June is here and I've never seen so much rain... The weather sucks. May was a busy month as far as schoolwork was concerned, I finished writing my thesis! But I had no school and almost no work shifts, so I had a lot of time to read.

 

I read 8 books (including 2 re-reads) and 2 e-books:

- The Rose Society by Marie Lu 3.5/5 Review

- The Rose Cord by J.D. Oswald 3.5/5 

- The Long Walk by Stephen King 5/5 Review

- Louise by Laetitia Reynders 3/5

- The Marvelous Land of Oz by L. Frank Braum 3/5

- The Anatomy of Jane by Amelia LeFay 2/5 Review

- City of Ashes by Cassandra Clare (re-read) 4/5

- A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas (re-read) 4/5 Review

- A Court of Mist and Fury by Sarah J. Maas 5/5 Review

- The Crown by Kiera Cass 3/5 Review

 

I'm currently reading And I Darken and I'm loving it! I have so many great books that I don't know what to read next!

 

I hope you had a great reading month!

 

Thanks for reading,

 

Line.

Like many people my age, I actually remember when The Wizard of Oz movie being shown on network television every year was an event. I mean, we didn’t have VCRs (Let alone Netflix) back in the dark ages, so if you wanted to get a glimpse of Oz, you had to plan your social schedule around being at home in front of your television at the appropriate time, and for many years I always did. But that movie is all I knew about Oz.

I really hate to admit that I never took the time when I was growing up to try to find any other Oz stories. It wasn’t that I didn’t love Oz, because I did, but it wasn’t a priority likeStar Wars, Star Trek, and Battlestar Galactica. And when I finally did discover there were other books in the Oz series, I wasn’t too terribly interested in walking the yellow brick road anymore. I was too mature. Too cool. Too … self absorbed.

Flash forward about thirty-five years.

My kids have watched The Wizard of Oz several times in their lives, then my youngest son gets really hyped (at least for a little while) about the soon-to-be-released The Great and Powerful Oz movie. So, deciding to ride the interest, I find this book and give it a go as a bedtime story.

The tale takes place a short time after Wizard, focusing on the adventures of a young boy named Tip. But things don’t start out marvelous. Instead a reader finds Tip leading a rather uneventful and arduous life on a farm, but soon he escapes from his unhappy existence and takes to the road determined to find his destiny.

Quickly, things get interesting: Tip growing close to his companion Jack Pumpkinhead and meeting some new people like the Wooden Sawhorse, the Highly Magnified Woggle-Bug, and the amazing Gump. Old friends like the Scarecrow, Tinman, and others even show up. And, naturally, we have new enemies to thwart like the evil witch Mombi and General Jinjur and her army of rebellious young women.

Never having read any of the Oz books, I have to say I was surprised by how humorous this story was. I won’t go so far as to say it was laugh out loud funny, but it had lots and lots of puns as well as humorous lines. That in itself made my kids and I enjoy reading the book together, causing it to be a fine bedtime story, but it also really helped to fan the flames of excitement for more Oz just before the release of The Great and Powerful Oz movie.

Even with that being said, the favorite parts of this read were the sections where the Tin Man and Scarecrow are the stars: the scenes of their bumbling around bringing back many good memories of watching the classic movie as a child. So if you enjoyed the classic movie, give this a try; it is worth the read.

I listened to the Librivox audio version, read by Phil Chenevert.

Before I discovered Goodreads, I didn't even know there was a whole Oz-series. Now that I do, it gives me plenty of (audio) material to use before falling asleep. This second book in the series is technically a sequel to [b:The Wonderful Wizard of Oz|236093|The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (Oz, #1)|L. Frank Baum|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1398003737s/236093.jpg|1993810], which I love dearly. However, the story of The Marvelous Land of Oz feels totally different, even though it takes place in the same land and with some of the characters we already know from the Wizard of Oz.

Despite this being a children's book, I felt like a lot of the jokes were meant for an adult audience. Somehow I couldn't shake the feeling L.Frank Baum was on a huge acid trip while writing this. That or the man just had an endless amount of pleasantly strange imagination. This is probably the reason why I didn't see the end twist coming at all. I was listening to the last chapter in bed last night and when the end conclusion came, I started laughing out loud (probably to the annoyance of my boyfriend who was trying to sleep). It would be a huge spoiler to say more about it, but weird and unexpected are two words to describe it. On to the next one in the series, [b:Ozma of Oz|60177|Ozma of Oz (Oz, #3)|L. Frank Baum|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1170538598s/60177.jpg|891152], which already makes me giggle because of what I know now.

