Dorothy Must Die by Danielle Paige

3.5 Stars

 “Those who have sacrificed always have the most to lose”.

Amy Gumm has a pretty crappy life. She lives in a trailer park in BFE, Kansas, is being raised by a mother who is hooked on pills and spends her days at school being bullied by a pregnant cheerleader. There’s not much to look forward to when she wakes up each morning.

Amy finds herself in a whole new world – literally – when her single-wide is swept up in a tornado


(with less sharks)

and deposits her in the middle of Oz. But this Oz isn’t quite the same as the one Amy grew up hearing about. Dorothy and her gang are definitely a little different



Okay, maybe not that different, but different in the fact that “words like Good and Wicked [have] lost their meaning” and the only thing that matters is right and wrong. It’s now up to Amy to determine who to trust (if anyone) and just how far she will go in order to save the land of Oz. Along the way she’ll cross paths with some familiar characters



and get a helping hand from one or two unexpected allies



Growing up I loved old movies – especially musicals. Excluding two – “The Wizard of Oz” and “The Sound of Music”. Somehow both of these films have become “holiday classics”. I can only assume it’s karma coming back on me for being pure evil. At this point in my life I’d rather stick a fork in my own eyeball than to have to watch Little Miss Goody Two Shoes (ha! I crack myself up) Dorothy traipse her way around Oz ever again. That’s why, when I heard of this anti-Dorothy tale, I COULD. NOT. WAIT. to get my grubby little hands all over it. And boy am I glad I did. Super fun, fast-paced, simply bubbling over with awesome. I really should be nice and give it a full 4 Stars, but I’m letting my inner-wicked-witch-flag-fly and bumping it down for two reasons: (1) I HATE books in a series and this one is so completely open-ended that I’m pretty much forced to read book #2; and (2) at some point authors have to realize that if they create a fabulous world filled with fantastic characters, they don’t need to muddy the waters worrying about who is going to be playing smoochy-face with whom by the end of the series. Just let the characters kick ass and take names.