Book: The Wicked Will Rise, Danielle Paige  

Series: Dorothy Must Die #2

Publisher: Harper Teen

Release Date: March 31^st, 2015

Rating: 4 stars

I really enjoyed Dorothy Must Die, so was looking forward to the sequel to see how our characters had grown since the last book.

Amy has become much more confident in herself and her abilities, both physically and magically. She’s using her magic a lot more and is getting quite good at it. Like in the first book, she was quite snippy and sarcastic, and always had a comeback to every situation. I found her quite relatable and really enjoyed her narrative. I feel like we would’ve made the same type of decisions if we had been put in the same situation.  She was also very good at describing the magic by using everyday examples, as if I’m completely honest I found the magic a little confusing in this book, but she totally helped me understand it.

However, just like Dorothy did when she first discovered magic, Amy is being tempted by the darkness to turn wicked. While she tries to ignore the temptation in the beginning, it’s getting harder and harder to avoid the darkness and I can feel Amy start to give in. I loved the way Paige handled this, and how Amy grew as a character because of this darkness.

If I had any nitpicky bits, it was the romance. Just like in the first book, it was basically non-existent and when it was there, it seemed quite forced. It was like Paige believed she had to have some kind of a romance in somewhere so just created one out of the blue and just threw it in. it wasn’t believable and there wasn’t any chemistry between Amy and her so-called love interest, Nox. Sometimes they were kissing and trying to be cute and other times he was pushing her away. It was confusing at best and awkward at worst.

If you’re going to read this book for any reason, do it for the world building. For everything Paige messed up in this book, it completely cancels how completely perfectly she created the world of Oz. it was whimsical and beautiful and imaginative and had great magical twists.  We delve deeper in the both the light and dark sections of Oz, which Paige nailed flawlessly.

She also created a great cliffhanger that made me aching for more but also left many doors open for the finale of this trilogy. And I, for one, can’t wait.