Dorothy Must Die 2/3 Through!

Second Third, Through Page 300

Holly

Amanda

Find our first thoughts here:

What do you think, sister? I think Danielle Paige has some serious imagination to come up with all this creepiness! Well, imagination and some serious Nazi references, right? I hate the Scarecrow (we should not post spoilery details, but ewwwwww. I have the creeps)

I’m slow, didn’t even think Nazis.  ICK.  That Lion scared the crap out of me. It took a lot of thought to make these beloved icons into such creepy and scary guys.   Dorothy too obviously, but taking those sweet and cuddly friends of hers and going to the other extreme is a really fun concept for the book.

Uh yeah, there is some serious Josef Mengele shit going on. And also Munchkin pogroms. At least that’s my interpretation. On another note, I thought it was hilarious that there was a command: “magic painting, show me [whatever]” Ha! That doesn’t sound like much of a spell!

Okay, and I have to say there is a bit of schizophrenia between referencing The Wizard of Oz the book versus the movie. Dorothy’s shoes are silver in one reference (book) and red (movie) when Amy makes it to the Emerald City. She talks about Glinda’s dress and refers to watching the movie on one page, and then the book 2 pages later! And the Tin Woodman’s origin story is definitely out of the book!

Seriously, I’m going to read wikipedia now.  I think you’re right.  And then aren’t they silver on the cover?

Honest to goodness though, as much as I clearly noticed the jumps in references, it makes total sense. I mean, you’d have to reference the movie because that’s what everyone knows! But, the book has more details and history to work with – like the creeper Tin Woodman story, the geography of Oz, and the ruling family’s line of descent. So, I don’t mind that Amy has knowledge of both and sort of thinks of them both interchangably. I mean, she does have a better knowledge of the book than arguably your average teen (or adult!) would have, but I suppose I can manage that suspension of disbelief amidst the rest of this story…

Hmm.  I’ll be honest, I tried Wikipedia just because I have a compulsive need to know details (this probably explains my compulsion to keep reading series that I’ve grown to despise…) but that was kind of frustrating.  I think I needed to read all about OZ-rather than just the first book but I don’t want to go too overboard.  Maybe I’ll plan to read the series while waiting for Book #2 in this series!

Anyway, I do like that Pagie’s Oz is a mixture of the movie and the book worlds.  Nearly everyone has to have seen the movie, but how many people have really read the original books?  She’d have to base as much as she could off the movie for familiarity, but also want to mine the details of Baum’s written world.  I love the thought that Paige put into the Revolutionary Order of the Wicked and how different they all are.  I really am going to have to read up to understand who is her creation and who is from the Oz series.

Time for me to get to reading!