Book Review: Dorothy Must Die by Danielle Paige

  didn't ask for any of this. I didn't ask to be some kind of hero.
But when your whole life gets swept up by a tornado—taking you with it—you have no choice but to go along, you know?

Sure, I've read the books. I've seen the movies. I know the song about the rainbow and the happy little blue birds. But I never expected Oz to look like this. To be a place where Good Witches can't be trusted, Wicked Witches may just be the good guys, and winged monkeys can be executed for acts of rebellion. There's still the yellow brick road, though—but even that's crumbling.

What happened?
Dorothy. They say she found a way to come back to Oz. They say she seized power and the power went to her head. And now no one is safe.

Best Bits: Oh. My. Glob. There was something so deliciously twisted about this book that kept me from setting it down. I was reading it during my lunch break because I couldn't wait to find out what happened next. Amy is like Dorothy in many ways, she just wants to escape her life in Kansas. Her issues, unlike Dorothy's, are more serious and intense.  This makes her a great character. She's not exactly likable all the time, but I understand her motivations. She's tormented by her peers, her mom is struggling with addiction, and she can't wait to leave her home behind. Perfect timing for a tornado, right? Paige was able to take Oz, and make it her own. The associations that I have about Oz from childhood were turned upside down, and I loved it.

The characters are everything that you want them to be, and Paige doesn't spare anyone. It's sort of like Game of Thrones, no one is safe! The reader never truly knows who is good and who is wicked, and if wicked is really good in Oz?! I'm looking forward to Amy's struggle with power, and her ability to navigate who to trust (and hopefully, ultimately, trusting herself). The characters we know and love(d) make an appearance, and they're absolutely vile. I never thought I would be disgusted by the cowardly lion (because really, in the movie I just want to give him a big hug). Paige excels in warping these characters, while giving the reader an understanding of why they serve Dorothy.

Nit Picks: There is a decent amount of swearing in this one. I didn't mind it, but those who try to avoid that should be aware. 

Dorothy Must Die 
By Danielle Paige
Published by HarperCollins
452 Pages
Purchased

Cover Reveal - feral by Holly Schindler

It’s too late for you. You’re dead.

Those words float through Claire Cain’s head as she lies broken and barely alive after a brutal beating. And the words continue to haunt her months later, in the relentless, terrifying nightmares that plague her sleep. So when her father is offered a teaching sabbatical in another state, Claire is hopeful that getting out of Chicago, away from the things that remind her of what she went through, will offer a way to start anew.

But when she arrives in Peculiar, Missouri, Claire quickly realizes something is wrong—the town is brimming with hidden dangers and overrun by feral cats. And her fears are confirmed when a popular high school girl, Serena Sims, is suddenly found dead in the icy woods behind the school. While everyone is quick to say Serena died in an accident, Claire knows there’s more to it—for she was the one who found Serena, battered and most certainly dead, surrounded by the town’s feral cats.

Now Claire vows to learn the truth about what happened, but the closer she gets to uncovering the mystery, the closer she also gets to discovering a frightening reality about herself and the damage she truly sustained in that Chicago alley. . . .

With an eerie setting and heart-stopping twists and turns, Holly Schindler weaves a gripping story that will make you question everything you think you know.

Release Date: August 26, 2014
Published by HarperCollins

Find the book on: 

Goodreads

Amazon

If you want to learn more about Holly or her books check out her website!

Waiting on Wednesday (January 29)

Waiting on Wednesday was started by Jill at Breaking the Spine. This weekly meme shares the upcoming books that I'm most excited about.

A World Without Princes (The School of Good and Evil 2) by Soman Chainani

In the epic sequel to the New York Times bestselling novel, The School for Good and Evil, Sophie and Agatha are home, living out their Ever After. But life isn't quite the fairy tale they expected.

When Agatha secretly wishes she'd chosen a different happy ending, she reopens the gates to the School for Good and Evil. But the world she and Sophie once knew has changed.

Witches and princesses, warlocks and princes are no longer enemies. New bonds are forming; old bonds are being shattered. But underneath this uneasy arrangement, a war is brewing and a dangerous enemy rises. As Agatha and Sophie battle to restore peace, an unexpected threat could destroy everything, and everyone, they love-and this time, it comes from within.

Published by HarperCollins

Release Date: April 15, 2014

Eeee, I can't wait. Love the cover, loved the first book, can't wait!

