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Because without magic, you’re just left with Kansas.” – pg. 48
No Place Like Oz is a novella prequel to Danielle Paige’s debut Dorothy Must Die. An alternate title for this story could have been “Dorothy Gale: My journey to the dark side” as we see Dorothy work her way into becoming the villain she’s set to play in the following full-length novel. I’m not generally a sadistic person, but a few pages of Dorothy’s whining and all the shade she continually threw towards her aunt and uncle, made me ready for her demise even before she truly became dark.
No Place Like Oz begins two years after Dorothy’s return to Kansas. Although at first Dorothy was happy to be home, she is now all but ready to jump into the next cyclone she sees. When Dorothy first arrived back in Kansas she was getting attention all the time. Newspaper articles were written about her and a parade was put on in her honor. Now that the attention has died down, Dorothy is insufferable. She craves the spotlight; it’s all she can think about. I can understand wanting more than what one has, but Dorothy is constantly taking out her anger and disappointment on her aunt and uncle, both of whom, have done nothing but love and take care of Dorothy, her whole life.
Through the arrival of a mysterious pair of red pumps, Dorothy gets transported back to Oz, this time with her aunt and uncle who have a heck of a time believing the land and magic for that matter, is real. The more that Dorothy’s aunt and uncle talk about going home to Kansas, the angrier and meaner Dorothy becomes.
Dorothy finds that nothing is the same in Oz anymore. Powerful and scary creatures have been given free reign by Oz’s new and “rightful” ruler Ozma. With Glinda M.I.A. and Dorothy exhibiting strange new powers, there’s a lot of questions and suscipions that arise.
This novella basically gives us the inside look at Dorothy’s descent to wickedness. I’ve never read the original Oz books, just seen the movies, so I don’t really have any quibbles with the characters being twisted in this new series. If you were a fan of the goodness of Dorothy and Glinda in the original stories, you might not care for this new take. However if you like new twists and a bit of darkness in your fantasy, give No Place Like Oz a shot. It was somewhat of a slow read, but still enjoyable nonetheless.
