This was different but fun to read. Dorothy get taken away by the tornado and Toto is not described as the Toto we know but as a bloodhound.
They land in Hell. Described as a colorful Hell dripped in blood.This alternate world has vampires, zombies and shifters. The City of Emeralds is where she needs to go and follow the blood-soaked yellow brick road. Her footwear are silver boots which went on her feet when the house she was in landed on and killed the wicked vampire of the west. The City of Emeralds is also a vampire free zone.
Dorothy meets up with a friendly zombie, a massive shifter werelion and a heartless ax murderer, who is very hot!! So Dorothy has to find the powerful Oz so he can send her home and help her new friends.
I would have liked to have given this 5 stars because this was so different and I do like retellings of fairytales and other stories. The only problem I had was that Dorothy was 16 and there was instant love and how they can't be apart and there will never be anyone else for her. At 16 that is a little weird. Other than that I thoroughly enjoyed this take on the Wizard of Oz.
I received this ARC from Xpresso and NetGalley for a review.

This book is a wizard of Oz retelling that follows the original story very closely.
It was quite a long read, and I felt this was due to the writing style. I didn’t enjoy the writing at all I felt everything was overly described and unnecessarily long winded as well as repetitive.

For example in the first chapter, before we get to Oz the word “Gray” was used so many times I was shocked.

There were some interesting ideas but due to the writing style this was a real disappointment for me I was really expecting more.

Thank you to netgalley and the publishers for sending me this in exchange for an honest review.

trigger warnings
<spoiler>being orphaned
slavery
depression
</spoiler>


dnf at 13%

Dorothy is not in Kansas anymore.
After a hurricane picked her up in her uncle's and aunt's house, it drops her in an unknown land - and on top of an evil witch who is killed instantly. She is told that Oz, the great and terrible, might show her how to get back home, and so she sets out on a road made of yellow bricks to the Emerald City of Oz.

You know the drill. Only this time, Oz (the kingdom) is infected by Vampires, and people turn either to zombiism or being a werebeast to protect themselves from being enslaved by a vampire. Oz (the person) is not able to do anything to save this world, but there are rumours that he might have a cure for turning zombies back into men if said men feel they didn't make the right choice. Also, apparently Oz (the city) is free from vampires and everyone is welcome to live a sheltered life.

A big problem is the point of narration. It was a big mistake to give everything from Dorothy's point of view as she is depressed her parents died, which left her in the care of the remaining family members. She reminds me a lot of myself when I was in puberty and had an untreated depression - but she knows she's depressed, so why isn't it treated?
She rambles on and once she's found a topic, it will be milked as thoroughly as possible. This means, like other reviewers mentioned, that she goes on and on to describe how grey and dreary Kansas and the farm are to her, even her life is. I tried to ignore that and carry on, but Dorothy does this again and again, and as she stops to discuss her sex-life with the axe wielding murderer she met the day before, I knew I'd better quit.

I guess this one is hit or miss, either you love it or you don't.
Sadly, for me, it didn't work.

I recieved a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I really wanted to love this book. When I read the description, it immediately caught my attention. A retelling of Dorothy in the land of Oz, but with monsters? Sign me up.

I did not love this book. I barely enjoyed it at times. This book took me entirely too long to read only to not finish because I couldn’t be pressed to pick it up. Don’t get me wrong, there were moments that shined in this book. The friendship between Dorothy and the Oz Trio was very well written. The descriptions of Oz were so vivid, I could see it in my mind. The world building, or the revamping of the world of Oz was done very well. That’s about all I can say good about this book.

I had three major gripes about this book. First gripe is the use of SAT/ACT words when Dorothy is our narrator. Dorothy is supposed to be 17 from Kansas and hasn’t finished high school yet. Her school is very small, and I’m pretty certain they’re not the best school in the state of Kansas since it’s in the middle of everywhere. If the story was told in 3rd person omniscient, then I could understand the use of such words. But this is from the eyes of a 17-year-old girl, and I’m going to take a bet that she doesn’t really know these words. It sounded like the author had a thesaurus next to her the whole time and just wanted to fancy up the writing. It didn’t need it. The descriptions were good enough on their own, that using big fancy words just bogs the writing down. Also, the overuse of certain words like scintillations was aggravating as hell. The writing bogged this story down, and it appeared to be a clever way to disguise the lack of character development with Dorothy.

My second gripe is the forced romance between Nick and Dorothy. Oh my Ozma, did these two annoy the ever living crap out of me. They’ve known each other for maybe a total of a month, if we take into consideration all the time they spent walking to Oz, the time they spent in Oz, and then heading to kill the Vampire Witch of the West, and the time Dorothy was trapped there. They had known each other less than that before Dorothy is all, “Oh I’m so in love with Nick!” Then he’s all, “Oh, I’m so in love with Dorothy!” Before we’re even 70% into the book, they’ve proclaimed their love for each other and how they will never love anyone else in the entire realms. Hold up, girly. You’re 17. You got your whole life ahead of you. Slow down for a second. There’s even a part after they return to the City of Emeralds (because Emerald City was too…plain?) that she refers to him as her husband. NO. NO NO NO NO. That’s not how it works, and they just became insufferable with their misery that he wants her to leave and she wants to stay and fight with him, and they’re just not meant to be together because they are both TOO STUPID TO FUNCTION. This romance wasn’t needed. Or better yet, this romance had time to grow.

