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3.62 AVERAGE
3.62 AVERAGE
Not quite 4 stars, but like 3.75? I really enjoyed it, overall, but it wasn't as good as I'd hoped.enough, but
https://recenseernogeenkeer.wordpress.com/2015/04/10/dorothy-must-die/ Loved it.
Loved it. Really well written. The only problem I have with the book is I want more romance. Really good. I hope everyone likes it because it is a really good book.
This was soooo good! Finally a book I was eagerly anticipating came out and I really liked it. Review to come!!!!
You can find more of my reviews here at my blog: Take Me Away...
When I saw this book was coming out I was a little excited. I love re-tellings and I love The Wizard of Oz. So two of my favorite things together adding to the fact that there is a hint of evil in it makes it even better. This was my most anticipated read of 2014 and I was NOT disappointed.
My favorite thing about this book was the characters. I loved the re-imagining of them. All of the main characters like Dorothy, The Scarecrow, The Lion, and The TinMan were all creepy and the characters that Amy meets up with are all cool. And when I say creepy, I mean CREEPY. There were some points I couldn't believe that Paige went there, but the object of the story was to make those lovable creatures that we know and love into something weird and scary,and dude, she succeeded.
I also loved the way the story was told. When I saw that the book was supposed to be made into a series I was a little scared. I read the back and saw that there was a certain way to do things and I was thinking to stretch that out over an entire series would include a lot of fluff. It was an issue I actually had from the prequel No Place Like Oz. But this one actually did not have too much fluff, it just set the stage for the next books in the series. Which is now what I'm scared for. What could possibly go on in those books. But clearly Paige's imagination is wonderful and amazing and hopefully I won't have to be afraid.
I also liked the twists and turns. I had my suspicions with a certain person, but I could never pinpoint it. But in the end when the secret was revealed, I was definitely in shock. Any book that can keep me guessing and still surprise me is a winner in my book.
And of course, I wanted to save the best for last. The world building in this is phenomenal. It may be a re-imagining of a beautiful fantasy world, but the way she made if differently will stay with me forever. Especially the Scarecrow's lab. *shudders* Her visions made an imprint on me and I will not think of these characters and their home the same.
Everything about the story was amazing. It came to be a lot better than I thought it would be. The characters were great and easy to relate to, the plot was easy to follow with some unexpected twists, and the world building was great as well. The only thing that made me nervous is the setup for the next books. Let's hope they're as great as the first.
You can find more of my reviews here at my blog: Take Me Away...
When I saw this book was coming out I was a little excited. I love re-tellings and I love The Wizard of Oz. So two of my favorite things together adding to the fact that there is a hint of evil in it makes it even better. This was my most anticipated read of 2014 and I was NOT disappointed.
My favorite thing about this book was the characters. I loved the re-imagining of them. All of the main characters like Dorothy, The Scarecrow, The Lion, and The TinMan were all creepy and the characters that Amy meets up with are all cool. And when I say creepy, I mean CREEPY. There were some points I couldn't believe that Paige went there, but the object of the story was to make those lovable creatures that we know and love into something weird and scary,and dude, she succeeded.
I also loved the way the story was told. When I saw that the book was supposed to be made into a series I was a little scared. I read the back and saw that there was a certain way to do things and I was thinking to stretch that out over an entire series would include a lot of fluff. It was an issue I actually had from the prequel No Place Like Oz. But this one actually did not have too much fluff, it just set the stage for the next books in the series. Which is now what I'm scared for. What could possibly go on in those books. But clearly Paige's imagination is wonderful and amazing and hopefully I won't have to be afraid.
I also liked the twists and turns. I had my suspicions with a certain person, but I could never pinpoint it. But in the end when the secret was revealed, I was definitely in shock. Any book that can keep me guessing and still surprise me is a winner in my book.
And of course, I wanted to save the best for last. The world building in this is phenomenal. It may be a re-imagining of a beautiful fantasy world, but the way she made if differently will stay with me forever. Especially the Scarecrow's lab. *shudders* Her visions made an imprint on me and I will not think of these characters and their home the same.
Everything about the story was amazing. It came to be a lot better than I thought it would be. The characters were great and easy to relate to, the plot was easy to follow with some unexpected twists, and the world building was great as well. The only thing that made me nervous is the setup for the next books. Let's hope they're as great as the first.
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.
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 (
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…
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.
This is a bind-up of three novellas taking place in the universe of ‘Dorothy must die’, all three of them before the events of that book. I’d advise you guys to at least read ‘Dorothy must die’ before reading these, because you will be spoiled if you don’t. I enjoyed these stories, but I did notice a few things that irk me a bit:
- Danielle Paige seems to have a hard time making her characters sound different. This novel is written from the first person POV of Dorothy herself and of Jellia, and the third person POV of the wizard. Dorothy, Jellia and Amy from ‘Dorothy must die’ all sound very similar, which I think is quite strange because Amy is from our age, but Dorothy lives before WOII and should therefore talk differently. Of course, this is not a historical novel, but I would like a bit more variation. The voice of the Wizard was different, though I’m not sure whether that is because a) Paige saw the light, b) he is a man, c) his story was third person POV.
- The timeline seems a bit off. How old are these people, anyway? I mean, when Dorothy returns to Oz, two years have passed here, yet decennia have passed in Oz. That means that she should be centuries old when Amy meets her in ‘Dorothy must die’, right? I’m confused. Is Amy dating a guy who is, literally, ten times her own age?
