Dorothy Must Die Review (Dorothy Must Die #1)

Amy has known that she was trash since she was 9 years old. When she was 9 she had her birthday party in the trailer park, but no one came because it was in a trailer park. Over the next few years, her mom became addicted to pills, and she never gained any friends. Now she is in high school, but she is still stuck in a small town with the same people. Her mom is still an addict, and if she isn’t high then she is out partying, still not spending any time paying attention to Amy. Amy basically fends for herself, but when she is suspended for a fight with a pregnant girl that she didn’t even throw a punch in and a tornado is coming to the area, she does not expect her mother to simply go to another party and leave her in the trailer by herself.

When the tornado hits, the trailer and Amy are swept up in it. When the trailer finally touches the ground, a boy helps Amy and her pet rat Star out of the trailer which landed on the edge of a ravine. Amy realizes that she is in Oz, but as she goes on her way she meets a munchkin and a wingless flying monkey, which tell her the true story of what happened after Dorothy left. Dorothy came back to Oz after she tired of the real world, and became the ruler after Ozma mysteriously disappeared. Then she became sort of addicted to magic, she wanted all that OZ had to offer, and so the munchkins were forced to drain the magic by mining Oz in order to please the new queen Dorothy. The Lion, The Scarecrow, The Tin Man, and Glinda all work for her, and she has turned what used to be a wonderland into a hellhole.

Amy knows that as basically a second Dorothy, she is what can help Oz. A rebel group takes her in, and so she begins her quest to save Oz.

I. Loved. This. Book. It was so good! I don’t know why I didn’t read this series before. Amy is simply such an interesting character, the rebel organization had so many cool people, but I cannot name them because of spoilers. I loved how she never gave up and was independent for most of the book, even as she worked for the rebel organization. I also thought it was interesting how Dorothy had so easily turned from good to evil. I never really thought about how her time in OZ would affect her once she came back to the real world, but it is reasonable to think that she would be unsatisfied with the real world after OZ.

I love fairytale retellings usually, well, let me not say that. I usually enjoy GOOD fairytale retellings, and this just happens to be one of the good ones. I advise anyone who read the Wizard of Oz and enjoyed it, or who simply likes a good fairytale with a strong heroine, to pick up this book as fast as you can and finish it!

Overall Rating: 6 out of 5 books.