My third gripe was this book didn’t know if it wanted to be young adult or a new adult novel. There were moments that were not young adult appropriate, and all the talk about sex kind of left a bad taste in my mouth. We had a character flat out call Dorothy a place for Nick to park his cock, and I was so flabbergasted that this made it through an editor’s pen. It felt like the author wanted to make this an adult fiction but was trying to bank on the young adult readers, so she aged down Dorothy and Nick, but left all the inappropriate dialogue and scenes. I’m not a prude by any standards, and I love me some smut, but if this was written towards young adults, mainly teens, then the all the talk about sex, friends with benefits, having flings needs to be cleaned up a bit. That would also take out a lot of unnecessary scenes between Nick and Dorothy. Good Lord was there way too many of the same repetitive nonsense between these two.

Okay, I have final gripe. That was Dorothy’s silver boots. These literally created plot armor around Dorothy, and soon because that all threats to her life became predictable, because of these boots. They created this armor that made her this badass of a warrior even though she hadn’t fought in her entire 17 years. Nothing was going to touch her, and the only time she didn’t benefit from the boots, they still protected her. She was never in any actual danger, so all the scenes with monsters and danger fell flat. If our main character isn’t at risk of dying, being hurt, or being turned into a vampire or zombie, then what is the point of having those fight scenes? The boots were too powerful, and it took away from the suspense and danger this book was trying to create in a land full of monsters.

This book had a lot of potential, but it needs an editor that is going to be brutal to it and take out half of the unnecessary drama between Nick and Dorothy. Also there were a lot of typos, but nothing that took me out of the book. I didn’t need help with that, I stayed mostly on the outer edges of the book most of the time anyway.

Dorothy, Dorothy, Dorothy.
Please don't.

A classic thoroughly butchered. My only consolation was the reminder of a vague memory of a classroom lit by sunlight, my second grade teacher reading The Wizard Of Oz 'loud and clear' and us with our gaping mouths and widened eyes. For a while I figured the effect of the book was dampened only due to comparing it to the original but then I thought isn't this how it is supposed to be? It has been, after all, written as an homage, a modified shadow? The question I'm asking is 'modified or distorted?'
Maybe in another life, where I hadn't befriended the Dorothy of my childhood, I would have liked this.

DNF. I love retellings. They are one of my favorites to read. However, this one fell flat for me. This retelling was like reading the original with a few changes and some zombies and other monsters thrown in.

Avoid avoid avoid. Unless you are some sort of color enthusiast who loves to read the names of every single color ever identified, using the more formal names (can't just say blood red.... NOOOOO you have to say sanguine), then you should avoid this book.
It feels like this was written by either an art professor with a huge ego or someone who REALLY loves a thesaurus.
The writing just does NOT flow well. I gave up at 2% because it just wasn't worth trying to slog through the poor writing.
The description sounds great. The book is just not.

This book was not good. The word gray was used way too often and I couldn't connect with this version of Dorothy even though I did appreciate the bloodhound mix Toto.

This book was received as an ARC from Garten Gevedon in exchange for an honest review. Opinions and thoughts expressed in this review are completely my own.

I am a lover of the Wizard of Oz, The Wiz, and Wicked and all of its adaptations but I have read nothing of this nature and I must say I am a fan. I could not put this book down with a new modern gothic take on a classic tale and family favorite. I know a lot of people will be interested in this book and there will be a line out the door in checking out this book. I am a huge fan of classic tales and all of its adaptations and I know this one will be a keeper for our collection for sure.

We will consider adding this title to our YFiction collection at our library. That is why we give this book 5 stars.

DNF: Needs some editing down.

Positives: Dorothy in the Land of Monsters is Wizard of Oz with a morbid twist. The premise is fun and it has a lot of potential to be a fast-paced intriguing read.

If you're looking for tight writing, cohesion and originality, this might not be for you. However, if you're looking for something light and fun for the Halloween season and aren't picky about editing, this is a fun read full of shifters, zombies and vampires. Oh my!

Unfortunately I had to DNF this book about 100 pages in. I really wanted to love this book. Wizard of Oz the book and the movie are my faves of all time. And I love retellings so this seemed like a perfect fit for me. But I couldn’t handle the writing style. On one hand this book seemed like it should be marketed as children’s or YA and then on the other it was like it was trying to be overly sophisticated and unnecessarily descriptive. I love reading a scene where I can really picture everything around me but this left me bored with how long it took to describe the most basic things. If you’re a Friends fan and know the scene where Joey writes a recommendation letter for chandler and Monica and uses a thesaurus to for every word in the letter, that’s how this felt. I think this book would have benefited from being told in graphic novel form. It would have been fun to see the pictures in it and hopefully the wording would have been changed.

