The History of the Thing (not the monster)

So we finally get to find out how Dorothy made it back to Oz and how she came to be in power. When I was reading Dorothy Must Die, it never occurred to me to wonder about Aunt Em and Uncle Henry…let's just say their story is full of irony and leave it at that. No Place Like Oz focuses on what makes Dorothy tick and her relationship with Ozma is especially interesting. We get a glimpse of her three companions at their midpoint of transformation into the monsters we met in the first book of the series. I think it's particularly clever of Danielle Paige to structure her series like this. The reader is able to get all of the back story on the main characters in short bursts to hold them over until the next book in the series is out. I do hope, however, that she'll release everything in print as a nice box set (I love a good box set, y'all).

I wouldn't say that this is a particularly cheery series but for some reason I found The Wizard Returns to be more sinister than the last two novellas. This might be because 1. I always found The Wizard to be a rather shifty fella and 2. This book did not resolve the mystery surrounding this character. Is he good? Is he wicked? Who's side is be actually on? Nobody knows!! What we do know is what he was up to when the people of Oz thought he had returned home (you're not even ready for that anticlimactic reveal). I, for one, am chomping at the bit for the next book in the series, The Wicked Will Rise, which I'm sure will more than satisfy my burning curiosity…I hope.

What am I reading next? Roll a die to find out!

 Feed by M.T. Anderson

People are connecting themselves directly to the Internet via feeds to their brains. That's it. That's what drew me to this book because I am masochistic and have a real fear of technology destroying us all.

The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova

A young woman stumbles upon letters written by her father which detail a quest to find out the truth about Vlad the Impaler (aka the guy who inspired Dracula). She must decide if she wants to follow in her father's footsteps and seek to unravel the mysteries that might just cross over into modern times...