2020 EDIT: Oh well, another removal from my shelf.
'Dorothy Must Die' is grisly, dark, horrific, and even a little funny and clever. It is well written in its fully realised imagery and characterisation. But a few tropes bug me: such as the love triangle (which includes the "bad boy" arsehole main love interest archetype), and everyone keeping secrets from the protagonist for no reason other than providing a mystery to the story. It's very annoying. There's the underlining implication that men are better rulers than women, because women are easily corrupted by power, and turn evil or incompetent or both. We really don't need more of this problematic storytelling crap, that in no way reflects reality, thank you very much. THAT needs to die, not Dorothy.
Then there's the slut shaming and girl-on-girl hate, as I stated in my original review: Whore = pure evil with no redeeming qualities. Girl-on-girl hate is as normal as breathing. Confident sexuality and power in girls can literally bring the death of us all. I know these are most likely not what Ms Paige was intentionally writing in subtext. It's just sad to see this damaging medieval ideal still present in YA. It's more internalised misogyny in the book's subtext, and it's not comfortable to read about. "Bitch" is said a few times, too, without any self-awareness.
The dialogue can be odd too, and there are not enough "Please"'s and "Thank you"'s and "How are you?"'s from the characters whose lives were just saved. Why is no one polite, or honest? Everyone has an ulterior motive for the heroine, and it's aggravating. There are plot contrivances, and the "chosen one" heroine doesn't do a lot on her own, with her own agency. Death, grief and bloody violence don't really effect her as much as it should.
There's not much diverse rep as far as I can tell, either.
Thus, I did not ecstatically enjoy 'Dorothy Must Die' on the reread years later.
From now on, the only 'The Wizard of Oz'-related stuff for me are the movie, the sequel, 'Return to Oz', and the musical, 'Wicked'.
Final Score: 3/5
Original Review:
Mutant lions and rats and disembodiments, oh my!
How I adored this book!
'Dorothy Must Die'. How can anyone resist a grabbing title like that? It contains many things that I love: a hard-as-nails, takes-no-shit heroine, sweetness twisted into darkness and macabre, the complex and grey morality of people under a sick tyrannical regime, a prominent cast of wonderful female characters, meaningful character deaths, animals, and a study of what constitutes as being good and evil. Above all I think that 'Dorothy Must Die' really delves into the heart of Oz and the question, "Are you a good witch, or a bad witch?"
Before I continue any further, a little backstory is needed. 'The Wizard of Oz' is one of my favourite movies. I love the colours, the characters, the political satire, the foreshadowing, the practically perfect story structure, and the passion and fun onscreen, with darkness added for great measure. That it is over seventy years old now and is still considered a timeless classic says an awful lot. I have only read the first Oz book by L. Frank Baum, not having gotten around to reading any of the sequels. Despite this I still consider myself to be a fan of 'The Wizard of Oz' and all that comes with it. (Although I don't care for Hollywood's recent dull and generic prequel, 'Oz the Great and Powerful', and I've yet to see the new animated film which I hear is rather terrible). The Broadway hit 'Wicked' is my second favourite musical (the first being 'Evita'); Elphaba may be my all-time favourite female character, period. (The lifeless, poorly executed mess of a book the musical's based on can remain in obscurity as far as I'm concerned). It holds as much mass appeal as the movie; garnering both their successes.
So naturally when I heard about 'Dorothy Must Die', yet another tale based on the Oz franchise that deconstructs its core themes and goes in a darker direction than what we are comfortable with, I knew I had to check it out. I wanted it like one would want Dorothy's sparkling, mesmerising red slippers.
'Dorothy Must Die' is very violent and gory for YA. It might not show up a lot at first, but wait patiently my dearies, because my goodness does it take a level of slasher horror up to eleven in the last quarter. Enough to make even the least-squeamish reader feel sick to the stomach. But, dark as it mostly is, there remains a real beating heart throughout. It is well-written, the dialogue between the characters is snappy and brings them to life full force, and the colourful imagery is very easy to picture. As a side note: I wouldn't be surprised if it turns out that the author, Danielle Paige, is an anime fan, because I could really envision each character and scene in 'Dorothy Must Die' as belonging to an anime series. I sure as heck can see it being hyped as a new anime hit. The action scenes especially help this speculation, and the protag, Amy, even has pink hair! (Dyed, yes, but all the same!)