Great premise but poor execution. It was interesting enough that I kept reading but there was just too much missing to make me love it. This was a hard one for me to make down because I wanted to love it so much

DNF at like 2% because shut the heck up and get on with it. The first like 15 pages are the main character whining about her gray world and blah blah blah. And the cyclone picked up her house and she whines about that. Nothing about her sounded interesting or unique and I couldn't care less if she had died in the the house.

I did stick around until she landed in Oz and when she actually opened her mouth and spoke, it was worse. She didn't sound like any teenage girl I've ever met. My biggest pet peeve is when authors don't use contractions when characters talk. 99% of the time, when you're speaking, you use contractions unconsciously.

This was not the book for me. I didn't care for the poor set up that took way too long nor the main character who simply whined the whole time.

I love a retelling of a good story when vampire, shifters, and zombies are added. It always gives a different take on a classic. It's been so long since I've read or seen the movie, but I recalled the movie alot when the author described the differences between the landscapes of Kansas and Oz.

Overall. I enjoyed this take on Dorothy's journey.

This was my first book by this author, It was pretty enjoyable. I would give this book a 3.5 star rating! It was a pretty Quick and easy read!

I wanted to like this book because I really liked the premise but I was disappointed. The storyline is interesting enough but come on...Dorothy keeps telling how average she is, how boring she is, how gorgeous Nick is blah blah blah...boring. I couldn’t even finish it.

The Wizard of Oz and I always have had a complicated relationship. I really loved the world and the main characters and yet the story never connected with me like for example Alice in Wonderland does. But, this book was totally everything I had hoped it would be and didn't disappoint at all. It was a really amusing and entertaining read and I read it in two sittings, despite the amount of pages.

The world Gevedon created is amazing. In a way it's the familiar Oz we all know from our childhoods or from the adaptations we've seen or read. The people are familiar. The area's are familiar and the witches ruling are familiar. What Gevedon added is a lovely layer of mythology, complicating the politics and magic system even further. Not only does it enrich the original story, it's also serving as a wonderful foundation for the sequel that I'm dying (pun intended) to read.

And the same can be said about the characters. In a way they are the characters we all love so much. The Lion without courage, the Zombie who craves a brain, the slayer who lacks a heart and Dorothy, who mostly wants to go home. But all of them have gotten more depth and more layers. They got touching background stories, more complicated personalities and fitting fights and encounters to help them grow as persons.

The plot follows, mostly, the original tale of the story, but it are all the added parts that steal the show. Sometimes it feels that things are repeated a little too often, mostly inner monologues and discussions about staying or leaving and loving or not loving, but that's a very minor detail that didn't lessen my joy while reading this book and falling in love with these characters.

I can't wait to return to this world!

I hated the writing style for this and DNF'd halfway through chapter 2. It reads like someone is sitting there with a thesaurus and looking up fancier words for EVERY. SINGLE. ADJECTIVE. Oh, except in Chapter 1 where the word "gray" is used no less than 41 times.

"Pretty birds with rare and brilliant plumage caw and dive amongst the puce limned trees, and off in the distance is a small vermilion brook rushing along between sanguine soaked banks. It's an explosion of color so vivid and ominous by eyes need more than a moment to adjust."

Excuse me, my brain needs more than a moment to adjust to all these superlative adjectives.

A sample of the dialogue:
"Hello, and welcome, most noble Sorceress, to the land of the Munchkins. We are indebted to you for slaying the Vampire Witch of the East and for saving our unbitten."
also
"I was engaged in battle with the Vampire Witch of the East when your vehicle came down and landed on her. We all thank you for ending a long struggle. I am Gayelette the Slayer Witch of the North."

Ahhhh, nope. Thanks, but nope. *clicks DNF*

I am a big fan of retelling and when I saw this book I said this will be a good reading. I never been so wrong. I really love the idea of vampires , zombies and werebeasts. I love how she changed the Scarecrow, Tin Man and the Lion for her story. But that's it. I understand that Dorothy hates Kansas, that it is gray and boring, but she doesn't need to remind me this in every page. The discussion between Dorothy and Nick was awful that I skipped a few pages and I didn't lose anything important.
I am so disappointed about this book because I expected too much.

I am so crazy disappointed with this book I'm actually a little upset. The premise is amazing it's like pride and prejudice and zombies but in Oz. As a librarian I love the idea of re-writing classic children's fiction as it's a wonderful way to engage kids with texts from the past. However when I hold this up to other books of the same concept such as Heartless (Alice in wonderland), Valiant (beauty and the beast) or Dorothy must Die another Oz reboot this one just doesn't cut it.
The idea is solid! I love the vampire witches and 'saving a zombie' instead of a scarecrow. There are some really well nuanced nods to both the original book AND film here. But the writing really let's it down. It needs an incredibly heavy handed editor to attack it with a red pen.
E. G in the opening chapter I understand why the author mentions gray so often but it really IS overkill, and ends up just being almost irritating to read.
Additionally, there were some stellar moments of comedy in here but I feel some just missed the mark, it's almost as if the author sat down in completely different moods and it shows chapter by chapter.
Overall, it's not like this book is a lost cause, I really would love to see this idea come to fruition... just not like this.

P. S LOVE the front cover