Don't read further if you haven't read to the end of book #1 since this review will spoil you about the events that took place in book #1.

This book was awesome. I have to say that after book #1 I was puzzled what this book would be about and if I would like it as much as book #1 without Dorothy or the Cowardly Lion absent from the story. However, this book I managed to even love more than book #1.

We start off with the main protagonist Tip who carves himself a man made of wood with a head of a pumpkin in order to frighten his guardian, the witch Mombi.

Mombi soon deduces what Tip has done and using a bit of powder she haggled over brings the pumpkinhead to life and promises swift retribution to Tip by telling him she will turn him into a marble statue (harshest punishment ever).

Tip escapes and takes his 'son' Jack Pumpkinhead with him.

Using some of the powder, Tip promptly brings a sawhorse to life and calls it Saw-Horse. I have to say that out of all of the characters I loved Saw-Horse. He got salty with everyone. And kept telling Jack how stupid he was.

Bless his heart, Jack Pumpkinhead is not that smart. Part of me wishes that Dorothy had been along on this journey since I would have liked to see Saw-Horse tell her off too.

Eventually our trio gets to Emerald City and finds King Scarecrow who despite being the most wise ruler ever is actually still pretty dumb. There is a scene between Scarecrow and Pumpkinhead involving an interpreter that had me cracking up. I literally said out loud "How are they not realizing they are answering each other's questions and they don't need an interpreter?"

The peaceful reign of Scarecrow's rule comes to an end though due to an army of 400 women/girls that march on Emerald City demanding to be set free from cooking and cleaning for men. There General is Jinjur. Too bad the women want to also take Emerald city to take possession of the jewels to make bracelets and sell them for gowns. Because women just love sparkly things (eyeroll).

Still you must surrender! exclaimed the General, fiercely. We are revolting!
You don't look it, said the Guardian, gazing from one to another, admiringly.
But we are! cried Jinjur, stamping her foot, impatiently; and we mean to conquer the Emerald City.
Good gracious! returned the surprised Guardian of the Gates; what a nonsensical idea!
Go home to your mothers, my good girls, and milk the cows, and bake the bread. Don't you know it's a dangerous thing to conquer a city?

I wish at this moment that Jinjur had been replaced by Peggy Carter so she would have kicked his butt all over Emerald City.

I quickly cheered though when the women took Emerald City and the Scarecrow flees to his friend, Emperor Tin Woodman who is ruling over the Quadlings.

Eventually we have everyone meeting up again and deciding that their quest is to remove Jinjur from the throne and put the Scarecrow back in his rightful place. Things do not go according to plan though. We meet even more characters and get an appearance by two characters from the last book, the Queen of the Mice and Glinda the good (or as I started calling her Glinda who is a worse witch than even Katrina on Sleepy Hollow.

I have to say that Scarecrow was a jerk throughout this whole story and the Tin Woodman was pretty vain. I wonder how Dorothy would feel meeting up with this duo again and seeing how changed they became. Also they seem to have short term memories since they both got prissy with anyone who mentioned the Wizard of Oz being less than what he was. You would think that one of them being so smart may have realized that the Wizard pulled one over on them as well. Ah well, maybe in the next book.

My favorite character was honestly the Saw-Horse with Tip a close second. Jack Pumpkinhead kept whining about his head and spoiling and I wish someone had turned him into a pie (man being sick has brought out an I am not in the mood attitude today).

The characters felt very real to me and I loved each one of them to pieces and had to crack up by how our merry group started working each other's nerves. I thought that was quite realistic since I probably would have peaced out a while ago and went somewhere to hang out with the China people.

Additionally, I thought that this book flowed much better than book #1. Probably because L. Frank Baum knew how he was going to end it, the trick was getting from point A to point B. The ending took me totally by surprised and I loved every minute of it. It's nice to not be spoiled by a book's ending and I was thrilled to not even guess at it. The ending makes perfect sense too and it also goes to show that the Wizard of Oz was more of a humbug than previously thought in book #1. If he ever shows up in Oz again, I hope that Glinda and crew kicks his butt.

As much as I want to start reading book #3 right now I am going to wait to start when I get two other books from my pile done.