No character can be called purely "good": Everyone has ulterior motives, since the magical fairy world of Oz has been turned into a nightmare. No one can be trusted, and "good" and "wicked" are now blurred so thinly together the words don't mean anything anymore. This is all thanks to Dorothy coming back and taking all the wonderful magic for herself. Yes, innocent and saccharine Dorothy, the heroine of Oz, is a wicked witch and a tyrant in this story (and oooooh does she exude her power in the most evil and tortuous ways imaginable *shudders*). But more on her later.
The main character of 'Dorothy Must Die', and the potential new hero of Oz, is Amy Gumm. It's always lovely to see a YA teen heroine with some backbone and common sense. This girl's a survivor. And well she should be, considering how hard her life is. She lives in a trailer park (hence, her nickname at school is Trailer Trash) in Dusty Acres, Kansas, after her dad left her mum for another woman. Her mum is a drug addict and behaves like she prefers Amy didn't exist, despite Amy's tiresome efforts to help her. The only one she can very loosely call a friend is her mum's beloved pet rat, Star. One night, after getting suspended from school for "fighting" (meaning: she was blameless) the pregnant and popular Alpha Bitch Madison Pendleton, and after her mum leaves her for a "tornado party" (WTF?), Amy's trailer is swept up by the coming storm. In a cyclone. With her and Star the rat trapped inside (Star will be playing for Amy the same role Toto played for Dorothy). Sure enough, Amy then finds herself in Oz.
And it is not the Oz she knows from the famous film or the books.
While she does get rescued by a beautiful boy, afterwards Amy is left alone to wonder the desolate, drained and lifeless land of Oz. She comes across many allies, enemies, and people who are both, on her journey: a Goth Munchkin, a sadistically-nice slave driver Glinda (so she's not that different from how she is in the film then, hi ohh!), a talking monkey with his wings deliberately cut off, a sociopathic Tin Woodman, the tyrant Princess Dorothy herself, a surgeon Scarecrow who makes Sweeney Todd look like a Care Bear, a Lion who literally feeds on the fear of others and is a horrific beast, a supposedly brain-drained Ozma, and the witches of the Revolutionary Order of the Wicked who aim to kill Dorothy at any cost - and believe fellow Kansas girl Amy to be the one who can do the good deed.
They set out to train her in assassination, espionage, tea drinking and table manners. There are also the Emerald Castle maids, the Wizard's sudden appearance (Dorothy distrusts him but she thinks she can use him to her advantage), and a whole maze of questions that Amy is just not getting any answers to from anyone. For she can't trust anyone.
Can she even trust herself?
Amy Gumm, in a world she doesn't understand, but at the same time doesn't wish to go home like Dorothy once did, must decide on her own what is best for Oz as it is now. Will she kill Dorothy? Can this ordinary teenager truly become an assassin? She learns how to use magic from the Wicked witches' lessons, but is she a good witch? Back home she had tried her best to be good. She has a habit of talking back when it won't help her situation, and while she can be selfish sometimes, she's very brave when she feels she's doing the right thing (she is capable of making her own decisions, another reason to root for her).
Amy's certainly never thought of herself as a potential murderer, even if the person she's going to murder deserves it, for the "greater good". Dorothy's killed many people and made Ozians suffer for too long. But what if it's not her fault? Magic has changed Dorothy, corrupted her, twisted her innocence into something heartless. Empty. Power of any kind can do that to anyone.
Is it possible that that power will rise to corrupt Amy too, given the chance?
Good and evil, who will prevail? Whatever the outcome, will it even matter anymore?
Life is about the choices we make, good or wicked. Which path will Amy end up choosing, so she doesn't end up like the former hero of Oz, Dorothy Gale, who's now the new wicked witch to slay?
Amy and Dorothy are two sides of the same coin. They are alike in that they come from Kansas, but the similarities might end there. Amy came from nothing, but in Oz and with the mission she is given by those she barely trusts, she grows to become someone of worth. She just has to make sure that glory and power do not go to her head and change her for the worst...
