Abandoned by Booklikes

Please note that I gave this book half a star, but rounded it up to 1 star on Goodreads.

I can say right here plain and simple I am done with this lackluster series. I reviewed books #1 and #2 and I gave them both 3 stars. I thought book #1 showed potential, but book #2 had our main character Amy Gumm just spinning in place and now book #3 includes more of her spinning in place with side helpings of let's be an asshole too.

Please don't read if you haven't read books #1 and #2 in the Dorothy Must Die series since this review will have spoilers from those two books.

At the end of book #2, Amy after getting into a fight with Dorothy is somehow transported back to Kansas, specifically her trailer park home, Dusty Acres. Within seconds of arriving in Kansas, Amy, the rest of the Wicked (Gert, Glamora, and Mombi) along with Nox tell Nox that it is time for him to join the. The newly made up Wicked are trying to deal with Dorothy once and for all, of course she manages to squeak off back to Oz. Amy is left flabbergasted that Nox was invited to make up the fourth missing part of the Wicked which means he can't ever marry or be in love (I rolled my eyes a million times) and now Amy is angry because she feels used and fumes that Nox lied to her.

This whole book is pretty much Amy stomping around acting like a brat towards everyone. I love how she rewrote her whole history back in Oz as saving it (um did you kill Dorothy? Didn't you directly because you listened to Pete cause Polychrome and others to die? Yeah, you did, shut it) and feeling angry that her magic has left her since she is back in Kansas.

I really can't say much about any characters because we only have Amy's POV to guide us. There is not much of the Wicked or Nox in this one so if you were looking for that, I suggest you skip this one. We do get some Nox, but it's just him after a time apologizing to Amy (sigh whatever dude) and him deciding to just go along with her increasingly stupid and let's say it, selfish plans.

We have Amy back in Kansas dealing with the fallout of her being gone. She has a reunion with her mother but is nasty towards her at times because she has decided it's easier this way because eventually she is going to return to live in Oz. Though it's been said repeatedly she can't use magic there because when humans from Kansas do, they tend to go the way of Dorothy (power hungry and ready to kill anyone that crosses them) but she feels more at home there. Or something. I don't really know. Because not for one minute did I ever feel like Amy felt like Oz was home. And Amy flips flops so fast about staying in Oz that the whole first half with her repeating this to herself was just not necessary.

I can honestly say that I have never been over a character so fast in my life. I was sick of reading how Amy justified every little thing she kept doing without thinking of the repercussions of such things. Amy keeps thinking she knew best. So unless Ms. Paige wraps up this series one day showing that Amy was 100 percent wrong (doubtful) I am really tired of reading about how a 16 year old with very limited magical experience should just ignore what everyone else around her has been through, due to plot reasons, i.e. need to continue this series on for whatever reason. Amy's decisions about what to do with Pete and Dorothy I just had no words. Don't read this book if you are expecting any story-lines to be wrapped up.

Besides the former characters we have come to know (who we don't spend much time with) we get some new characters and a re-look at characters we haven't seen since book #1 like Amy's mom and her former enemy Madison.

I really didn't get much of a sense of Amy's mother. We know that she was a alcoholic mess in book #1, we saw that she missed Amy in book #2 and now in book #3 she has turned over a new leaf so she can be a better mother to Amy. I really wish that we had gotten more time with this character, but we just barely scrapped the surface of her.

We also have Amy dealing with her former nemesis Madison who has now become her sort of friend and it really didn't really work for the story. Maybe if Ms. Paige spent more time on the story, I could have believed that Madison and her boyfriend would be so eager to help, but sorry just couldn't get there based on how they treated her in book #1.

I honestly don't know why Ms. Paige threw another villain our way in this book. Sorry, but Dorothy and company was enough. Now we have another enemy to defeat? At this point I think she's going to try to incorporate every character from the L. Frank Baum's books.

The plot in this one was Amy trying to find the first pair of Dorothy's shoes and that gets resolved pretty quickly, the repercussions of that are ignored by Amy again because of plot reasons. Seriously, this whole book nothing really happens. We just get Amy turning into an even more Dark Mary Sue and I was bored.

The writing was tedious and just repetitive after a while. We get it, Amy has lingering issues with her mom. Amy still has feelings for Nox, etc. I really think unless Ms. Paige throws in another POV here, this series is going to get old quick. If she is going to try to re-tell the Oz stories, well have something told from Ozma's point of view or any other character but Amy.

The setting of Kansas and even Oz once again are not brought to life in this series. They really are never the main focus in my humble opinion because they are simply used as set pieces for the awesomeness that is Amy.

The ending made me really ticked. If I had paid money for this book, I would have returned it for a refund. I suggest if you really want to know what happens you borrow this from the library. As far as I am concerned, this was 270 pages of filler. That was all this book was. Heck, book #2 is filler too. There is nothing there that advances the story at all, we don't get any development of characters, and we just keep throwing more obstacles Amy's way so the story never ends.