Dorothy Must Die (Dorothy Must Die, #1) in Audiobook Junkies

May 01, 2014 ☕️Kimberly (Caffeinated Reviewer) rated it liked it · review of another edition

I was excited to read Dorothy Must Die by Danielle Paige and chose to listen to the audio version. The tale introduces us to Amy Gumm from Kansas who finds herself in Oz. Only it is not the place she remembers from the movie she and her mother use to watch. In fact, something is terribly wrong. Paige twists Oz into a dark place filled with nightmares, and I found myself quickly immersed in this world.

I loved the dark Oz that Paige created from the blacken fields, silent forests and enslaved monk I was excited to read Dorothy Must Die by Danielle Paige and chose to listen to the audio version. The tale introduces us to Amy Gumm from Kansas who finds herself in Oz. Only it is not the place she remembers from the movie she and her mother use to watch. In fact, something is terribly wrong. Paige twists Oz into a dark place filled with nightmares, and I found myself quickly immersed in this world.

I loved the dark Oz that Paige created from the blacken fields, silent forests and enslaved monkeys. Gone are the smiling tin man and adorable cowardly lion. The Scarecrow will make you shiver. We meet Dorothy, the Wizard and spend time in the Emerald City. As a child, I dreamed of traveling to Oz, but Paige’s Oz will make you long to click you fuzzy slippers as you cry, “there is no place like home.”

Amy does not live on a farm. She lives in a trailer park with her drug-addicted mother and is tormented by the high school “mean girl.” She does not have a lot of confidence and we get to see growth in her throughout the novel. At times, she is a little abrasive, but I felt her frustration at being thrust into a battle and not knowing the players. There is a hint of romance and at first; I thought we were going to get a triangle, but no worries on that count. If romance is necessary for your reading pleasure, you may be a tad disappointed as this one takes a back seat to the action, suspense and mysteries of Oz, Dorothy and the Revolutionary Order of the Wicked.

While not without flaws, I had to admire Paige’s take on Oz, and hope the next novel gives us more answers as to what went wrong and who is responsible. The tale’s ebb and flow for the most part was well paced. It dragged a little in the middle, and I felt it lost direction. However, the ending was deliciously paced and intense. Paige weaved in magic, contraptions, and spells while giving me a panoramic view of Oz. Where this fell a little flat for me is in the execution. While the world of Oz is dark it often boarders on ridiculous taking away the darker tones I would have appreciated. The novel for all its wonder did not provide many answers and was more of an introduction. I am hoping that book two digs a little deeper and answers questions. I would love to see Tim Burton get his hands on this. It would make quite the twisted movie.

Devon Sorvari narrated, and I felt her pacing, tone and voice added to the tale. She did an excellent Dorothy and made me want to slap the snot out of her. Amy could be annoying, and Devon did an excellent job of showing her frustration, fear and determination.

Despite some issues with Dorothy Must Die, Paige held me captive, and I am already anticipating the release of book two in 2015. No Place Like Oz is a prequel and currently available. It also appears that a novella will release later this year as part of the Dorothy Must Die series.This review was originally posted at Caffeinated Book Reviewer ...more

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Jan 02, 2016 Tiara added it

Shelves: audiobook, z-2016-women-of-genre-fiction, z-audio-500, z-2016-audiobook-challenge, imaginative-retelling, young-adult, spec-fic-by-authors-of-color, mocha-girls-book-club, z-2016-spec-fic-by-poc-challenge, z-mocha-girls-16

Review to come...SHEESH THAT HAIRPIN TURN AT THE END!!! #CAPSCAPSCAPS ...more

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Nov 23, 2013 Tonyalee rated it liked it

Shelves: 2015-read, young-adult, creeeeeeeepy, i-dont-even-know

Find this review and more on my blog, Lilybloombooks

3.5 stars
Dorothy Must Die was one of my most anticipated releases last year - but one I never go around to reading. For several reasons, to which I won't get into at the moment. However, one of my close blogger friends told me to give it a go - that I wouldn't regret it - so I did.

Dorothy Must Die had great potential to be amaze-balls. Which some aspects where, there were a few things that kept me from loving it.

What I loved? It was gory and ru ...more

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Mar 27, 2014 Shy The WidowMaker rated it really liked it

Prepare yourself because this Oz is nothing like what you may have grown up on and yet I loved it all the same. This book will make you look at everything differently but in a good way. I loved the unique world the author created and how she spun the Oz tale on it’s head and made it her own. We start out by meeting Amy who is not living a good life and has such a sorry excuse for a mom that I couldn’t stand her and was waiting on something good to happen for Amy. Well Amy gets tossed into the wo Prepare yourself because this Oz is nothing like what you may have grown up on and yet I loved it all the same. This book will make you look at everything differently but in a good way. I loved the unique world the author created and how she spun the Oz tale on it’s head and made it her own. We start out by meeting Amy who is not living a good life and has such a sorry excuse for a mom that I couldn’t stand her and was waiting on something good to happen for Amy. Well Amy gets tossed into the world of Oz and she learns that it may not be anything like the movies and books she has read. Oh where do I begin as the world building the author created was amazing. She gave me such a visual experience I was creeped out about the fact that it was not a world of sunshine and rainbows like I have always pictured it to be.

I think my favorite thing about this book was the fact that along the way Amy gets to meet such unique characters and she learns that good may not really be all that good and wicked may not be as wicked as it seems. I loved that this book showed all sides of people and the person that was so different from the norm was Dorothy. The sweet innocent girl from Kansas has now become a power hungry girl that will stop at nothing to get what she wants and she enlists the help of other well known characters to get it. We get to meet the Tin man, The Lion and of course the Scarecrow who were so creepy but yet such cool characters. They were basically Oz’s enforcers and not friendly people at all. Amy soon meets some people that put her on a path to take down Dorothy but she quickly learns it may not be as easy as she thought it would be.

