Reviewed by Artemis on
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.
Reading updates
- Started reading
- 9 July, 2014: Finished reading
- 9 July, 2014: Reviewed