"Dorothy Must Die" Danielle Paige

“I’m not Glinda. I’m Glamora, her twin sister. She’s the Good witch; I’m the Wicked one. Of course, she’s also the one who’s turned Oz into the hellhole it is now, so it’s really all relative.” 

― Danielle Paige, Dorothy Must Die

I have been sucked in again - on two counts.  This book is not only the first book of a series, but it is intended for young adults.  I don't really mind either of those.  I have read A-G of Grafton, all of Asimov's "Foundation" books, the Millennium series, the 7 Harry Potter books, L'Engle's trilogy that starts with "A Wrinkle in Time", etc., and so series are not a problem.  I also purposefully read both children's and young adult fiction.

The problem is rather that the blurb for this book mentioned neither of those.  I am tired of the bait-and-switch advertising that audible.com uses.  By leaving out these details in the descriptions and categories, I end up with books that are not as adult as I want them to be and that aren't self-contained.

You would think that Dorothy would die at the end of "Dorothy Must Die," but she doesn't.  That is not that much of a spoiler since the description for the second book in the series not only tells us that Dorothy is still alive, but hints that she isn't even dead at the end of that book.

Although the story here is much like any other sequel to either the L. Frank Baum series or the movie, that is, things in Oz are not all rosy and cheery.  In the case of the classic "Wicked", things in Oz were never nice, but in "Dorothy Must Die" it is Dorothy who is the catalyst for all that is currently bad in the Emerald City and the rest of the Land of Oz.  There are several factions working to end her reign, and each wants to recruit Amy, because she is purportedly the only one who can kill Dorothy.

So, who is Amy?  Just like Dorothy, Amy grew up in Kansas.  She lives with her mother in a trailer home in the modern day.  Amy's life is not going well, and she wishes she could get away to someplace that is better.  Her nemesis is not an old woman, but rather a sparkly fellow high school student, who is popular, dates the football star, and is pregnant.  And, very much like Dorothy, Amy is at home alone when the tornado hits.

For rewriters of the story of Oz, they have a choice of following the story in the Baum books or the movie.   Paige uses the terminology and geography of the first books. for example, it is the Tin Woodsman and the road of yellow bricks instead of the Tin Man and the yellow brick.  It has been a while since I have read any of Baum, so I'm not sure of the accuracy of all the detail.  At one point Amy is shown a map of Oz and her description sounds like Baum's map from Tik Tok.

I enjoyed the story, which is has Amy as narrator.  The characters are believable as the somewhat adult version of the children's story characters and include Dorothy's standard entourage, Glinda, the flying monkeys, munchkins and Ozma, but also introduces us to other witches, wicked or otherwise.  The structure of the story lets us know what is going on in the rebel camps as they try to wrest control of Oz from Dorothy and the workings of the Emerald Palace.

Because this is young adult literature, I want to know whether it would provide worthwhile discussions in class.  At the beginning there are the issues of school politics, who is popular, what makes a student an outcast and the problems of teen pregnancy.  The overriding questions throughout are trust and good/evil.  Amy is told over and again that she can't trust anyone, even the person telling her that.  Instead, she must trust in herself.  Dorothy demands loyalty, whether you want to be loyal or not.  This is a great subject for high school students to talk about, especially in light of the school politics discussion.  Good v. evil is a classic subject, but "Dorothy Must Die" adds the twist that it may bee the wicked who are good and vice versa.  Baum's characters were not always one-dimensional, and sometimes a good character has a wicked appearance or the other way around, a lesson to be learned by children.  Paige breaks that down further and asks the question of when it is okay to use violence against someone else, is it important to help out one person when it might put others at risk, and is a person wicked if their behavior is controlled by someone or something else.

Of course, it is also a coming-of-age novel where Amy grows up and begins to see her everyday life differently.

As an adult reading a young adult book, I am torn about Amy using words like 'nefarious' and others in dialog.  To me it makes the character less credible, but as a teacher I like that there are words that push the students' vocabularies.

This is a good book, and I see why it is a bestseller.  Will I read the next book in the series?  Not right away, but eventually I will.  That I was left hanging at the end still leaves a bad taste in my mouth. I was so frustrated by the lack of closure and the need for truly adult literature, I blew 6 of my 8 audible.com credits on real literature.  But, I see myself picking up the paperback version of the second book some time.