Review Dorothy Must Die by Danielle Paige

Fairytales.

We've all heard at least one fairytale in our lives. And those fairytales have taught us many things, like never give up dreaming or be yourself or something like those inspiring messages. Another thing those fairytales have in common are the happy endings. Cinderella ends up with her prince, Beauty ends up with her not-so-beasty-Beast and Sleeping Beauty awakes from her not-so-eternal sleep and marries the prince she fell in love with. Yay, all so happy.
But then you have the retellings and everything changes. EVERYTHING.
Suddenly everything you know from those good old fairytales becomes a lie or something bad or something burns or breaks or dies or or... It's very stressful.
And I love those retellings. Especially this one of The Wizard of Oz was awesome!

Summary

Amy Gumm lives a tough teenage life in Kansas. She's forced to live in a camper with her not-so-caring mom and at school her life isn't getting easier with people like Madison. 
But then her whole life is swept up by a tornado and she ends up in a land that only exists in fairytales - the Land of Oz. But this land looks different from the stories - it's close to completely falling apart. What happened? Dorothy.
Not much later, Amy has been recruited by the Revolutionary Order of the Wicked and has been given a mission. She shall kill Dorothy.

My opinion

Rate: 8.5/10

Dorothy Must Die is a must read, people! (You see what I did there? hehe.)

This was such a fun read for me - I flew through the book like it was nothing but air.

The main character was real and human and I could relate to her thoughts and actions throughout the story. Her growth came natural to me - it didn't feel forced and she didn't become this invincible superhero, which made it even more realistic. Like I said, she was really human and you could see that humanity shine through her actions and thoughts and I liked that about her. I liked that she wasn't like many other protagonists.

What really amazed me about this book were the different settings with different characters this book went through, without it being too much or too vague. It wasn't like Amy immediately was some sort of "chosen one" who just needs a bit of training and then should defeat evil Dorothy - no, the process was slow, which, again, made the whole story much more realistic. And through that slow process she went through different settings with different people surrounding her, either helping her or making things difficult for her to reach her ultimate goal. But while she tries to reach her goal, she also learns more about Oz and you can see that her dedication for the mission and her trust in the Order are both being put through a test. Developments in the certain settings she's residing in at those times and friendships she grows there affect her in different ways, makes her do stupid or heroic things, whether it had to do with her mission or not. And I really enjoyed reading that.

Paige managed to give us so much in this book without making it seem like much. It seemed light and thin, but she did manage to leave me with the feeling like 'wait, this is all? WHAT HAPPENED TO THE REST?!'. The ending was quite abrupt, in my opinion, and a lot of questions are left unanswered which makes me wonder if the next book will be able to answer all of them. Hmm... IT PROBABLY WILL.

Now getting into the "extra-stuff", the minor stuff, the tiny little details which have amused me or bothered me (in this case just amused me): 

I liked how the story still had that fairytale-touch. For example (*MINOR SPOILER*) the different training sessions Amy went through, whilst residing in the headquarters (it's actually an enormous cave that just has EVERYTHING) of the Order in which the witches gave her all different kinds of wisdoms.

And ooooo! - how I loved that sweet relationship between Amy and Nox. I liked that Paige didn't highlight it much - instead of making the story all about how Amy fights for her lover, she made sure that the relationship was nice and subtle, mysterious even. WILL THEY BE HAPPILY EVER AFTER OR NOT? (One of the many questions in my head)

But overall - I just loved this book. I do have my worries here and there, but I shall not think about those worries. I shall buy the second book and discover how this story will twist and turn. (Now imagine me saying that in a portly voice. hehe.)

That's it for this blogpost! Thank you for reading and I hope you enjoyed!

Until the next blogpost, then! :)