An amazing plot with meh characters and romance or how to feel conflicted | Dorothy Must Die

Title: Dorothy Must Die (Dorothy Must Die #1)

Author: Danielle Paige

Published: April 1^st 2014 by HarperCollins

Goodreads summary: I didn't ask for any of this. I didn't ask to be some kind of hero.

But when your whole life gets swept up by a tornado - taking you with it - you have no choice but to go along, you know?

Sure, I've read the books. I've seen the movies. I know the song about the rainbow and the happy little bluebirds. But I never expected Oz to look like this. To be a place where Good Witches can't be trusted, Wicked Witches may just be the good guys, and winged monkeys can be executed for acts of rebellion. There's still a yellow brick road - but even that's crumbling.

What happened? Dorothy.

They say she found a way to come back to Oz. They say she seized power and the power went to her head. And now no one is safe.

My name is Amy Gumm - and I'm the other girl from Kansas.

I've been recruited by the Revolutionary Order of the Wicked.

I've been trained to fight.

And I have a mission.

REVIEW

I heard about this book a long time ago, in 2013 I think. I was interested in it, because I’ve never read a YA novel inspired by The Wizard of Oz, but then I read reviews. Either people like it, or hate it. I’m right in the middle, because I think the plot was amazing and kept me entertained during the whole book, but a plot hole, the main character and the romance irritated me.

THE THINGS THAT MADE ME WANT TO RIP OFF MY WINGS OF FLYING MONKEY

1)      Amy’s character.

She has a pretty awful life in her world; I wouldn’t wish that to anybody. But I wasn’t able to pity her, at all. Sorry not sorry. At the same time, she was a special snowflake in Oz. Of course, she has it in her to fight like a badass warrior, even if she never punches anyone even if she’s been accused to but never stood for herself.

“Suddenly I knew exactly when to thrust and when to parry, when to go high and when to go low and when to twist away. I felt like I could do some damage with this thing.”

The way that Amy sometimes reacted reminded me of YA heroines of… five or seven years ago? I found her pretty shallow and couldn’t relate to her at all, because she was irritating.

2)      The insta-love. I’m so annoyed at the romance it’s crazy. Can a flying monkey be Amy’s love interest instead? Or Toto?

“It made sense that Nox could do this. He was the most coordinated, most physical being I’d ever met. But still, with every step we took in unison, I grew more aware of him. Even if he was annoying, and arrogant, and too serious at the same time, I had to admit it: he was hot.”

“I had never kissed a boy before so I had nothing to compare it to. But I was sure that whatever it was like, kissing Nox had to be different.”

This is one of the stupidest sentences I have ever read.

3)      A major plot hole

Okay, so Dorothy has been back to Oz for a long time right? So the Revolutionary Order of the Wicked exists since then, right? And their plan has been to kill Dorothy all that time, right? From now on, you’re following me. Then, I’m going to ask you something that will destroy everything.

Why would a revolutionary order put the responsibility of killing Dorothy into Amy’s hands, that they don’t know anything about? More importantly, they thought about their plan with the ball for months, so before Amy appeared in Oz, but they were just waiting for a Messiah to pop up and realized it?

It doesn’t make sense. AT ALL.

Okay, so now you’ll think: but Lucie, you basically hated that book, given what you just said. Well, I kind of liked it?

THE THINGS THAT MADE ME WANT TO DO MAGIC WITH GLINDA AND GLAMORA AND HAVE A OZILY EVER AFTER

1)      The plot

I’m easily admitting it: the concept behind this book is unique and makes sense. In the end, what Amy has to do is explained and I felt it was so logical and you should have think about it sooner. It was a fast-paced story with SO MANY different things happening at the same time.

2)      It wasn’t just a retelling, because there was a big twist to it

In this book, Oz isn’t what we saw in the movie, at all. Because of the Happiness Decree, everybody has to be happy, but it’s a little more complicated than that. Some characters use the PermaSmile, a Botox cream or something, to do as if they were happy. It is so messed up.

Our beloved characters, the Tin Man, the Lion and the Scarecrow have problems.

   The Tin Woodman is in love with Dorothy and will obey him forever and ever, no matter what she asks.
The Lion feeds off people’s fire, he’s like the Dementor of this world.
The Scarecrow has problems with his brains, disappears in his laboratory all the time to do messed up experiments. We get to see a few of them and it’s really awful and could keep you up at night.

Also, the Revolutionary Order of the Wicked is in fact Good? Well, the notion of Good/Wicked can be used anymore, which is very interesting. As Amy says sometimes, it’s just that the right thing has to be done.

3)      I didn’t see the plot twists coming

At the end of the book, there are big revelations about the characters and I hadn’t guessed it, at all! It’s always refreshing when you don’t guess the plot twist right away, because that’s what happens most of the time when you’re reading a lot of books.

Overall, I enjoyed the story of this book and devoured it in a few settings. But there were so many elements that made me want to slam the book against the wall… Also, the title of the book was Dorothy must die, but at the end of most chapters, Amy was repeating it, in a form or another, I just wanted her to stop. 

What did you think about of this book? There are so many mixed reviews about this one: is it yay or nay? What do you think of the romance? The world? Amy?