This book is full of lots of moments that leave you with tons of questions and that makes you want to know more. The author created great characters and made me want to know more about them because I could tell they were flawed creatures that have been through a lot. I think the one that I wished this book did was tell us what made them all this way as I am sure there was something that happened to create this world. I personally can’t wait for the next book in this series to see what happens next with Amy and Dorothy.I highly recommend this one to others. ...more

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Jun 28, 2014 Samantha rated it really liked it

I had heard a lot about Dorothy Must Die since about April and I knew it was going to be released in the U.K soon and I couldn’t wait to read it. I love The Wizard of Oz, it is my favourite childhood film and I have since been to everything I can that is related to The Wizard of Oz. I have seen the musical and Wicked too.

So when the lovely Justine contacted me and offered me an early readers copy of Dorothy Must Die, I had to say yes! I couldn’t wait to get stuck into it.

Amy Gumm is another gi I had heard a lot about Dorothy Must Die since about April and I knew it was going to be released in the U.K soon and I couldn’t wait to read it. I love The Wizard of Oz, it is my favourite childhood film and I have since been to everything I can that is related to The Wizard of Oz. I have seen the musical and Wicked too.

So when the lovely Justine contacted me and offered me an early readers copy of Dorothy Must Die, I had to say yes! I couldn’t wait to get stuck into it.

Amy Gumm is another girl from Kansas; she has a mundane life and seems to be the victim at school for the bullies. Her home life is not better, she lives in a trailer with her mum and her mum’s pet rat, her mum has got issues of her own and Amy is often an afterthought. After tornado warnings Amy is left in her trailer while her mother goes out, this is the last she sees of her mum as she is taken up and out of Kansas and arrives in the land of Oz.

Oz, is not the place we know and love anymore, Amy has landed in a place that perhaps once looked like Oz, yes there is the yellow brick road but that seems to be the only similarity. Oz has taken a dark turn, with what once was good is now evil and can wicked now be good?

There are many characters in this story, they are all interwoven well and it is easy for the reader to understand who is who. I enjoyed reading and perhaps learning a little more about older characters from the original story, however also thought the new editions bought with them some mystery and magic.

I must be honest, I was in for a shock with the level of gore and violence I came across in the book, this was something I didn’t expect; however I felt it was relevant to the story and made it very vivid. The whole story is easy to visualise and I could easily see this as a television programme or a film as it would lend itself so well to the screen.

I found the first third of the book (up to around chapter 12) to be very fast paced and engaging, I think I read in an hour or so. The final third I found as equally engaging and enjoyable and whizzed through this. The middle part of the book, however I found was a little slow at times and some of what was being said could have been done using less words. There was a lot of description which at times I felt was unnecessary.

Amy as a character grew on me, to begin with I was a little unsure of her, and when she arrived in Oz, she annoyed me as she constantly was trying to explain to the reader all the people she seemed to come across were ‘around her age’. This was quoted a lot in the book and this did grate on me a bit. Thankful she dropped this and her character began to change. I could feel she was confused and unsure who to trust, she began to realise that she needed to believe in herself and to go with her gut instinct. Amy became a wonderful heroin in the book and her confidence began to grow.

This is a great debut novel for Danielle Paige, she has taken a well known and loved fairy tale and transported it into a new era. This is not for the fait hearted; there is blood, gore and nightmares in this book, which has totally turned Oz on its head. On finishing the book I noticed it will be a series, I would say after that ending I would expect that. From reading the book did I get any major surprises? No but I did enjoy it. This I found even though it was 452 pages was quite a quick read and it was very intriguing, I was dying to find out how it was all going to be wrapped up...and now I know ha ha! You will need to read the book for yourself in order to find out!

I don’t want to say a lot more about this book as I don’t want to give anything away only if you like the Wizard of Oz I would give this book a go. Overall I am really pleased I had the opportunity to read this book and after this I would definitely want to read the next in the series by Paige. I give this book 4 stars out of 5 due to the slowness I felt in the middle of the book.

I would like to thank the publisher for sending me this copy to review. ...more

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Aug 08, 2014 Haze rated it it was ok

Shelves: 2014-books-read

Listened on audiobook.

Finally finished this! OMG! Here's the thing, it's not actually a very long book, but it just dragged on and on and on. It's almost like there was nothing to say and so everything happened so slowly. So... so... so... slowly... zzzzzZZZZ.

And this is just the first book! I have no intention of reading the rest of the series because it seems like a really long-winded and pointless journey to me.

Honestly, it's not *that* bad, I've read a lot of worse books, it's just trying ...more

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Feb 13, 2016 Sarah Michelle Virginia DeRosier added it · review of another edition

Shelves: library-book

I loved everything about this book it was such a great book to listen to. I am glad i checked out as an audiobook with the length of the book I am not sure I would have finished it very quickly just reading it in the traditional sense.

I am not very familiar with the traditional OZ books but it this certainly makes me want to go back through and read them.

I think the idea of some like Dorothy being innocent and sweet and then being easily corrupted by the power of magic in a new world like OZ is ...more

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Dec 05, 2013 Julie rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: bookclub-reads, audio, 2014-audiobook-challenge, 2014-ya-audiobook-challenge

I really liked the concept of Dorothy Must Die because The Wizard of Oz is one of my favorite stories, and spin offs can be really fun – I mean Wicked is the coolest thing EVER. I also liked having the characters turn evil and be different from how they were the first time we met them.
Unfortunately, this one didn’t quite deliver what I was hoping, though I did really like many aspects of it. There were some cliché aspects in this book – absentee parent, character who doesn’t believe in herself, ...more

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