Recently, it has become a trend to create storylines based on previously told stories and then putting a twist on it. For example, the hit show “Once Upon a Time” is based on Disney stories that we all know and love, but they have been modified to fit the storyline. Books have been written based on the concept of continuing onto a well-known story, one series being the “Dorothy Must Die” books.

This book follows a seventeen-year-old girl from Kansas named Amy Gumm. She has had a rough life overall, but the biggest struggle is her mom not ever being around to take care of her. She is pretty invisible at her school, she doesn’t have hardly any friends. Until the day when she gets in a fight with the mean girl in school, Madison, who happens to be very pregnant. Amy gets blamed for starting the fight and gets suspended and sent home. When she gets home, everything is normal even with the tornado sirens blaring and her mom running off to a tornado party. But this storm is different, this one is actually a threat. Amy stays on her couch feeling the strong winds move her trailer back and forth when she begins to see cows, cars, and other things fly past her window, making her realize she is up in the air. The next thing she knows, she has landed in a strange land that is obviously different than her home. She then finds out that it is Oz, but it looks nothing like it does in the movie she had grown up watching. After getting kidnapped by the Revolutionary Order of the Wicked, she discovers that Dorothy is the cause for all of the destruction and other bad things that are happening in Oz. Everything is backward, good witches are bad and bad witches are good. The “bad” witches give her the quest to remove the Tin Woodman’s heart, steal the Scarecrow’s brain, take Lion’s courage, and kill Dorothy.

This book sounds very interesting when you hear the summary and even when you read the beginning of the book. It had a lot of potential, but it wasn’t developed very well. It becomes very unclear about halfway through what is going on and where the plot is going to go. This book could have gone multiple different directions, and I feel that the author chose the wrong direction for this book to travel. It makes attempts at action scenes and cliffhangers, but most of them are unsuccessful.
This book definitely wasn’t the worst book I have ever read, but it wouldn’t go on my list of favorites. It was a little slow and hard to keep my attention. I don’t regret picking this book up, but I don’t think I will read the other two books in the series, “The Wicked Will Rise” and “Yellow Brick War”. I would give this book a 2.5/5.