Don’t get me wrong, I still enjoyed these novels, but these things do make it clear to me that I don’t love them. They are entertaining and funny, but I don't think they are a lot more than that. Still very curious to see the next bind-up as well as the final book, though!
- Danielle Paige seems to have a hard time making her characters sound different. This novel is written from the first person POV of Dorothy herself and of Jellia, and the third person POV of the wizard. Dorothy, Jellia and Amy from ‘Dorothy must die’ all sound very similar, which I think is quite strange because Amy is from our age, but Dorothy lives before WOII and should therefore talk differently. Of course, this is not a historical novel, but I would like a bit more variation. The voice of the Wizard was different, though I’m not sure whether that is because a) Paige saw the light, b) he is a man, c) his story was third person POV.
- The timeline seems a bit off. How old are these people, anyway? I mean, when Dorothy returns to Oz, two years have passed here, yet decennia have passed in Oz. That means that she should be centuries old when Amy meets her in ‘Dorothy must die’, right? I’m confused. Is Amy dating a guy who is, literally, ten times her own age?
Don’t get me wrong, I still enjoyed these novels, but these things do make it clear to me that I don’t love them. They are entertaining and funny, but I don't think they are a lot more than that. Still very curious to see the next bind-up as well as the final book, though!
I am a huge fan of updates on canonical stories everyone is familiar with. The wizard of Oz has been subverted multiple times with the most memorable of course being Wicked. This tale sees Dorothy as the true antagonist after the pages of L. Frank Baum's original story end. I enjoyed it. It was a page-turner, and I will read the sequels. But the book felt a little contrived. Maybe I've been reading too many YA books recently, but I saw in our protagonist the trope of the spunky, reluctant teen heroine who is a bit abrasive and comes from a poor background (much like Katniss Everdeen), the quasi-love interest, and Amy's sudden transformation into a savior warrior (see: Wheel of Time, Eragon, etc.) Actually, I found the characters of the Tin Woodman and the Scarecrow to be most interesting: they turned evil as soon as Dorothy became power-hungry, and between the Scarecrow's mad scientist ways and the tin Woodman's unrequited love for Dorothy, I am most interested to see what happens to them. Some of the characters like Glinda and even Dorothy herself were a bit underdeveloped, and I hope we see more of them as the novels progress.
Too long too long too long. I feel like I've been reading a lot of books lately that need better editing. And this one got so long and blabby by the end that now I'm not sure I want to read any more of the books. I did think Paige made great use of the Oz setting, though.
I liked this book a lot. It definitely had problems and its wasn't my favorite book ever but I did really enjoy it. I loved the concept of having Dorothy return to OZ and seizing control. I loved the Oz books and the movie as a kid and the characters in this book brought back a lot of those memories. I didn't love the character of Amy at first. I didn't dislike her, but there were things she did and said that bothered me but as I read this book I came to really love her character. I think the author did a really good job of getting me to either love a character or hate a character and all the characters had really strong personalities. The only character I didn't love was Nox. I know some of this was part of his character, but he felt really insincere at times and I didn't care about him as much as the main character did which was a little frustrating. I really liked the world the author portrayed as well. Obviously some parts of the world were already established in the original Oz books but I liked the way the author adapted it. I also liked the way that the author explained the magic in Oz as well. There were some parts of the story where I felt like the pacing was a little off. At the beginning everything seemed to happen really, really fast. I never want too much exposition in stories but I would have liked a little more in this case. I know part of that is because Amy doesn't know any of what is going on so as the reader, we don't know whats going on but I felt like I was thrown into action right away and I could have used a bit of a breather just to figure out what I had just read. The ending had similar weird pacing. It didn't feel really like the ending of a book. The ending made it feel like I needed to read the next book right away. I guess that could be a good thing but I wish that this book had ended a little bit more neatly. I was also really confused by the fact that at the end (and I don't think this is a spoiler) the wizard told Amy that to defeat Dorothy she will need to take the Tin Woodman's heart, the Lion's courage, and the Scarecrow's brain like it was the major plot twist because 1) it is written on the back of the hardcover copy of the book and 2) it felt like to me that that bigger and more plot twisty things happened at the end. I honestly don't understand why they put that on the back of the book. Putting that on the back of the book made it seemed like the courage, brain, and heart stealing would happen in this book but really it wasn't even revealed to the main character that she needed to do those things until like the last 10 pages. I know that probably has nothing to do with the author but it was still very weird to me. besides those few things that are small mistakes in my mind I did really enjoy this book. I am very excited to read the next book in this series and see where Amy goes next and to see what happened to everyone that was in the order of the wicked. I would say if you liked the Oz stories or the concept of the books seemed interesting to you and you think you could ignore some weird pacing, I would recommend this book wholeheartedly.
This was a fun re-imagining of Oz where everything has been turned on its head and Dorothy has become a tyrant who is addicted to magic. There were enough definite connections to [b:The Wonderful Wizard of Oz|236093|The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (Oz, #1)|L. Frank Baum|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1398003737s/236093.jpg|1993810] for it to feel like the same world. The magic system made sense. Unfortunately, this feels like the entire story should have been one book, except the author has decided to make it a trilogy (with several short-story prequels). As a result, this book felt like it had too much filler. It makes it feel like the series is a cash grab, which makes me not want to read the rest of the books, which is sad because this series has an excellent premise. This book also has a little too much of the "special snowflake" young adult trope - Amy is from Kansas, so she can learn magic more quickly than anyone and she is the only person who can take down Dorothy.