Dorothy Must Die, by Danielle Paige | Book Review #183

Hello lovelies! Todays post is a book review of Dorothy Must Die by Danielle Paige.

“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.”

---

Dorothy Must Die (DMD) is the first book in the Dorothy Must Die saga. I’ve actually read Dorothy Must Die back in 2014, so re-reading it again was both refreshing and a reminder why I didn’t enjoy Dorothy Must Die as much as I had wanted to. 

Amy has a realistic outlook on life, which I really appreciated while reading this book. Amy’s home life is pretty crappy to say the least. Which in my opinion makes the beginning of DMD realistic. But because her home life is crappy and miserable I got so mad that Amy lived in that situation. I don’t like Amy’s mother at all honestly. Amy’s mother kinda/not really redeemed herself by the end of the book. What Amy’s mother did though is inexcusable.

Amy’s story is one that in my opinion would be one of fate. That may sound cheesy to you, but I really believe that, that there seems to be this otherworldly power that had guided Amy to where she is now. One would call that fate, I suppose. I absolutely feel that Amy is set up from the beginning. That in some way, Amy has fallen into this role and she just needs to wear these shoes for a while (yes, I made a sly pun).

Although Amy says she agree’s to these peoples plans, she doesn’t understand the gravity of what needs to happen. Even when she helps a few people along the way. She doesn’t like the decisions and actions that she has to make, but she does them because Amy knows that if she doesn’t, then everyone could have a worse outcome than the one she already has. I can already tell that in the next book Amy is just going to…explode with her emotions and just do her own thing for a while.

One thing that Dorothy Must Die has going for it is that the story moves quickly. I could read the gravity behind everything, which was nice. However, nearing the end of DMD, the story slowed down and ultimately made me feel like the ending of the book dragged on and on. I thought to myself (both the first time and this time I read DMD was) when was this book going to end? The last 40-ish pages of Dorothy Must Die made me feel like there was at least another 100 pages due to how slow the book got.

A quote I liked from Dorothy Must Die is:

“Please,” she said quietly. My stomach clenched. “You’ve already opened my cage. Now really set me free.”

I like this quote because of the visual impact the quote had on me at the time I read this. Amy didn’t like what she had to do but she did it, knowing they put her in that particular situation, and she did it because I personally think that Amy doesn’t like seeing innocent people suffer.

The first time I read this book, I wasn’t at all convinced that I would ever continue on with the Dorothy Must Die series. However, maybe sometime in the future I could get on to reading the next book The Wicked Will Rise. I’m going to keep my expectations low though.

I ended up giving Dorothy Must Die 2.5 of 5 stars on Goodreads. The first time I read DMD, I hated it, to say the least. This second time around, I can honestly say that while I didn’t love it, I enjoyed it.

Happy Reading!
Adele