Audience: Young Adult

Format: Hardcover (Owned)

The first time I flew, it was under very different circumstances.

- first sentence

 

It was just my luck to find the person of my dreams in a war-torn world where I was in danger of losing him any minute, I thought.

- Chapter 17

This is the final book in the Dorothy Must Die series (not including the prequel and other world enhancing novellas - I think there are nine now). But, you can read the four main books and totally enjoy the series without them.

This final book is full of action and twists, and I loved the ending. There is a bit of a cliffhanger, but just enough to let you know that there will always be strife in this magical world. (Some reviews mentioned an epilogue in the hardcover version, but there wasn't one in the kindle version, so *shrugs*.)

Some chapters are from Amy's point of view and others from Dorothy's. Seeing Dorothy's pov didn't make me despise her any less, but it was interesting to see her reasoning. It seems like she started out with good intentions, but the magic corrupted her to the point that she isn't even slightly recognizable as the girl from Kansas we all remember. Even so, she seems to have no redeeming qualities left. So, I felt fine about hating her character throughout the book.

Most of the characters are not all good or all evil. They do what they have to in order to survive and protect their friends and family. Sometimes their actions are shocking and sometimes completely understandable. 

I think the end may bother some people, but it made perfect sense to me and I loved it. If you like retellings or fantasy, give this series a shot.

Audience: Young Adult

Format: Hardcover

Owned

The witches were waiting.

- first sentence

 

The third book in the series takes Amy back to Kansas to continue her fight to save Oz (and The Other Place (Kansas) too). New characters become involved, we get a look at how Amy's disappearance affected her negligent mother, and find out some new details about Dorothy. And of course, there are twists and deception.

This book is a fun continuation of the series. I remain spellbound by this version of Oz and the entire cast of characters. Recommended to fans of alternate realities and fractured fairy tales.

Audience: Young Adult

Format: Hardcover

Owned

The Emerald City was burning.

- first sentence

I loved this continuation of the series. The end was quite a surprise and I'm looking forward to the next book.

I love a good fairy tale retelling, and recall enjoying Paige's first published novel, Dorothy Must Die.

This was just not good. Fortunately, I checked it out of the library, because had I bought it, I would have been annoyed. I read the first 40%, and then skipped to the end.

There is a love-rhombus. Not one, not two, but three love interests for the main character. Ugh.

One star because the cover is pretty. 

Let's start with, lately I have seriously had a knack for picking stories told in first person...which I hate.  This was an interesting enough story that it was pretty easy to ignore.  This book was dark, very dark and a teeny bit gruesome.

Amy is a teenager from Kansas.  She lives in a trailer, her dad walked out on them, her mom has turned into a junkie that blames Amy for every bad thing in her life.  Her school life is terrible, she's been bullied for years, has no friends and no means of escaping her craptastic life.  That is until a tornado hits and sweeps her away to Oz.  Yup, just like in the movie she'd seen bunches of times as a child.

However, she doesn't find herself in the Oz of the movie or storybook.  This Oz is desolate and decaying.  As it turns out, Dorothy, who had gotta a taste for magic, found her way back to Oz and took over.  Now she and Glinda are mining it for it's magic and killing it an it's inhabitants in the process.

Amy, who has her pet rat, Star as a companion meets people who (somewhat) explain to her what has been going on and eventually she falls in with the Order.  Which is led...by...the...wicked...witches?  Yeah, things have gotten so bad that the wicked have joined forces to stop Dorothy, and Amy is their weapon of choice.  She is trained by them in combat and in the use of magic before being sent to the palace in disguise.  She's meant to be a spy to gather information that will help with their plan, only Amy is never given the details of the plan or a way to relay any information she may have discovers.  She has to wing it and in doing so learns that there is more than one faction that is trying to rise up and take Dorothy out of power... and she gets herself into trouble.

I like Amy, but she's too full of doubt and indecision.  Which, considering her circumstances is totally understandable.  My thoughts are that she can't really trust any of the factions, and she knows that, but hasn't exactly accepted it.  While these groups may be operating under the guise of making Oz great again--and yes that is an actual phrase from the book and it made me cringe reading it--I think they all want Dorothy out of power because she's a monster who is destroying their world, but also because they want to be in power themselves.

Amy has a tough road ahead because her mission is to kill Dorothy, and she royally botched it in this book.  Dorothy has managed to escape and no one knows where.  Now Amy's been thrown together with a different resistance group and who knows what they will tell her in order to get her to do what they want.  All she knows is that before she can kill Dorothy, she must stop her first companions in Oz.  That means, taking the heart of the Tin Woodman, the brain of the Scarecrow, and the courage of the Lion.  And then, hopefully, Dorothy will finally die.