The Wicked Will Rise

Title: The Wicked Will Rise
Author: Danielle Paige
Genre: Fantasy, Action, YA
Pages: 293
Stars: 3/5
Series: Dorothy Must Die
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In this sequel to Dorothy Must Die, Amy Gumm has a task.  That task is easier said than done, though; she must steal the lion's courage, the tin man's heart, and the scarecrow's brains, and then she must kill Dorothy Gale herself.  But will Amy Gumm be able to bring herself down to the level of the evil Dorothy to save the world of Oz?

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In this book, Amy is supposed to fulfill this task set ahead of her by the Revolutionary Order of the Wicked.  The entire time, though, Amy feels this dark cloud of evil swallow her further and further. Honestly, I found the whole story rather bland compared to Dorothy Must Die.  Overall, I was rather disappointed.  There were hardly any plot twists, and the story was extremely predictable.  

The tone of the voice was something else I was bothered by.  It was extremely informal- annoyingly informal.  It reminded me of Maximum Ride. And I strongly dislike Maximum Ride.  (If you're interested in seeing what I think about Maximum Ride, check out this link.) Back to the point here, Amy's narration includes a lot of "look, ...." and "anyway...." Look here", "So....", "Anyway, look...". 

It's very, very annoying! It would be at least bearable if she wasn't using terms like these so frequently, but it's practically every other page.  So I'm sure you can see why I found this annoying.

Another thing I found disappointing was that the minor characters were more interesting and developed than the major characters.  I just.... I really found the entire book to be bland.  For some reason I can't give this book 2 stars.  I didn't really like it, but Dorothy Must Die was so great that I feel like the sequel should deserve a good rating as well.  So I'm rather upset that the Wicked Will Rise didn't live up to my high expectations. I found myself slowing down in my reading, and I wasn't as excited about reading the book as I was when I read Dorothy Must Die.  

So would I recommend it?  No, not really.  However, Dorothy Must Die was really great, and perhaps Yellow Brick War  (the third book) will be better.  I guess we'll have to wait and see after it's released!