Dorothy Must Die – Danielle Paige

As soon as I read the blurb of this book in Waterstones I was instantly intrigued, how was it possible to completely flip an original story on its head and create something so versatile and different? I had to find out.

As you can possibly figure out from the title, the story is a continuation from the Wizard of Oz but things are very different from where the film/book left. It’s quite some time in the future and we’re introduced to Amy, a young girl in a bit of a situation at home and at school. One night when she’s left home alone a tornado hits, and guess what, her home flies up in the tornado and lands in the magical Oz. However it’s not quite how the book or the film depicted it, everyone is miserable, grey and depressed, the munchkins are slaves and flying monkeys are wingless. So what happened to the Oz Amy grew up loving? Dorothy happened.

I just thought this was such an inventive idea, although I have to admit, it did kind of ruin the original story of The Wizard of Oz, because as you can probably tell from the synopsis, things weren’t exactly happily ever after for the people of Oz after Dorothy decided to stay… So if you’re particularly fond of the original story I would suggest leaving things to the imagination… Although saying this there were a few nods towards the original story which I really enjoyed such as sayings like “How about a little fire Scarecrow?” I just thought it was a nice touch and good of Paige to appreciate the original story which was obviously a big part of her inspiration.

I did like the characters of this book though! Amy was just so strong and independently thinking that I really grew to love her as a narrator! There are also some nice guys involved, although I have to admit, I wasn’t initially fond of either but they really did grow on me… it was nice, however, to have a little trickle of romance thrown in there… I say that especially as it was quite graphic and gory, I mean it wasn’t all the way through but in some elements it was very graphic, descriptive and had me going “ooommmff too much information”. However it wasn’t Game of Thrones bad, but it was getting there.

A lot of this book did keep you in the dark from things which was really frustrating! I just wanted to know what was going on! Especially towards the end, but the answers only came in the last 50 pages…I knew there must be sequel because it ended far too abruptly, which kind of annoyed me but hey ho, I’ll have to read the sequel eventually, but I’m not desperate to read it straight away, if ya get me. Also I did find the end a little anti-climactic, I mean it was good but I was expecting more, also the main climax wasn’t very descriptive, which really surprised me coming from all the descriptiveness from earlier elements of the book. It made me feel as though the ending was a little rushed, but that might just be me…

I did enjoy this book though and it managed to get me out of my reading slump coming home from holiday. I’m going to give this book a 4 out of 5 stars, a good read with an inventive concept.

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