Although I find it hard to stomach that our genre-savvy Amy could end up any worse than Dorothy.
Now that I've talked to death about the heroine and how the plot goes about, let's talk a smidge about the villain. As I read more and more of 'Dorothy Must Die', I saw the significance of the morbid title. If you thought that Dorothy was too much of a goody-two-shoes in 'The Wizard of Oz', boy are you in for a pleasant surprise here! She is twisted, cruel, narcissistic, self-centred, and an unmitigated psychopath. This Dorothy would make any serial killer with a God complex proud! She loves to torture animals and people, and feels no remorse for her actions whatsoever - actions which I can't reveal due to spoilers, but believe me when I say that she is the reason why I'd label 'Dorothy Must Die' as a horror.
She has her henchmen - the Tin Woodman, Scarecrow and the Lion - do most of her dirty work, so she isn't an effective villain in terms of making many appearances in this story. However, her shadowy presence throughout - the petrifying fear she emits in the other characters at the mere mention of her name - is awesome. There is an eerie 'Ninety-Eighty-Four' vibe present once Amy gets to the heart of everything inside the Emerald Castle. Given time and some work, Princess Dorothy could team up with Lord Voldemort in the Rogues Gallery of pop culture baddies.
I've probably overhyped 'Dorothy Must Die' enough already. But while it is a brilliant, daring, clever and fully-realised story, especially for YA, it does contain its share of flaws and cliches that have plagued the genre for nearly a decade now.
I did not care for the romance between Amy and the witch boy Nox. No matter how tragic his backstory is, it doesn't excuse the fact that he's a jerk. Oh he's sorry he's had to hurt Amy, because the Order told him to? So that she'll get angry and unleash her magic? Nothing excuses manipulating and psychologically damaging a confused young girl for "the greater good", when the witches are just using her anyway. And using him too, for that matter. But I still don't care for the romance. It's unnecessary, forced and stupid, even though Amy is smart enough to see it as such.
One good thing I can say about the meagre love plot thread is that it is part of a love triangle which, as it turns out in the last couple of pages of the book, isn't really a love triangle at all. Again, can't explain due to spoilers, but I was so relieved to see another overused trope in the YA genre get sucker punched in the gut in an original path by way of deconstruction.
There is an implication of slut-shaming. The school bully Madison Pendleton wears lots of make-up and revealing clothing. She's catty and clearly meant to be seen as a huge bitch, who could get away with murder because she's heavily pregnant. Then there's Dorothy, whose familiar blue-checked clothing is described as, 'somewhere between haute couture and French hooker. The bodice nipped, tucked and lifted. There was cleavage. Lots of cleavage' (page 87 of my copy). Though in the previous paragraph Amy (and the author too, presumably) comments, 'Not that I was judging', the image, in both cases, is still presented as such: Whore = pure evil with no redeeming qualities. Girl-on-girl hate is as normal as breathing. Confident sexuality and power in girls can literally bring the death of us all. I know these are most likely not what Ms Paige was intentionally writing in subtext. It's just sad to see this damaging medieval ideal still present in YA, more so in a book which does a great job in subverting other YA cliches.
Also, be warned: 'Dorothy Must Die' ends in a cliffhanger. Now, I am not a fan of this trope either, but it isn't as bad as in other YA books that obviously want to be another bestselling trilogy. It is blatant, but the ending to 'Dorothy Must Die' is satisfying enough that I didn't mind the sequel bait much.
One more thing: I wish that Star was given a bigger role, like in the final battle with Dorothy, who is afraid of rodents. But she just disappears once her major function is done. It makes her seem like nothing more than a plot device.
So that was 'Dorothy Must Die' - grim, bold, tense, and fun; especially if you can picture it as an anime. Pages filled with creative imagery, enchanted props, claustrophobic settings, horror and gore, dark magic mixed with hope, a memorable, distinct and diverse cast, significant character development and dynamics, and an ingenious hero-and-villain parallel reminiscent of 'Wicked' the musical. Yeah, in my overall opinion it is pretty awesome.
There is much to like here, and much to talk about. But this review has gone on long enough and I believe I've said what I wanted to say.
But as they say, there's no rest for the Wicked.
Final Score: 4/5
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