Dorothy Must Die

Dorothy Must Die by Danielle Paige (Harper Collins, 2014) is the first installment in the 4-book Dorothy Must Die series, followed by The Wicked Will Rise. The story follows a girl from Kansas through a dystopian land of Oz in which Dorothy rules with an iron will and unforgiving hand. Dorothy Must Die is set in the world of the Oz books by L. Frank Baum and was a New York Times bestseller. Danielle Paige is the author of over 10 novels and novellas for young adults, many of which are set in the Dorothy Must Die universe. She graduated from Columbia University, and before becoming an author, she worked in television, where she won a Writers Guild of America Award and was nominated for several Daytime Emmys. She currently resides in New York City. This guide follows the 2014 Harper Collins edition of Dorothy Must Die.

Plot Summary

Dorothy Must Die takes place in the world created by L. Frank Baum in the Oz books and is set in modern day. Sixteen-year-old Amy Gumm lives in Kansas, where she is bullied at school and lives with her absent mother. After a particularly bad day at school, Amy goes home to find the weather channel predicting a tornado. Despite Amy’s protests, her mother goes out, leaving Amy alone with her mother’s pet rat.

The storm sweeps through the trailer park where Amy lives, detaching her house from its supports and propelling it into the air. When the trailer finally lands, Amy finds herself in the Land of Oz. A boy assists her from the damaged trailer and advises her to go to Emerald City. With no better option, Amy starts down the Yellow Brick Road, figuring she may as well follow in Dorothy’s footsteps.

Oz looks nothing like it was described in the stories. Rather than bright and colorful, it is gray and dead-looking, and the further Amy goes down the road, the more she starts to feel something is wrong. She meets up with a Munchkin and a wingless monkey, who explain that the people of Oz live in fear under Dorothy’s rule. Ozma, the true ruler of Oz, disappeared with no explanation, and Dorothy oppresses the people of Oz and steals magic from the land, which is killing Oz. After plucking apples from an orchard, the Tin Woodman, looking like a thrown-together machine, arrives and takes Amy prisoner for daring to defy a ridiculous-sounding law. The monkey runs away, and the Munchkin is killed.

The Tin Woodman transports Amy to Dorothy’s palace in the Emerald City, where Amy meets Dorothy, who is beautiful on the outside but is revealed to have a hardened heart. She imprisons Amy because she’s from Kansas and sets a trial for the following week when Amy will no doubt be found guilty. On the day of Dorothy’s trial, a witch appears in her prison cell and asks if Amy will help overthrow Dorothy. With the Tin Woodman’s army ready to drag her away, Amy says she will, and the witch teleports them out of the palace.

The witch brings Amy to an underground network of caves, where a rebel group of witches plot to take down Dorothy and restore magic to Oz. They believe Amy is the only one who can stop Dorothy because she’s also from Kansas. Amy is neither a rebel nor a fighter, but the negative attitude of Nox, one of the male witches, makes her want to prove herself, so she agrees to help. Over the next several weeks, Amy learns how to fight and harness magic. Her first field operation assists the team in stopping the once cowardly Lion from destroying a village. Though Amy’s team fights their hardest, one of their number is killed.

The death of one of the most powerful witches forces the rebels to send Amy to the palace as a spy. One day, Amy finds the monkey she met on the Yellow Brick Road trying to break into the Scarecrow’s chambers. The monkey’s sister is being held captive in the Scarecrow’s underground laboratory, and the monkey is there to rescue her. Frustrated because she’s heard nothing from the witches, Amy offers to help. Begrudgingly, the monkey agrees, and Amy manages to sneak into the Scarecrow’s workshop, rescue the monkey, and get out without being discovered. Her actions cause her handler to be blamed for the monkey’s escape, which again forces the witches to act before they’d planned. At a grand party scheduled for the following evening, they will cast a spell that makes magic at the palace stop working, and Amy must kill Dorothy then.

Amy uses a wardrobe malfunction at the party to lure Dorothy back to her room. As the magic fails, Amy aims a killing knife strike, only to have Toto get in the way. Amy chases Dorothy to the top of the palace’s highest tower, where Dorothy and the Tin Woodman ambush her. Cornered, Amy rushes Dorothy, sending both of them tumbling off the tower. As they fall, the magic starts to work again. Dorothy teleports away, and the monkeys rescue Amy. They bring her to the Wizard, who’s with the boy who rescued Dorothy when she arrived in Oz.

The Wizard explains that the Scarecrow’s brain, Tin Woodman’s heart, and Lion’s courage must be retrieved before Dorothy can be killed. The Tin Woodman and Glinda arrive to attack. Amy manages to cut out the Tin Woodman’s heart, and the Wizard takes on Glinda, yelling for Amy and Ozma to get away. The boy’s disguise melts away, revealing that he’s the lost princess of Oz. The monkeys take Amy and Ozma away, and Amy looks back, vowing that she’ll kill Dorothy no matter how long it takes.