Book Review: The School for Good and Evil by Soman Chainani

The first kidnappings happened two hundred years before. Some years it was two boys taken, some years two girls, sometimes one of each. But if at first the choices seemed random, soon the pattern became clear. One was always beautiful and good, the child every parent wanted as their own. The other was homely and odd, an outcast from birth. An opposing pair, plucked from youth and spirited away.

This year, best friends Sophie and Agatha are about to discover where all the lost children go: the fabled School for Good & Evil, where ordinary boys and girls are trained to be fairy tale heroes and villains. As the most beautiful girl in Gavaldon, Sophie has dreamed of being kidnapped into an enchanted world her whole life. With her pink dresses, glass slippers, and devotion to good deeds, she knows she’ll earn top marks at the School for Good and graduate a storybook princess. Meanwhile Agatha, with her shapeless black frocks, wicked pet cat, and dislike of nearly everyone, seems a natural fit for the School for Evil.

But when the two girls are swept into the Endless Woods, they find their fortunes reversed—Sophie’s dumped in the School for Evil to take Uglification, Death Curses, and Henchmen Training, while Agatha finds herself in the School For Good, thrust amongst handsome princes and fair maidens for classes in Princess Etiquette and Animal Communication.. But what if the mistake is actually the first clue to discovering who Sophie and Agatha really are…?

Best Bits: Oh SfGaE, how I love thee. I know that I shouldn't, but I have a grocery list for things that I love in YA books. Your standard YA book usually has one or two items checked off, but this one seems to have it all: strong female characters (that don't fit into typical good/bad roles, despite what the title implies), a fairytale aspect, a focus on friendship (and a potential for interesting romances in books to come), and a big surprise at the end that I genuinely didn't see coming...it was a glorious read. The world-building was impressive, too. Due to the opposing natures of Agatha and Sophie, we get to see exactly what the differences are between the two schools. The courses are imaginative "Beautification" vs "Uglification", and they even have a class where the two school mix. Amazing drama ensues.

With the hours that I work I find that I get into reading slumps more frequently than I used to. This book, however, really motivated me. I found time each day to read, and it felt like a treat to myself. Plus, indulging myself in a good book is probably a bit better than eating all that Halloween candy that is left over. 

Nit Picks: I'm at a loss for this one. It's been a while since I read this one, yet I still can't think of any issues with it. It even has a believable reason for insta-love...I just can't, it's too good!

Chainani has created a world with characters to root for, and I can't wait for more!

The School for Good and Evil 
By Soman Chainani
Published by HarperCollins
488 Pages

Stacking the Shelves (November 2)

Stacking the Shelves is a meme hosted by Tynga at Tynga's Reviews! It's a way to highlight the books that everyone got throughout the week.

The Coldest Girl in Coldtown by Holly Black

 Tana lives in a world where walled cities called Coldtowns exist. In them, quarantined monsters and humans mingle in a decadently bloody mix of predator and prey. The only problem is, once you pass through Coldtown’s gates, you can never leave.

One morning, after a perfectly ordinary party, Tana wakes up surrounded by corpses. The only other survivors of this massacre are her exasperatingly endearing ex-boyfriend, infected and on the edge, and a mysterious boy burdened with a terrible secret. Shaken and determined, Tana enters a race against the clock to save the three of them the only way she knows how: by going straight to the wicked, opulent heart of Coldtown itself.

 Published by Little, Brown Books for Young Readers

The School for Good and Evil by Soman Chainani


This year, best friends Sophie and Agatha are about to discover where all the lost children go: the fabled School for Good & Evil, where ordinary boys and girls are trained to be fairy tale heroes and villains. As the most beautiful girl in Gavaldon, Sophie has dreamed of being kidnapped into an enchanted world her whole life. With her pink dresses, glass slippers, and devotion to good deeds, she knows she’ll earn top marks at the School for Good and graduate a storybook princess. Meanwhile Agatha, with her shapeless black frocks, wicked pet cat, and dislike of nearly everyone, seems a natural fit for the School for Evil.

But when the two girls are swept into the Endless Woods, they find their fortunes reversed—Sophie’s dumped in the School for Evil to take Uglification, Death Curses, and Henchmen Training, while Agatha finds herself in the School For Good, thrust amongst handsome princes and fair maidens for classes in Princess Etiquette and Animal Communication.. But what if the mistake is actually the first clue to discovering who Sophie and Agatha really are…?

