Dorothy Must Die (Dorothy Must Die, #1)

by Danielle Paige

The New York Times bestselling first book in a dark new series that reimagines the Oz saga, from debut author 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 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 a road of yellow brick-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: Remove the Tin Woodman's heart. Steal the Scarecrow's brain. Take the Lion's courage. And-Dorothy must die.

• ISBN10: 0062280686
• ISBN13: 9780062280688
• Publish Date: 7 May 2015 (first published 1 April 2014)
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: US
• Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers Inc
• Imprint: HarperCollins
• Edition: 9th edition
• Format: Paperback
• Pages: 480
• Language: English

Reviews

[tweetybugshouse]

Overall i enjoyed this book i own the first book in print but found that the local library had it in audio version -- yeah another book off my shelf.  The twisting of the Wizard of Oz we all knew and love is the perfect read to shake up your normal reading.  I really enjoyed listening to this as an audio book.  Audio books are made or broken by the person who is reading and entertaining you.  The narrator was the perfect choice for this story. 

The setting intrigued me and I loved reading about this new, darker, not so brightly colored Oz! And the idea that wicked is now good and good is now wicked was super intriguing! I curious to see where the rest of the story goes and i saw on goodreads their a whole slew of mini novellas along with this story as well so i will be checking into those as well.  I have The Wicked will Rise all cued up and ready to continue the adventure. 

[Brittany]

This is a good easy read, especially if you're into a little twist on oz! I will definitely be reading the rest of the series.

[anastasia]

Full Review on my blog!

Wow! This turned out to be super fun! Let me be honest. I didn’t really liked The Wizard of Oz. I’ve seen the movie…when I was around 8-12 years old, I remember it being really boring, annoying and stupid. But Danielle Paige did an amazing job at making this world her own; adding to this story and reconstructing the characters for readers, taking us to after Dorothy left Oz. It was well written, well thought out and action packed and just totally engaging

In Dorothy Must Die, Oz is not the happy, magic filled place it used to be. Good witches are wicked and wicked witches are good. Cities lay crumbled and forgotten. Dorothy rules with an iron fist, dueling out punishes to sass talking and leering. Now this is an Oz I can get used to.

The protagonist in this story is Amy Gumm, the other girl from Kansas, who arrives in Oz the same way that Dorothy did. During a tornado. Amy our heroine is quite possibly the most honest and true to self-heroine there is. Amy’s story started out like Dorothy’s which is cool because they both wanted to get away from Kansas. Amy is very unpopular and lives with her unsupportive mom in a trailer park in Kansas. Amy’s life in the trailer park is far from perfect. Her father has a new family and makes no time for her, her mother is a self-absorbed alcoholic who spends more time with her rat ‘Star’ than Amy and her time at school is just as bad, she is bullied and called ‘Salvation Army’ due to her lifestyle and living in a trailer park. An unlikely hero is about to be born. I feel like there was a lot of unnecessary girl hate at the start, but then a tornado comes and drops Amy off in a dystopian version of Oz.

And Amy thought her life was bad, but she has no idea what’s in store for her when she gets to Oz.

Though I really enjoyed the story, I ended the novel with so many questions that were left unanswered. I felt like the ending was really abrupt… but overall, this book is sooo amazing! I recommend it, especially if you like retellings, young adult, romance and fantasy books.

Check out my reviews of the rest of this series!
Dorothy Must Die
The Wicked Will Rise
Yellow Brick War
The End of Oz
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[Chelsea]

3.5 stars
Quick Thoughts:

1. A little slower paced than I use have liked. I had a hard time picking it back up.
2. It just wasn't anything special. I meant liked the idea a lot but found it wasn't executed very well. It was boring at some points.
3. I didn't really like the main character. She started out fine but by the end I found her character had changed too much. She was really against murdering people but then at the end she didn't really care.
4. I kind of want to see what happens next but I'm not all that interested. We don't know much about any of the characters because the main character is kept in the dark most of the time. I have no idea who is working with who it everyone seems to be working against Dorothy. It just doesn't make any sense.
5. I'm making the book sound horrible I know but it wasn't that bad. It was just lacking and it didn't entertain me as much as I thought it would.

[readingwithwrin]

3.5

“I didn’t know what was worse: to have your shot and screw it up, or to never have had a shot in the first place.”

Let's start this off by saying this is not the Oz movie that got played ever Easter for years. This Oz is what it would look like after an apocalypse.

