Dorothy Must Die Series

Hello, my fellow word nerds. I've decided that all of my future blog posts relating to book reviews will come out on Wednesday. Word Nerd Wednesday, in fact, because sometimes I might just have other posts to post but will save the posting of them for days that are not Word Nerd Wednesday.

Well, as you recently read, I've had a heck of a time coming up with a new list of books to read and review. This first series grabbed my attention purely on the basis of shock-value. This, I assume, just like the days of yore when I'd go to the YA section of the library and choose books solely based on their covers, is pretty common for the covers of YA novels these days.

Now, to be honest from the offset, I have only seen the movie The Wizard of Oz. I know that the books exist, but I've never really had anything to do with them. I figured that I knew the main premise of the plot of the movie, why not give this one a hack? Besides, the cover is edgy and all negative-spacey with a cool font. It must be good, right?

Wrong.

Before ,

I'd like to give you the information/summary for the titles in Danielle Paige's series so far.  There are three.  There will be a fourth one, and I'm dreading the day it's released.  There are also several prequel novellas that were released in e-book format but compiled and printed in a two-volume set.  I really don't want to read those, either. I don't like quitting on a book, though.  Finishing a book is much like voting.  You can't complain about it unless you do it.  I really hope she stops with the fourth book, lest my eyes bleed and my brain implode.  And with that, we're off!

Dorothy Must Die, 452 pages

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 wit it- you have no choice but to go along, you know?  Sure, I’ve read the books.  I’ve seen the movies.  But I never expected Oz to look like this.  A place where Good Witches can’t be trusted and Wicked Witches just might be the good guis.  A place where even the yellow brick road is crumbling.  What happened?
Dorothy.
My name is Amy Gumm- and I’m the other girl from Kansas.  I’ve been recruited by the Revolutionary Order of the Wicked, and I’ve been given a mission:  remove the Tin Woodman’s heart, steal the Scarecrow’s brain, take the Lion’s courage, and then- Dorothy must die.

The Wicked Will Rise, 293 pages

My name is Amy Gumm- and I’m the other girl from Kansas.  After a tornado swept through my trailer park, I ended up in Oz.  But it wasn’t like the Oz I knew from books and movies.  Dorothy had returned, and she was stealing magic from the land.  The Wizard was back, too.  Even Glinda could no longer be called the Good Witch.  And the Wicked Witches who were left?  They had joined forces as the Revolutionary Order of the Wicked.  They gave me a mission:  kill Dorothy.  Except my job as assassin didn’t work out as planned.  Dorothy is still alive.  The Order has vanished.  And the home I couldn’t wait to leave behind might be in danger.  Now, I have to: find Dorothy, destroy the road of yellow brick, save my home.  The wicked will rise.  




Yellow Brick War, 270 pages

Once upon a time, there was a girl from Kansas named Dorothy.  You might know her as the Girl Who Rode the Cyclone.  She ended up in Oz, where she became friends with the Tin Woodman, the Scarecrow, and the Cowardly Lion.  But the temptation of magic was too much for her.  She let it change her.  Her friends became twisted versions of their former selves.  The magical land of Oz is now a dark and menacing place. 
My name is Amy Gumm.  Tornadoes must have a thing about girls from Kansas, because I got swept away on one too.  I also landed in Oz, where Good is Wicked, Wicked is Good, and the Wicked Witches clued me in to my true calling: assassin.
The only way to stop Dorothy from destroying Oz- and Kansas- is to kill her.  And I’m the only one who can do it.  But I failed.  Others died for my mistakes.  Because of me, the portal between the worlds has been opened and Kansas and Oz are both in danger.  And if I don’t find a way to close it?  Dorothy will make sure I never get to go home again.  

My Response

Summary: 
Amy Gumm, the only child of a single mother who is an alcoholic narcotics abuser, is transported to dystopian OZ to defeat Dorothy, become a witch, and eventually defeat the Nome King.

Does it promote virtue?
Overall, no. It really twists the original story of Dorthy in a very dark way without any hope. There is hope for Amy's mother though, who finally decides to get her life in order.

Does it promote the good, the true, or the beautiful?

Does it overcome the human condition (temptation)?

Amy fights the temptation to turn into a "magical monster," but allows herself to be transformed twice so far in the series. She admits to liking it.

What is the work's overall attitude toward Catholicism?

Not present, but one character is a teenage mother who alludes to getting her pregnancy "taken care of in New York."  There is some blasphemy.

Does it contain paganry?

Yes, but that's to be expected in the land of good witches and bad witches.  But good witches are supposed to be good and bad witches are supposed to be bad.  Duh.  There are no specific incantations or spells.  

What about obscenities?

Oh heck yes, unfortunately.  By the time I graced page 40 in the first book, I'd already read four.  FOUR F-bombs!  There are two in the second book, and none in the third.  Several B-words and S-words peppered throughout the entire series. What's that old Irish proverb?  "Profanity makes ignorance audible" or something?!

Hows about the violence level?

Yes.  It's gory and disgusting.  The protagonist slits throats and rips out hearts.

What's the appropriate age level?

High school.  The protagonist is a junior or senior.

Gut reaction:

Trite.  Absolute trite.  It wants to be a buildungsroman, but it isn't.  I'm not sure the author even knows that that word means.  Unoriginal, pretentious, full of angsty, shallow teenage-drama, dragging the series on a la Peter Jackson's Hobbit movies.  In fractured fairy tales, the end must end how it originally did, but you see alternative view points of the bad guys.  The good guys should still win.  This book is turning the bad guys into heroes and the good guys into bad guys.  If the original story (read: movie) was full of an innocent desire to get home (Dorothy doesn't even mean to kill the witch), this story is full of a vicious cycle of vice, doom, and a sick obsession with evil and wickedness.  It did, however, make me want to read all of the original Oz books so I can call the author out on her crap.  Luckily, I can find most of them in the library.  I read this book and said to myself, "It's no wonder we live in a culture of death, when absolute drivel like this is lauded as literature."  It's not literature.  It's not even bad literature.  It's nothing more than melodramatic, escapist plot twists meant to entertain and make money.  Where are the FEELS?  Where is the virtue?  The HOPE?!  Where is the GROWTH?!  There is none, unless you call becoming an assassin overcome by dark forces "growth."  There's nothing but pretension.  This quote from the author's epilogue in the first novel says it all:

“To L Frank Baum, who created Dorothy and Oz.  I hope he wouldn’t mind too much that I borrowed her for a little while.”

I'm pretty sure he would mind.  The pretentious Paige has no imagination whatsoever in this hacked-together, unoriginal and violent fairy tale.  Instead of giving us closure and a hopeful ending at each stopping point (read: end of each installment), the reader gets shallow characters and Mtv entertainment spewing forth from the pages.  The reader also gets the feeling that they're going to be passively drug through another 300 page installment of pointless "heroics" that do nothing to point us to the the good, the true, or the beautiful.  It does nothing to challenge the reader (or the protagonist for that matter), but forces us to be content with complaining about every bad situation we're thrown into.  Trite.

Oh.  And Sandalwood.  Apparently all attractive boys smell like sandalwood.  Sandalwood sandalwood sandalwood.

I would recommend this to no one.  It doesn't add to humanity, it just provides a depressing moment of distraction.

This is the first official winner of the WASTE award!

What Asinine Stupidity!  Tell Everyone!

Tune in next week for a breath of fresh air from a great series about libraries!