[Review] Dorothy Must Die by Danielle Paige

Author: Danielle Paige
Published: April 1st, 2014
Publisher: HarperTeen
Genres: YA, Fantasy, Retelling

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? READ MORE

The cover is pretty bomb, but I was hesitant on this one for two reasons: 1) The blurb is in first person and sounds cheesy. 2) I don't really like the Wizard of Oz. I know, shoot me, but I've never found the story interesting, and no matter how many times I watch different adaptations, I can barely remember the plot. Dorothy Must Die was a pleasant surprise.

Characters

Meet Amy Gumm. She sassy, sarcastic, pink haired, and trailer trash. Her mom is a pill-popping addict, her dad hopped off with another woman a few years ago, and to make matters worse, she lives in nowhereville Kansas.

"I first discovered I was trash three days before my ninth birthday—one year after my father lost his job and moved to Secaucus to live with a woman named Crystal and four years before my mom had the car accident, started taking pills, and began exclusively wearing bedroom slippers instead of normal shoes."

Amy is such a kickass heroine. Not only is she realistic, she has common sense, something a lot of YA lacks. She doesn't go traipsing through Oz because she knows things are bad. Yet, she also does good things, like saving people, because it's the right thing, even if it costs her. She gets scared and tries to run away, because who wouldn't be freaked out if some tornado dropped you off in a twisted Oz where everything wants to kill you?

In the beginning, I was worried Amy would get a little Chosen One on me, but she's actually resistant to the whole idea of killing Dorothy. She has to work to be good at things, like magic. It's refreshing.

The rest of the cast was memorable, especially Dorothy and friends. The Tin Woodsman, Scarecrow, and Lion gave me the nopes. Dorothy was wonderfully vain, yet you could see the madness lurking belief.

Setting

I loved this version of Oz. I see others have been comparing it to Tim Burton films, but I want Burton to stay away from this. I don't want this Oz mixing with his typical weird/creepy style.

I always thought the original Oz was too good to be true. Everyone was just so eager to help Dorothy, wouldn't anyone be a tad suspicious of this foreigner showing up?

"If this was a fantasy, it was a strange one: this wasn't the Oz that I had read about of seen in the movie. It was as if someone had drained out some of the Technicolor and introduced some serious darkness."

Plot

This is the only part where I think the book lacked. Some places simply dragged, most notably when Amy was with the Order. I couldn't help but wish we'd get back to exploring Oz, and my eyes glazed over most of that. Except for Nox. I could never forget Nox.

This part did help set up a little more conflict for Amy though, because who the actual flipping hell is she suppose to trust? "Good is Wicked, Wicked is Good," but let's not forget those lines are blurred, and everyone's on their own side.