Published by HarperCollins

 
Doon by Carey Corp & Larie Langdon

Veronica doesn't think she's going crazy. But why can't anyone else see the mysterious blond boy who keeps popping up wherever she goes? When her best friend, Mackenna, invites her to spend the summer in Scotland, Veronica jumps at the opportunity to leave her complicated life behind for a few months.

But the Scottish countryside holds other plans.

Not only has the imaginary kilted boy followed her to Alloway, she and Mackenna uncover a strange set of rings and a very unnerving letter from Mackenna's great aunt—and when the girls test the instructions Aunt Gracie left behind, they find themselves transported to a land that defies explanation. Doon seems like a real-life fairy tale, complete with one prince who has eyes for Mackenna and another who looks suspiciously like the boy from Veronica's daydreams. But Doon has a dark underbelly as well. The two girls could have everything they've longed for...or they could end up breaking an enchantment and find themselves trapped in a world that has become a nightmare.

Published by Zondervan

 

Of Beast and Beauty by Stacey Jay




In the domed city of Yuan, the blind Princess Isra, a Smooth Skin, is raised to be a human sacrifice whose death will ensure her city’s vitality. In the desert outside Yuan, Gem, a mutant beast, fights to save his people, the Monstrous, from starvation. Neither dreams that together, they could return balance to both their worlds.

Isra wants to help the city’s Banished people, second-class citizens despised for possessing Monstrous traits. But after she enlists the aid of her prisoner, Gem, who has been captured while trying to steal Yuan’s enchanted roses, she begins to care for him, and to question everything she has been brought up to believe.

As secrets are revealed and Isra’s sight, which vanished during her childhood, returned, Isra will have to choose between duty to her people and the beast she has come to love.

Published by Delacorte Press

 

The Program by Suzanne Young


Sloane knows better than to cry in front of anyone. With suicide now an international epidemic, one outburst could land her in The Program, the only proven course of treatment. Sloane’s parents have already lost one child; Sloane knows they’ll do anything to keep her alive. She also knows that everyone who’s been through The Program returns as a blank slate. Because their depression is gone—but so are their memories.

Under constant surveillance at home and at school, Sloane puts on a brave face and keeps her feelings buried as deep as she can. The only person Sloane can be herself with is James. He’s promised to keep them both safe and out of treatment, and Sloane knows their love is strong enough to withstand anything. But despite the promises they made to each other, it’s getting harder to hide the truth. They are both growing weaker. Depression is setting in. And The Program is coming for them.

Published by Simon Pulse

 

Waiting on Wednesday (October 23)

Waiting on Wednesday was started by Jill at Breaking the Spine. This weekly meme shares the upcoming books that I'm most excited about.

 Panic by Lauren Oliver

Panic began as so many things do in Carp, a dead-end town of 12,000 people in the middle of nowhere: because it was summer, and there was nothing else to do.

Heather never thought she would compete in Panic, a legendary game played by graduating seniors, where the stakes are high and the payoff is even higher. She’d never thought of herself as fearless, the kind of person who would fight to stand out. But when she finds something, and someone, to fight for, she will discover that she is braver than she ever thought.

Dodge has never been afraid of Panic. His secret will fuel him, and get him all the way through the game, he’s sure of it. But what he doesn't know is that he’s not the only one with a secret. Everyone has something to play for.

For Heather and Dodge, the game will bring new alliances, unexpected revelations, and the possibility of first love for each of them—and the knowledge that sometimes the very things we fear are those we need the most.

Published by HarperCollins
Release Date: March 4, 2014

Waiting on Wednesday (July 10)

Waiting on Wednesday was started by Jill at Breaking the Spine. This weekly meme shares the upcoming books that I'm most excited about.

*SPOILER ALERT* The synopsis contains spoilers for the first four books. 

 The Bride Wore Size 12 (Heather Wells 5) by Meg Cabot

Heather Wells is used to having her cake and eating it too, but this time her cake just might be cooked.Her wedding cake, that is.

With her upcoming nuptials to PI Cooper Cartwright only weeks away, Heather's already stressed. And when a pretty junior turns up dead, Heather's sure things can't get worse—until every student in the dorm where she works is a possible suspect, and Heather's long-lost mother shows up.

Heather has no time for a tearful mother and bride reunion. She has a wedding to pull off and a murder to solve. Instead of wedding bells, she might be hearing wedding bullets, but she's determined to bring the bad guys to justice if it's the last thing she does . . . and this time, it just might be.

Published by HarperCollins
Release Date: September 24, 2013 (I will get no work done on this day)