But how am I supposed to care about characters I hardly know? The characters were either “mysterious” or nearly absent. Nox was an unhelpful, brooding, bad boy type that I could have done without. Danielle Paige tries to make the reader sympathize with the characters “tries” being the keyword. By the first quarter of Dorothy Must Die, everyone has a case of insipid-fever. The lack of characterization doesn’t stop with Amy. What was her relationship with her father like as a child? What are her hobbies? Why does she want to leave Kansas so badly? Without her school bully and her addict mother, Amy is nothing. Being insecure is one thing, but she doesn’t seem to have any interests or goals of her own. How am I supposed to understand the magic system and find out what’s normal in this world if the world building is so vague? Even when something did make sense, it was counteracted by Amy’s confusion, which in turn confused me or made me dislike her even more than I already did.īesides sarcasm and not fitting in, what personality does Amy have? As far as I could tell, none. Suppose I’ve never heard of The Wizard of Oz. I am perfectly capable of coming up with my own similarities without the “help” of the novel.

I didn’t need all the real-life comparisons. The development of the world of Oz was pushed to the back-burner for Amy’s jumbled thoughts and references. It might as well have been a contemporary or fantastical realism. It didn’t even feel like a fantasy! So many unnecessary pop culture references were thrown in here. This didn’t feel like a retelling, much less a reimagining. I noticed and appreciated the dark undertones of The Wizard of Oz, and I wanted to read an even darker retelling. I wanted to like this book, and it’s not just because I paid full price for the whole series – though that is the main reason. When it takes me more than one month to read a book, and it’s not the size of a brick, there is a problem.

And I have a mission: Remove the Tin Woodman’s heart. I’ve been recruited by the Revolutionary Order of the Wicked. My name is Amy Gumm-and I’m the other girl from Kansas. They say she seized power and the power went to her head. They say she found a way to come back to Oz. There’s still a road of yellow brick-but even that’s crumbling. 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. But I never expected Oz to look like this. I know the song about the rainbow and the happy little blue birds. 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? September 6th, 2017 – October 11th, 2017 Rating:

Dorothy must die book 5