The Book Corner: Dorothy Must Die

Thursday, 10 July 2014

Dorothy Must Die - Danielle Paige

Dorothy Must Die by Danielle Paige
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

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

Review:
I had heard a lot about Dorothy Must Die since about April and I knew it was going to be released in the U.K soon and I couldn’t wait to read it. I love The Wizard of Oz, it is my favourite childhood film and I have since been to everything I can that is related to The Wizard of Oz. I have seen the musical and Wicked too.

So when the lovely Justine contacted me and offered me an early readers copy of Dorothy Must Die, I had to say yes! I couldn’t wait to get stuck into it.

Amy Gumm is another girl from Kansas; she has a mundane life and seems to be the victim at school for the bullies. Her home life is not better, she lives in a trailer with her mum and her mum’s pet rat, her mum has got issues of her own and Amy is often an afterthought. After tornado warnings Amy is left in her trailer while her mother goes out, this is the last she sees of her mum as she is taken up and out of Kansas and arrives in the land of Oz.

Oz, is not the place we know and love anymore, Amy has landed in a place that perhaps once looked like Oz, yes there is the yellow brick road but that seems to be the only similarity. Oz has taken a dark turn, with what once was good is now evil and can wicked now be good?

There are many characters in this story, they are all interwoven well and it is easy for the reader to understand who is who. I enjoyed reading and perhaps learning a little more about older characters from the original story, however also thought the new editions bought with them some mystery and magic.

I must be honest, I was in for a shock with the level of gore and violence I came across in the book, this was something I didn’t expect; however I felt it was relevant to the story and made it very vivid. The whole story is easy to visualise and I could easily see this as a television programme or a film as it would lend itself so well to the screen.

I found the first third of the book (up to around chapter 12) to be very fast paced and engaging, I think I read in an hour or so. The final third I found as equally engaging and enjoyable and whizzed through this. The middle part of the book, however I found was a little slow at times and some of what was being said could have been done using less words. There was a lot of description which at times I felt was unnecessary.

Amy as a character grew on me, to begin with I was a little unsure of her, and when she arrived in Oz, she annoyed me as she constantly was trying to explain to the reader all the people she seemed to come across were ‘around her age’. This was quoted a lot in the book and this did grate on me a bit. Thankful she dropped this and her character began to change. I could feel she was confused and unsure who to trust, she began to realise that she needed to believe in herself and to go with her gut instinct. Amy became a wonderful heroin in the book and her confidence began to grow.

This is a great debut novel for Danielle Paige, she has taken a well known and loved fairy tale and transported it into a new era. This is not for the fait hearted; there is blood, gore and nightmares in this book, which has totally turned Oz on its head. On finishing the book I noticed it will be a series, I would say after that ending I would expect that. From reading the book did I get any major surprises? No but I did enjoy it. This I found even though it was 452 pages was quite a quick read and it was very intriguing, I was dying to find out how it was all going to be wrapped up...and now I know ha ha! You will need to read the book for yourself in order to find out!

I don’t want to say a lot more about this book as I don’t want to give anything away only if you like the Wizard of Oz I would give this book a go. Overall I am really pleased I had the opportunity to read this book and after this I would definitely want to read the next in the series by Paige. I give this book 4 stars out of 5 due to the slowness I felt in the middle of the book.

I would like to thank the publisher for sending me this copy to review.

Check out this great trailer!!!