Dorothy Must Die by Danielle Paige

Dorothy Must Die (Dorothy Must Die, #1)

by Danielle Paige

The New York Times bestselling first book in a dark series that reimagines the Oz saga, from debut author Danielle Paige. Start at the beginning and discover your new series to binge!

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.

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.

Reviewed by anastasia on

4 of 5 stars

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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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Reading updates

  • Started reading
  • 25 May, 2017: Finished reading
  • 25 May, 2017: Reviewed