Now to the main character Amy Gumm. She is from Kansas and has had a rather rough life due to her mom being a drug addict causing Amy to grow up fast and to learn to rely on herself. That is a very good thing because once she gets transported to Oz via a tornado she meets a boy who saves her from falling to her death and instead of following him (finally a protagonist that has some commonsense) she decides to figure where everyone else in Oz has gone to and why it looks like horrible. As Amy goes down the yellow brick road she sees Glinda who is absolutely terrifying to look at due to perma-smile, which is apparently a very common thing that is used in Oz now. Now you're probably wondering what has happened to make Glinda become evil and why Oz looks like the apocalypse happened. Well Dorothy came back and since then has been wrecking havoc and making the munchkins take the magic out of the land so that she can have it all!

Fast forward to Amy being saved by some Witches who you're never really sure are good or evil. They saved her though because she has to help them kill Dorothy. Yes she has to kill someone and she just got there and has no real idea what is going on, or even how to make this happen. Now I will give it to the Witches they do train her (I do feel like she could have used far more) and show her how to use magic, and teach her combat skills. But sadly they never really fully prepare her for having to be alone with Dorothy where she would have to think very fast and not have delayed reaction.

I'm going to stop giving details there though because I don't want to spoil the rest of the story.

All I'm going to say though is this far exceeded my expectations and I will hopefully read the second book later on this year.

See more reviews like this on my blog

[Kelly]

4½ Stars.
http://www.divabooknerd.com/2014/08/dorothy-must-die-by-danielle-paige.html
The Wizard of Oz has been one of my childhood favorites, and Dorothy Must Die certainly didn't disappoint. A dark and Wicked retelling, it follows the story of Amy, a girl who calls the Dusty Acres trailer park home and is teased relentlessly throughout the halls of her high school. With no friends and no father, the only person Amy has had to rely on is her mother who is emotionally and physically absent since her father left. Amy needs to escape the small town mentality, but had never imagined that a Tornado warning would leave her stranded in what she always believed was a make believe world of magic and wonder.

Following in the footsteps of Dorothy, Amy is thrown into the land of Oz, but it's now a dreary and dangerous world where Dorothy has enslaved communities and continues to destroy the once picturesque landscape. She too meets characters along the way, from the boy who seems to dissolve before answering any questions, the sassy and foul mouthed Munchkin Indigo and the wingless and intelligent Monkey Ollie, all are incredibly endearing and aide Amy in her quest to reach the Emerald City. Only Amy is sidetracked by Dorothy's attempt to capture her, and her savior comes in the form of The Order of the Wicked.

Danielle Paige is phenomenal, taking a much loved children's fable and morphing it into a dark and incredibly entertaining retelling that blurs the lines between Good and Wicked. I absolutely adored it. It's unique, sassy and I'm eagerly awaiting the sequel that can't come soon enough.

[Artemis]

Reviews at The Artemis Reader

As a fan of Baum's Wizard of Oz and Gregory Maguire's Wicked, I was excited for another series set in Oz. Paige's Oz is messed up. It's more apocalyptic than fairytale. Paige did a lot of world building and plot set up in this novel which I enjoyed.

Dorothy was fucking weird. I'm sorry but making her a villain was an interesting take but was it really necessary to describe her as provocative? She came off very sadistic and as someone who has abused her power, and that did make her a believable villain - but the physical descriptions of her were such an unappealing feature. I actually had to start skipping over all mentions of her appearance.

Amy was an alright protagonist. She's a great foil for Dorothy in this story as a girl who doesn't have the best home life - her mother is a drug addict, no father, is counting down the days until she graduates high school and can leave - but she spends so much time in this book running away when she's scared. I felt like she switched too quickly when Nox and the Order of the Wicked tell her she needs to kill Dorothy to restore Oz's magic and Ozma to the throne. There wasn't enough development about her in this first installment to justify. She should have balanced out the world building with character development.

This earned four stars for world building, because I found that impressive. Had it been lacking this is definitely a two star book in terms of characters.

[kimbacaffeinate]

I was excited to read Dorothy Must Die by Danielle Paige and chose to listen to the audio version. The tale introduces us to Amy Gumm from Kansas who finds herself in Oz. Only it is not the place she remembers from the movie she and her mother use to watch. In fact, something is terribly wrong. Paige twists Oz into a dark place filled with nightmares, and I found myself quickly immersed in this world.

I loved the dark Oz that Paige created from the blacken fields, silent forests and enslaved monkeys. Gone are the smiling tin man and adorable cowardly lion. The Scarecrow will make you shiver. We meet Dorothy, the Wizard and spend time in the Emerald City. As a child, I dreamed of traveling to Oz, but Paige’s Oz will make you long to click you fuzzy slippers as you cry, “there is no place like home.”

Amy does not live on a farm. She lives in a trailer park with her drug-addicted mother and is tormented by the high school “mean girl.” She does not have a lot of confidence and we get to see growth in her throughout the novel. At times, she is a little abrasive, but I felt her frustration at being thrust into a battle and not knowing the players. There is a hint of romance and at first; I thought we were going to get a triangle, but no worries on that count. If romance is necessary for your reading pleasure, you may be a tad disappointed as this one takes a back seat to the action, suspense and mysteries of Oz, Dorothy and the Revolutionary Order of the Wicked.

