Dorothy Must Die Review

Dorothy Must Die by Danielle Paige

5 of 5 stars

This was one of those books I was anxiously awaiting and when the store I work in got it in, I was so excited to check it out, but was also nervous that it would fall short. It did not disappoint.. I finished it in 3 days. I couldn’t put it down. And I didn’t know it was part of a series. I don’t read books that have a sequel until all of the books are published. Because it makes me crazy to get to the end of a book and know that there’s more and have to wait for it. This was definitely a great example of this. I’m going to try to be as descriptive as possible without giving anything away.

What I liked:

*I love the new take on the Wizard of Oz. I love that Dorothy and her friends are the villains. I love that the lines of Good and Wicked have been blurred.

*The world building was beautiful. The descriptions of Oz itself were fantastic, but the descriptions of everything else going on were also lovely.

*I liked the development of most of the characters.

*This was a <very> dark twist on the original story and it works well.

*There is a lot of action going on.

*Even though she was a stereotype a lot of the time, Amy was clever and witty.

*There was very little romance. While I’m usually all about romance, it’s often a frustrating subject in teen books. There was some very minor romantic interest, but no one is making decisions based on the love of their life that they just met.

What I didn’t like:
*I hate pop culture references and they tend to be all over the place in teen fiction. Fortunately, like many other books, the references stop after a short while.

*There was a lot of angst going on. I wanted to slap Amy during about ¼ of the book.

*Some of the foreshadowing was way too overt, but it never led to anything.

*You can tell that the writing is from a new author, but it wasn’t awful.

*This is a series. How did I not know this was a series??? It felt like the book just stopped. I understand cliffhangers, but ugh.

I would definitely recommend this to anyone who likes retellings, but I would probably suggest to wait until the next book is out, if not all 3.

Peter Pan was kind of a butt.

So I know that last post was kind of a downer. So here is another book review. I've been using books as a kind of therapy and it's working really well. And I'm reading a lot more now.

Tiger Lily by Jodi Lynn Andersen

3.75/5 Stars

I’m sure anyone reading my book reviews has noticed the fairy tale retelling kick I’ve been on. I’m still not sorry and now there’s another. (In my defense, I have read two religion books –even though they were both pretty short – amidst these novels.) I knew I needed more of these types of stories to keep my reading level high, and then I stumbled onto this gem. This chart is amazing. I found a ton of books I need to read now, and I got it into my head that I should read a Peter Pan story. I went through the ones on the list and this seemed like the best new perspective.

What I liked:

*Minor characters: Tik Tok and Pine Sap were my favorite characters in the book. I think all of the minor characters were well developed though. I liked having Hook and Smee’s back stories.

*Plot premise: This was the first rewriting of Peter Pan I’ve read and really the only one I could find that wasn’t a little kids’ book. I loved the focus being about Tiger Lily. I often imagined Peter as kind of a jerk and this book finally openly admits that he really is.

*Point of View: I liked seeing Tinkerbell not being a brat and actually caring about someone

*It doesn’t even kind of matter for the story itself, but the cover is beautiful.

*I don’t care whether a book has a happy or sad ending, but I do like closure. I got that with this book.

Drawbacks:

*While it was a really good story, nothing really ever grabbed my attention and drove me to finish. I finished it because I had nothing better to read at the time, but it could have been easily put to the side and forgotten about it.

*I felt more attached to the secondary characters than the main ones. I didn't like Peter Pan and didn't want him to be with Tiger Lily. A lot of times I felt detached from her as well.

*There were a few parts of the plot that seemed a little rushed/awkward. I don’t want to give anything away, but this happens only a few times.

*There were also a few things about Tiger Lily that are never explained but were set up like they should have been.