Review: Dorothy Must Die

Dorothy Must Die by Danielle Paige

Publication Date: April 1, 2014

Publisher: HarperCollins

Format: hardcover

Source: my sister

Pages: 452

~~

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 that's not an epic blurb I don't know what is. Sadly, when I finished Dorothy Must Die late last night...it didn't live up to any of my expectations. Maybe that's a slight exaggeration. Most parts of the book didn't live up to my expectations, which really disappointed me. I'd been waiting to read it for a really long time and it has like the most awesome cover of all time. 

I can't figure out if he's shrugging or trying to like shift his coat or something.
Some things will always remain mysteries.

Possibly one thing that might have affected my opinion is that I took a pretty long break from it somewhere near the middle. BUT, my logic is that if it was actually more interesting I wouldn't have taken that break. Logic, peoples. 

Pro's

The world was amazing. It was so interesting and unique! The descriptions were pretty great and I couldn't have imagined up any creepier versions of the Lion, the Scarecrow, and so on. And Dorothy was psychotic. Talk about the scariest kind of villain-- the kind that smiles. 

But seriously, Dorothy was wrapped in so many layers of preppy sorority-ness (to quote Amy) and even more layers of pink that when it was contrasted to her evil side it was super creepy. 

Another thing that was pretty cool was learning about magic. Even more so, because we got to learn along with Amy. 

STAR. Gosh, I almost forgot. I loved Amy's pet rat Star! She was so smart and loveable. *squee*

Con's

These are all person feelings and I totally understand that people might not agree with me. So, I'm not dissing one of your favorite books... it just didn't click with me. 

First of all, the romantic plot was a little bit to cliche for me. Yeah, there were wizards and the amazing land of oz and magical evil creatures but that didn't make up for the fact that (to me) this romance had been written many times already. 

Step 1: Girl meets guy. 

Step 2: Guy pretends to not like her but actually does. 

Step 3: We learn that the guy has never ever liked anyone else before because dedication (to a cause).

Step 4: Jealous girl warns us to stay away from said guy. 

It just didn't hit it off with me. 

And even though I liked reading about the main character Amy... I didn't really feel close to her. She didn't grab my heart and rip it to emotional pieces. I didn't feel a whole lot with her.

She was too ready to risk things, exploding in anger really easily. And maybe I could understand that if she apologized or thought it out or actually got steaming mad over something that really mattered. Even if I understood her reasons for doing the things she did and was starting to warm up to her, she let her feelings of anger and disappointment with herself influence her to do things super hastily and without thought to anyone's safety.

In this Oz, that wasn't a good thing. Her acts of bravery seemed to be more her proving to herself that she was worthy and not an awful human being rather than doing it for something she believed in.

I didn't hate Amy at all. But every time I felt like I was getting closer to her, she threw me off. She was low on self-esteem and I don't think that justified her actions because of the low self-esteem.

One more thing I didn't really like about Amy is-- her instincts were too perfect. She's a girl from a trailer park in Kansas. Come on! Don't tell me she's going to have perfect fighting instincts (and etc) after just a few weeks of training. There were so many times in the book where it would say that Amy "had a feeling" that something was going to go wrong or that there was no way back or or. I would've loved it if that wasn't so prominent.

Even though I didn't really like Dorothy Must Die (which again, super disappointing *tears*), there's a big chance that you might actually LOVE it.

So, I recommend it to readers who love Oz-ness, wizards, magic, and grisly laboratories. Oh, and smart rats.

My Rating:

Disclaimer: I was not reimbursed for this review in any way. All opinions or thoughts expressed are my own.