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 readingwithwrin on

3 of 5 stars

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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.

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Reading updates

  • Started reading
  • 27 August, 2015: Finished reading
  • 27 August, 2015: Reviewed