Dorothy In the Land of Monsters
Garten
Gevedon
(Oz ReVamped, #1)
Publication date:
October 11th 2019
Genres: Fantasy, Paranormal, Young
Adult
Shifters,
Zombies, and Vampires? Oh my!
My name is Dorothy Gale, and I think I might be
dead.
When my dog Toto and I got swept up in a twister, we
landed in hell. A very colorful hell. Like a rainbow dripping in blood. Now
it looks as though this dreadful underworld plagued with vampires, zombies, and
shifters will be the site of my eternal damnation.
They say this terrifying land called Oz isn’t hell or
purgatory and escape is possible, but first I must survive the journey down the
blood-soaked yellow brick road to the only place in Oz where vampires dare not
tread—The City of Emeralds.
With enchanted footwear and the help of my three new
friends—a friendly zombie, a massive shifter lion, and a heartless axe murderer
of evil night creatures (who also happens to be the hottest guy I’ve ever
seen)—Toto and I have a chance to make it to the Vampire Free Zone. When we get
there, I must convince the most powerful wizard in this magical land of
monsters to send us out of this radiant nightmare and back to the world of the
living. They say he’s just as frightening as this monstrous land, that he
detests visitors, and even the most horrifying creatures cower in his presence.
But I must seek him out. And when I find him, I’ll do whatever it takes to make
him send me home.
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MY REVIEW:
Dorothy in the Land of Monsters by
Garten Gevedon
My rating:
4 of 5 stars
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.
View all my reviews
Gray everywhere. As I stand on the porch of my aunt and
uncle’s home, all I can see is the great gray expanse of prairie on every side.
No trees, houses, buildings, people, nothing at all breaks the broad sweep of
flat gray country that reaches to the edge of the gray sky in every direction.
The sun scorched the plowed fields into a dusty, gray mass that expands to the
horizon line, the endless gloom broken only by the little black shadows of the
fissures running through it like the marbling of a corpse.
Even the grass is dead and gray—the hot sun singed the
blades until they were the same lifeless gray color that blankets everything.
Years ago, the house was a pristine white, but the torrid summer sun burned and
blistered the paint and the heavy winter rains battered it away, and now the
house is as weathered and gray as everything else here. It’s fitting for what
it’s like to live here in Middle of Nowhere, Kansas. It looks like what it
is—bleak, leached of any color, any excitement, anything interesting at
all—drained of life. Gray is gray is gray is my life. It surrounds me from all
sides, all the time. And it sucks. Thanks a lot, climate change.
I came to live with my Uncle Henry and Aunt Emily on a
crappy little farm when my parents died in a car accident. I was thirteen.
Because Emily was the only family I had left, she got stuck with me. She could
have refused me and left me as a ward of the state, but she was kind enough to
take me in. Even though I don’t share the same connection with Emily and Henry
that I did with my parents, they’re still family—the only family I have—so, I
may complain about this being the middle of nowhere, but it’s better than being
in an orphanage or foster care or some group home. Yeah, their place is tiny,
and old, but at least it has four walls, a floor, and a roof.
The two-bedroom farmhouse I live in is as weathered and
brittle as the farm it’s set on. One story with no attic and no basement, the
only feature it has is a cyclone cellar which we’ve had yet to use since I’ve
lived here. It may lack color and any of the luxuries most people in America
have these days—cable, wifi, consistent hot water to shower with—but I am
grateful I have somewhere to live, even if life here is so gray that the
grayness proliferates, turning everything in it to a gray as dry as
dust.
When Aunt Emily came here to live with Uncle Henry, she
was a young, pretty, vivacious woman with golden hair and bright emerald green
eyes—or I thought I remembered her that way. Even she’s gray now. Just like it
changed this once green land, the sun and wind have changed her, and her once
sparkling green eyes are now dim and muted, tinged with a melancholy gray.
Living here in this sweltering, exanimate world has stolen her radiance and
left her ashen. It’s exhausted the red from her cheeks and lips, and now they’re
pallid and gray too. Once she was curvy and a little plump. Now she’s gaunt and
never smiles. Can’t blame her for never smiling, living in this dull, gray crap
hole.
When I first came to her, Aunt Emily would startle when
I laughed. She’d scream and look at me like I was nuts, shocked I could find
anything to laugh at in this gray place. Uncomfortable and bored out of my
skull, I’d laugh trying to entertain myself, trying not to let the depression
get the best of me, but after being here for four years, I get it now—what is
there to laugh about when all that’s here is gray?
Uncle Henry never laughs either. Morning to night, all
he does is work hard. If he knows what joy is, he doesn’t let on. From his gray
beard to his rough boots, Henry is also gray, stern, and solemn. With a
permanent stone face, he almost never speaks. It’s like he’s made of hard, gray
stone. If he didn’t work so much trying to make this gray land yield something,
I’d think he was stone—a gray statue of a man.
Sometimes I wonder if it’s me that’s gray, or the lens I
see the world through. Before my parents died, my life was a bright white, like
a pristine sheet of paper wishing for a colorful story to grace its surface.
Then the black smear of tragedy struck, and it’s as though the thousands of
tears I shed diffused the black that blemished my bright whiteness, spreading
it over the unsullied parts like watercolor, leaving my world gray. But I don’t
think I’m gray. Not yet. I don’t think it has spread to me yet.
—“Dorothy in the Land of Monsters” Oz ReVamped #1
Chapter 1 – The Cyclone, pgs. 1-2
Author Bio:
Garten Gevedon lives in New York City with her family.
She's a sci-fi, fantasy, and paranormal author who loves taking fairy tales and
turning them inside out. You can visit her online at
www.gartengevedon.com.
Old Man's War by John Scalzi
About
HEATHER GRAHAM:
Holly Martin
