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Dorothy Must Die is a 2014 young adult fantasy adventure novel by Danielle Paige. It was published by Harper Collins. It was the author's debut novel and is the first book in the series, also titled Dorothy Must Die. The author has written a number of prequels since the series debuted, explaining some events that set-up the world of the story in addition to the main series. The novel can be purchased here from Bookshop.org.
The novel tells the story of a teenager named Amy Gumm from Kansas. She's neglected by her mother and bullied at school. One day, their trailer is swept up in a tornado and Amy wakes up in Oz. Except, the Land of Oz is very different from what the books and film portray. Instead of a beautiful, bright, happy place, it's a grim dystopia with the facade of being a dreamland. Good witches are bad, Wicked witches appear to be good and even the Yellow Brick Road is crumbling. It turns out that Dorothy found her way back to Oz after returning to Kansas and decided to seize power for herself. Amy is recruited by a resistance within Oz to help rid the land of Dorothy.
I'm very skeptical of retellings, continuations or re-imaginings of popular and beloved stories. While there have been many good ones, there have also been an untold number of ones that don't quite work. I was pleasantly surprised by how well this one worked and fit into the existing world of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. Now, just to be clear, I didn't hate Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz, but the explanation that was given about why Dorothy returns to Oz (Kansas was too dull after experiencing Oz) and how Oz fell into its current state (Dorothy was given an immense amount of power and its gone to her head) make sense. It's easy to understand, in that context, how Dorothy, Glinda, the Scarecrow, Tinman and Cowardly Lion became dark perversions of themselves. The book had a great hook, but a so-so execution of that idea.
Let's discuss the characters first. Amy is the main character, and she has a lot of personality. She's three-dimensional, she has a goal driving her forward throughout the story. The other characters aren't as well fleshed out. The characters we know from The Wizard of Oz's characterization begins and ends with "what if they were evil and their admirable traits are taken to a dark extreme". They're evil now, but one-dimensional evil. As for Amy's allies, they're meant to seem complex, but for the most part, they all fit into the categories of "I'm your ally because your enemy is also my enemy" and "trust me, but don't trust me too much" which was refreshing to begin with, but after the third or fourth character basically said those exact things, it got annoying. There were also a few characters who only appear in a handful of scenes who were a little too fake-edgy for me. Maybe the trope of "tough guy/girl" just didn't translate well in my opinion, but there were some lines of dialogue that just read as overkill to me. I wanted to like these characters, and hate the ones I'm supposed to hate, but the only character I liked was Amy and I couldn't connect with any of the others.
The pacing of Dorothy Must Die is a bit slow. The beginning tells us a bit about Amy's life and her problems. We see enough to get a feel for the character, but too much, since what really matters is Amy traveling to Oz. Once she lands in Oz, however, the plot slows down. Paige was dropping the reader into a world they were supposed to already know, but had been drastically changed. This is Oz, but not the Oz we know. As a result, there needed to be a degree of world-building added to the story in order to explain how and why Oz had changed. I enjoy world-building, but not if it comes at the expense of the story being told. There are lengthy parts of this book where Amy doesn't appear to be doing anything that furthers the plot. Instead, they're being used to build up Dorothy and her friends into these horrible monsters that must be destroyed when the reader already knows that. Part of this pacing issue is due to this being the first book in the series. There needed to be a lot of set-up for future books, which meant the plot itself doesn't have a lot going on.
An aspect of the story that I did enjoy was that the author didn't shy away from making things dark in this new Oz. Not only do characters say how terrible Oz has become, but it's shown. There's blood and gore and scenes that are genuinely frightening, which I liked. When stories tell me that a place is horrible, but never show an example of it, it gets under my skin. If you want me to think something or someone's bad, you need to show something that verifies it. In this story, the terrible world is backed up by the terrible events the reader gets to witness. I also enjoyed the fact that, while it did slow the plot a bit, Amy's training with the rebellion wasn't glossed over. I don't enjoy time skips, but I also don't enjoy wishy-washy explanations of how a character who's never fought before can suddenly kick butt. The story showed enough of her training to indicate it was happening, but focused more on relevant lessons she's learning than just adding to the length.
I liked Dorothy Must Die, but I didn't love it. The premise behind the novel is intriguing, even though the execution leaves a bit to be desired. Some of my criticisms are due to this being the author's debut novel and those tend to need a little bit more polish than a non-debut novel. There are also aspects that I found disappointing that are a result of this being the first book in the series. There's a lot of world-building and explaining, with not a ton or plot and very little resolution at the end. I haven't decided whether I'm going to read the next book in the series, The Wicked Will Rise, but this book didn't disappoint me to such a degree that I'm adverse to the idea. Dorothy Must Die had a lot of potential and maybe my expectations were a bit too high going into the story.
Rating: 2.7 stars
