Friday, July 11, 2014

FOODFIC: Dorothy Must Die - Danielle Paige

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18053060-dorothy-must-die



Her name may still be Dorothy Gayle, but she is nothing like the girl you remember from that first journey to Oz.

She’s still wearing her trademark blue-and-white checks, but she’s traded in the farm-girl cotton for silk and chiffon in a style somewhere between haute couture and French hooker. Mm-hmm.

Oh, and she’s wicked now, too. Not in title, of course, as the official wicked witch collective is still around, but as defined by her nasty behavior. And speaking of titles, she’s given herself a bold one: Princess Dorothy of Oz, second only to Ozma, who for all intents and purposes is only (thanks again to Dorothy and her usurping of all magic in the realm) a shell of a person. Really this means Dorothy is now running the show, along with her trusty companions who have also all changed equally for the worse.

The Tin Woodsman now commands the army – human soldiers who’ve been mechanically and creepily modified much like himself – and doles out punishments like flesh-melting bubbles. The Lion rules the forest and also has a paw in penalizing those who’ve “wronged” Dorothy; when a guard merely looks at the princess, the “criminal” is charged with a wandering eye, which the Lion quickly flicks out with one crooked claw and swallows whole. And the Scarecrow’s the worst of all with his Moreau-like experiments on the citizens of Oz, as well as his draining of others’ brain fluid to inject into his own newly acquired organ.

See? Oz is almost unrecognizable.

But this is where the heroine – Amy from Kansas – comes in. Coincidentally (or not) a tornado also delivers her to Oz, where she can perhaps undo the damage wreaked by her fellow Midwestern predecessor. Before she can even acclimate to her new surroundings, she’s tasked to REMOVE the Tin Woodsman’s heart, STEAL the Scarecrow’s brain, TAKE the Lion’s courage, and finally KILL Dorothy herself. A tall order for a girl who was just yesterday struggling to survive high school!

To accomplish this mission, Amy is magically transformed by the wicked witches into Astrid the maid so that she may infiltrate the palace. Like the other servants, she is treated like a slave – working to the point of exhaustion and “lucky” to get a 15-minute break to snack on stale muffin bottoms, which are actually a rare treat for workers.

So, even though Amy initially had trouble reconciling the horror stories she was hearing with the storybook heroine she knew, and she had NO intention of ever murdering anyone, it’s not long before she recognizes that Dorothy has become a magic- (and muffin top-) hoarding fascist. And when some of Amy’s new Ozian friends fall victim to the ruby-shod tyrant, Amy’s unwanted assignment turns into a vendetta of her own.

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