Danielle Paige

Amy's job as assassin didn't work out as planned. Dorothy is still alive. The Order has vanished. And the home she couldn't wait to leave behind might be in danger.

Amy's job as assassin didn't work out as planned. Dorothy is still alive, the Order has vanished, and the home she couldn't wait to leave behind might be in danger. The plot contains profanity and graphic violence. Book #2

The Wicked Will Rise

Rebecca Hurd

Totally in love with this series!! Amy is amazing and can’t wait to see what she does in the next book!! How much magic will it take for Dorothy to Die!!

I actually enjoyed this book more than the first one. I thought it was more fast-paced, so it was more interesting to get through. Some of the details were a little more confusing, but I really loved the ending. It left off on such a cliffhanger and I can't wait to read the next one. I think it's setting up for a really interesting ending!

Maggie Hotmer

Sarah Sammis

I have lots of questions.

Paige's Oz isn't Baum and Thompson's Oz. It may be populated with people who share names and traits of their Oz but it is at best, a parallel Oz.

In terms of the road narrative project, this second book is a FF6666, or an orphan returning home via an off-road route. The book ends on a whopper of a cliffhanger that unites Oz with Kansas. More on that in my discussion of book three, Yellow Brick War.

http://pussreboots.com/blog/2018/comm...

★★★☆☆
3.00 STARS 

All is actually well from the start, until it drastically went downhill by the time I was on the verge of gripping my pillow hard and trying not to fall from the edge of my seat. It was like someone just popped my bubble of enjoyment with me in it and sent me falling to my depth of disappointment. It felt like the author chose the wrong door of ending for the story, knew something went off but still pushed her way through it and ended up having all her choices messed up. 

But I still gave it a 3 stars, though, instead of just 2, because I really DID enjoy the first part of the story. Just giving the beginning part a merciful credit by not omitting another star from my rate. Still willing to read the rest of the series hoping everything will fall back to its rightful place.

Melissa Palmer

Book #8 Read in 2016
The Wicked Will Rise by Danielle Paige

This is the second in the Doroty Must Die series, an alternate world of the Wizard of Oz. In this book, Amy Gumm is still battling evil Dorothy and trying to save her magical friends. This one, for me, was slower than book #1. That being said, I enjoyed it and have ordered the third book, coming out next month.

Briar's Reviews

I am really sad to say I didn't enjoy this book, which is a real shame because I absolutely love how Danielle Paige writes.

There's a lot of reasons on why I couldn't get into this book, and I feel like I need to explain them or else the mobs will attack....:
1. It's been a while since I read the first book (which I loved, by the way) and the summaries and reviews of that book didn't catch me up all that much.
2. I didn't have time to re-read the first book, so I went into this book feeling half-lost.
3. I don't know the original Wizard of Oz story, only the Judy Garland and James Franco versions, so that didn't help me much either.

That being said, it took me a while to get into this book. I kept jumping to plot summaries, YouTube videos and other forms of media to try to catch myself up. I honestly think this series needs to be one that you read back to back in a short period of time. Danielle's story is SO GOOD but it has a lot of plot details you don't want to miss. Also, if you don't know the original story of Oz as well as some other readers (haha... not me) then you'll want to know what's going on. If I would have had all of these books at the same time I probably would have done a much better job of reading them all in a row! Unfortunately, as a university student my funds are low and I had to wait until I could find this at my local used book store (that took some sweet time, let me tell you). 

Aside from my obvious annoyance at myself, here are the good parts of the book:
1. We learn a lot about Amy, Ozma and the monkeys. I thoroughly enjoyed Danielle fleshing out these characters more and allowing me to see into their worlds. Ozma I found the most interesting, to be brutally honest, but mostly because I forgot a lot about Amy.
2. There's a pinch of romance brewing and I am really curious to see how it plays out. I don't know if I'll ever find the sequels to this book, but I am morbidly curious about Pete.
3. Some of the choices in this book were really stupid, but honestly... I probably would have made the same ones given the situation! I liked that this book wasn't cookie cutter YA in all forms. Seriously, it's refreshing.
4. In general, I just like when people re-tell fairy tales or other famous stories, so Danielle gets a plus for retelling Oz. Oz is so cool and whimsical and weird and exciting, so to retell it with such a change in story... yeah, it's cool. Hence why I continued this series!
5. Lots of action! Enough said.