While not without flaws, I had to admire Paige’s take on Oz, and hope the next novel gives us more answers as to what went wrong and who is responsible. The tale’s ebb and flow for the most part was well paced. It dragged a little in the middle, and I felt it lost direction. However, the ending was deliciously paced and intense. Paige weaved in magic, contraptions, and spells while giving me a panoramic view of Oz. Where this fell a little flat for me is in the execution. While the world of Oz is dark it often boarders on ridiculous taking away the darker tones I would have appreciated. The novel for all its wonder did not provide many answers and was more of an introduction. I am hoping that book two digs a little deeper and answers questions. I would love to see Tim Burton get his hands on this. It would make quite the twisted movie.

Devon Sorvari narrated, and I felt her pacing, tone and voice added to the tale. She did an excellent Dorothy and made me want to slap the snot out of her. Amy could be annoying, and Devon did an excellent job of showing her frustration, fear and determination.

Despite some issues with Dorothy Must Die, Paige held me captive, and I am already anticipating the release of book two in 2015. No Place Like Oz is a prequel and currently available. It also appears that a novella will release later this year as part of the Dorothy Must Die series.This review was originally posted at Caffeinated Book Reviewer

[violetpeanut]

I'm using the Goodreads definition of a 2 star rating here: it was ok. I didn't hate it but I certainly didn't love it. Emily May's review pretty much sums up exactly how I felt about this book.

[leahrosereads]

Quickie Cap:

Dorothy Must Die was an entertaining read for me. Though it had some faults, the book’s a solid first novel in a series. It follows Amy Gumm in an Oz filled with psychopaths and the story kept me interested all the way up to the final page of the novel.

"Oz--where all your worst nightmares can come true.”


One thing’s for sure, Amy Gumm is definitely not in Kansas anymore. And unfortunately for her, she’s also not in our grandmother’s Oz. She has pretty much crash landed (courtesy a tornado, of course) in an Oz so twisted, that I think Tim Burton would orgasm if he saw it.

Amy’s trailer trash, with a druggie for a mother, and a non-existent father. She’s “Salvation Amy”, our damaged heroine, and although she’d wish for a bus out of Kansas, life has always sucked for Amy, so it’s just her luck that she’d be thrown into this wonderfully terrifying Oz.


While thrust into this new world, Amy is introduced to a multitude of characters, including the members of the Revolutionary Order of the Wicked who want to bring Dorothy’s regimen of Good down. How to do that? Name of the title says it all. The Order needs Amy to kill Dorothy.

They begin training her in all the ways that will help her succeed in her quest. Nox (a love interest for Amy) trains her in fighting, Gert (a grandmotherly wicked witch) trains Amy to use the magic that flows all around in Oz, and Glamora (Glinda’s twin) trains her to be a perfectly polished drone. The last one is pretty important, because without that training, Amy would have been captured as soon as she entered the Emerald City (again).

Once undercover, Amy has to get close to Dorothy. Not an easy feat, when you’re disguised as a maid who’s at the bottom of the totem pole. While trying to get close to Dorothy, Amy makes several poor decisions, and because she only has bad luck, nothing goes according to plan, and Amy watches one of the Order’s insiders pay for her pigheadedness. Seriously, Amy has a lot to learn. Her mistakes throughout the book made me want to yell at her, possibly even slap her a few times. She’s an idiot, a brave idiot, but an idiot nonetheless. I believe Amy will learn as the story progresses, because she has to, or the Order and everyone counting on her to kill Dorothy will be disappointed.


Once I realized that this was book 1 in a trilogy, I knew there’d be no Dorothy death, and although bummed about that, I understood. Amy has A LOT of growing to do.

There’s a lot of world building and that was to be expected, but I was never bored with learning all of the intricacies of Oz. There were some slow points, but the pages kept turning, and I stayed entertained. I wish there was more on the Wizard in this book, but I’m assuming I’ll learn more about him in future books.

Though I never enjoy insta-love, insta-romance in any novels, I didn’t think Amy and Nox’s awkward, forced love was a detriment to the novel. I was a little concerned that there would end up being a love triangle of sorts between Amy, Nox and the mysterious Pete…but the last couple of pages cleared that right up for me.

I’m looking forward to reading more of this story, and I think that Danielle Page did a decent job at retelling Oz as an extremely dysfunctional place to live. Page also did a great job at making a heroine that was relate-able and relatively well formed. I’m looking forward to seeing Amy grow as the story progresses, both in confidence of herself, as well as her trust (or more likely) her loss of trust in those that surround her.