Review: Dorothy Must Die by Danielle Paige

Dororthy Must Die by Danielle Paige
Published: April 1st, 2014

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 bluebirds. 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 a yellow brick road – 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.

If you haven’t read this book yet, stop what you’re doing, step away from the screen, and go get this book and start reading it. You will not regret it. This book is phenomenal! And a wonderful opening to what I think will be an amazing trilogy.

So this is the story of Amy Gumm. And Amy just so happens to live a pretty hard life. Getting in trouble at school, and having to take care of her alcoholic mother outside of that. She just so happens to get swept up by a tornado and dropped in the dreary land of Oz. That’s right, dreary, dark, creepy, land of Oz. This book follows Amy’s time in Oz and how she finds out Dorothy is actually evil and mining the magic out of Oz for her own use and ultimately, Dorothy must die.

I loved the way this book was written. A very bit tip of my hat to Danielle Paige for mixing a good chunk of wit, humor, darkness, cleverness, gore, and action into a wonderful read. From the beginning to the end of this book, the pace was amazing and there was always something that was keeping me on the edge of my seat. From landing in Oz all the way through to training with the Order of The Wicked and beyond, it was so amazingly well paced and put together, I’m still a bit speechless about it.

This book had a bit of romance and I’m kind of happy that it wasn’t a ton of romance. It was pretty underdeveloped but I’m happy that there’s room for it to grow and build further through the books.

I think character wise, it was difficult for me to relate to any of the characters but I also feel as though maybe that was a good thing and made my reading experience better. I couldn’t connect with Amy, but I appreciated her character and her growth throughout the book even though at times it didn’t seem like much growth. I absolutely adored the Order of The Wicked. I think that group of women was my absolute favorite especially Gort (which I feel like is an obvious favorite). I also found the representation of Dorothy to be pretty great for what we saw of her. She was physically displeasing, but I think as a villain she was just a bad person and was a very well written villain. Every time she was in a scene, I wanted to just punch her in the face which I feel like…well…proves that Dorothy is a well written villain.

Overall I think this well paced, great action, magical, witty, and amazingly narrated book is one everyone should pick up. Without a doubt, wonderful and evil characters, great world building, and a great great GREAT start to this trilogy.

I will for sure be picking up the rest of the books in this trilogy.