What I found confusing and/or didn't like:
1. I don't really know where this book was going. Amy killed some major characters and Glinda is up to some tricks but... what else? I honestly just didn't know where this book was heading to. What's the end goal of this series? It wasn't obvious for me personally.
2. The author drama that went on around this book scared me away from reading it and writing this review. Hence why I posted what I did about this book - I did like it but it's just not for me. I'm almost scared into seeing what people will say about my review and rating (which is absolutely just goofy, but honestly... I think it's fair).

So what is my overall opinion? The book is good and if you've read the first novel and want to continue this series, PLEASE DO IT. I think Danielle is ridiculously talented and this is a really cool series. Buuuuuut... I'm the type of reader who likes to dabble in different books and jump back into this series. This book was REALLY hard to jump back into after some time, even with the summaries. That means for me that this series isn't for me. I like being able to jump back into a book without having to go find summaries to know what's going on. And that's a ME problem, not an author problem. Danielle can write whatever way she wants!

One out of five stars due to my lost-ness.

This would be a 5 star book if it was a little more complete, it felt like a filler or like a #1.5 instead of an actual sequel but I thoroughly enjoyed it. It just felt a little incomplete I guess. But, that ending though. Oh my god. I never knew how much I wanted that to happen until it did. 

I enjoyed the first book so so so much, it was an amazing read and I also enjoyed this one, maybe not to the full extent but then again, the book didn't feel like a full extent. 

Nevertheless I have gotten attached to the characters in these books and I can't wait to read more to see how everything concludes.

Gisela Ayala 

Alright, this was great. I'm a sucker for characters who find themselves on the pendulum of good and evil (if it ever is that simple, which it isn't), and Amy is no exception. When she is good and kind, I love her because it makes her utterly human. When she is giving in to her darker side, I love her because it ALSO makes her human. Us humans aren't simple creatures, we have both light and dark in us, I adore when books allow us to see that through the lens of literature and fantasy. It makes it almost bearable.

I won't say much since this is the second book and I don't want to give spoilers, but I devoured this. The book was mostly Amy's inner monologue and struggling to find who she is what to hell to do with the crappy situation she has been given. The ending? What freaking ending was that? I need to pick up the next book right now...

Arianna DeWitt

I love this book so much! I liked this just as much as the first one.

Krystal 

2.5 

The first 30 pages of this book was packed with action then it just went down hill. I felt like there was a lot of pointless turns and twists, was a bit of a slow read for me. The ending though makes me feel like the next book will be better, so fingers crossed. I can definitely say I’m disappointed with this book since I loved the first book so much.

Myla Larsen

I was going into this read with very high hopes that it would be amazing but this book went over the top just like the last one. This book always had me guessing but I was always wrong with my guess of what I think was going to happen.

Becky

After reading the reviews of this book I was cautious. I had seen lots of negative ones, and after loving the first with a passion I was worried I was going to ruin it for myself. I have to admit I didn’t love it as much as I did the first one but nevertheless I enjoyed it! I’m looking forward to reading the third!

In this sequel to the New York Times bestselling Dorothy Must Die, who is good—and who is actually Wicked? My name is Amy Gumm—and I'm the other girl from Kansas. After a tornado swept through my trailer park, I ended up in Oz. But it wasn't like the Oz I knew from books and movies. Dorothy had returned, but she was now a ruthless dictator. Glinda could no longer be called the Good Witch. And the Wicked Witches who were left? They'd joined forces as the Revolutionary Order of the Wicked, and they wanted to recruit me. My mission? Kill Dorothy. Except my job as assassin didn't work out as planned. Dorothy is still alive. The Order has vanished. And the home I couldn't wait to leave behind might be in danger. Somehow, across a twisted and divided land, I have to find the Order, protect the true ruler of Oz, take Dorothy and her henchmen down—and try to figure out what I'm really doing here.

