing more thing less. Cool? Cool.
Dorothy Must Die was one of my most anticipated releases for 2014. I’m a HUGE Wizard of Oz fan so naturally when I found out about this book I pretty much squealed for 5 minutes added to goodreads then squealed some more. But since I’m currently staying with my mom and have limited space as is I’ve put myself on a very strict book buying ban till I can move this summer. This ban plus Dorothy Must Dies release equalled a very sad Octavia.
Damn my limited space and this “need” to save money to move! Damn these needs to HELL!
BUT! I have a fabulous library system! Even though my library hadn’t ordered a copy of Dorothy Must Die I made the request and BAM! 3 days later it was ready for me. I’m not sure what sorcery was performed to make this happen, especially since none of the libraries in our system had it, but thank you library gods for being nice. So I ran out, picked it up and it was the first book I tackled during my “unplugged” weekend. Like any other review I’m going to be totally honest and say yes it was good….no it wasn’t great.
I know lots of people are already on the fence so lets get the bad out the way ok?
The Characters!
From page one I could tell Amy (our MC) was going to constantly annoy and piss me off. About 4 pages in a pregnant chick punches her in the jaw (Amy totally didn’t deserve it) and while Amy couldn’t have physically done anything (duh) I was instantly annoyed that she didn’t even attempt to stand up for herself. Like the teacher (a totally jack ass) immediately plays this “I thought you were better than that, but obviously I was wrong” card and I wanted to grab a step ladder and punch him in the throat. UGH! Anywho I didn’t let this deter me too much because I firmly believe a character can go through considerable growth over the course of a book. Which brings me to the supporting characters. Her mom was a mess that got under my skin. The school bully (aka the pregnant chick) made me feel bad for her kid. The “Wicked” order was…..well Berth was a mystery that I just wanted to hug. Mombi scared me but in a way that made me want her on my zombie fighting team. Glamora was probably the scariest and most bad ass of them all. Nox was….I’m still deciding how I felt about the whole “Nox situation”.
The Length
This is totally my fault but I thought this was a stand a lone. This being said, the book is 452 pages long. 452 flipping pages. What the heck could really be left to say after 452 pages of Wizard of Oz retelling??? Apparently quite a bit and that really bugs me. While the story never really dragged (maybe 2/3 total) I feel like those pages could have been better used instead of Paige busting her balls to make this a trilogy.
Now for the good!!
The Bad Guys!
No I couldn’t have put them in “The Characters” category! The Tim Woodman, Scarecrow and Lion are creatures I’ll have nightmares about and Dorothy was one crazy bitch! And I try not to use that word often but that’s seriously the only way to describe her. Overall I thoroughly enjoyed the bad guys and I’m happy that even though the book is YA the villains are still evil, scary and just all around bad.
The plot
Even though this has been classified as a Wizard of Oz retelling it is a very LOOSE retelling. It’s more mature, more badass and all around shinier than the original Wizard of Oz story. Personally I loved this aspect.There were still those Wizard of Oz moments and references but overall it was just a fresher and cooler take.
The writing was very meh to me (not good not bad but eh) and I’m really annoyed by the ending but overall a very solid book! I took 1 star off for that ending and 1/2 a star off for the lack of growth (in my opinion) Amy experienced. I’ll probably grab the sequel next year from the library but I don’t anticipate being in a hugh rush to get my hands on it.
