Dorothy Must Die Book Review by Jaci Olson

By: Jaci Olson

Dorothy Must Die is the New York Times bestselling first book, in a series by Danielle Paige. This dark, eerie novel twists Oz into something we might not recognize. It parallels the Wizard of Oz in a new way.

Dorothy Must Die was published in April, 2014. It follows the protagonist, Amy Gumm who is a high school student living in Kansas. Amy’s trailer home is swept up in a tornado and she is transported to the Land of Oz.

While there, she meets many people who help her. From: Glinda, the good witch and her twin sister Glamora, the evil witch, to the Wizard, to tiny yet spunky munchkin Indigo, kind Grandma Gert, fighter Nox, a good flying monkey named Ollie, a castle employee Pete to the wicked witches named Ozma and Mombi. They all have different goals and help each other in order to save Oz from Dorothy.

In Oz, Dorothy became power-hungry and then the dictator of Oz. In order to make it the way it was before, Amy must join the Revolutionary Order of the Wicked. The wicked is actually good and everything is twisted upside down. She then learns she has magic inside her and must summon everything she has in order to complete her mission of removing the Tin Woodman’s heart, stealing the scarecrow’s brain and taking the lion’s courage and then Dorothy must die.

Amy poses in Dorothy’s castle as a maid in order to learn how to kill Dorothy. While there, she feels isolated from the Order of the Wicked but receives help she never imagined.

I thought Dorothy Must Die was a capturing read. It was a little grotesque, but yet held my attention throughout. There were a lot of story lines I didn’t see coming. There were also a lot of characters, which got confusing at times. This debut novel was very good and did make me intrigued to read the sequels.