Alex Najera 

Celia Adams

While ultimately I didn't like this one as much as Dorothy Must Die, mostly due to less characters I loved like Glamor and Mombi and more characters U wasn't so fond of like Nox, this was still a great boom and I am beyond excited to read the last one. Super happy I got into this trilogy, I've totally reopened myself to retelli NH s of classics.

Jessika Rucker

This was an interesting read. I feel like nothing really moved forward with the plot; it just took a turn. I LOVED Dorothy Must Die. It was magical and a story I hold dear to me with a twist that I love! Now here we are with the sequel, and I really don’t know what happened. This book was a filler like no other. It did have some really good parts, but it also had some parts that I don’t know why they were there. I can’t tell if I like this book or not. I read it in a day, but I never got absorbed in it. There was just so much that I feel like it was missing. We didn’t get the same sense of adventure as we did the last book. There was no big battle that would change OZ

Elad Schulman

This book was fun. I didn't really expect much going into it, and although I didn't completely invest all my thoughts and feelings with this book and these characters, I liked where the story went. It'll be interesting to see where the story goes.

Erin 

I spent the majority of this book waiting for Nox to reappear. I won't shy away from that. This one seemed a bit juvenile, especially with Lulu. I'm getting quite tired of the Ozma/Pete plotline. This book seems all over the place and nothing really gets that accomplished. Again, I will read the next one, but only out of curiosity. (It's been a few weeks since I read this so I'm really grasping at straws to remember things to write about, which I guess says something of its own).

 Bruna Acioly Leão

Not exactly sure how to rate this one. Maybe 3.5?

It was a fun sequel to Dorothy Must Die, and I felt like it did a good job moving the overall story arc along and at the same time, standing solid as its own book. It was fun to listen to - there is always some kind of action going on, so no dull moments there.

I feel, however, that even though back in 2014 I gave Dorothy Must Die 4 stars, and I enjoyed this one pretty much the same, I think maybe I have come to be more critical of my ratings and the things I like. This series is fun and creative and I enjoy reading it. But it isn't the greatest piece of literature and there are a couple of flaws not to be overlooked.

First of all, let me talk about the things I did like: 

-Amy: She is a strong, independent character, who knows who she is and what she wants. I feel like her character development in this was very well done and I feel like we do get a good sense of her and are able to relate with her struggles, since she is the narrator.
-The Magical World - I think the way Paige is developing the magic around the world of Oz and its correlation to Kansas is very creative. The magic in Oz feels organic and natural, and its rules feel like the rules of nature: unpredictable, until you know what to look for.
-The twists: very good is all I'll say - and thanks for the cliffhanger - not.
-The Plot: I did like the plot of this story better than that of the first book. Amy has specific missions and you can kind of see things moving along as the action progresses. Though I did not predict what happened at the end. (view spoiler)[ I still don't get all of it - they went to Kansas, but it's different Kansas, and the Order of the Wicked actually is Wicked, and was planning this sort of rise all along weren't they? I thought it was pretty cool though and the next book will probably either make it or break it. (hide spoiler)]

What I didn't like:

-The other characters: they all felt just like cut out cardboard characters. I'm sorry, but I couldn't really get attached to Pete, or Knox or anyone else on Amy's side. Though I do have a soft spot for poor crazy Ozma. The villains also were pretty stupid and in the end (view spoiler)[ turned out to be bested by their own minions (hide spoiler)].
-The writing: it's easy to follow, maybe a little too much. I just wish there were a better blend between description and action/dialogue. I feel like the world of Oz is so interesting to look at, but I don't feel I got to see as much as I should have...

I think I will reserve my full judgment of the series when I read the final book. I'm not particularly interested in reading the novellas though - they seem fun, but I got so much other stuff to read...