Title: The Straw King
(Dorothy Must Die #0.5)
Author: Danielle Paige
Genre: YA, Fantasy, Retelling
First published: November 10th 2015
Publisher: HarperCollins
Finished reading: July 8th 2016
Pages: 156
“The monkeys ignored him completely as they discussed wind currents and angle of approach, and even the Lion seemed to have forgotten he was there. He might as well be back in that field tied to a post for all the good the Wizard’s gifts were doing him.”
I haven’t been a big fan of the Dorothy Must Die novellas so far and in a way I’m asking myself why I still continue reading them. The fourth novella was particularly bad, but after being promised that the next two were better I decided to pick up The Straw King anyway. And I agree this one is without doubt a huge improvement from the last one! Not mindblowingly good and I would have liked to see more of the Scarecrow himself in it, but all in all still quite entertaining. This novella reads a lot faster than the previous one and I liked that it gave new information about how Ozma first came to power. The battle scenes were interesting! But like I said, the novella didn’t do much to further develop the Scarecrow’s character. It was more just another random background story where Glinda and the Lion seemd to play a bigger role than the character this novella was named after. Not exactly what I was expecting when I decided to read The Straw King. If you liked the other novellas you will most likely enjoy this one as well… But I can’t say it’s a must-read.
The Scarecrow only ever wanted to have a brain, but it looks like he got more for his wish than he can handle. What happens to the Scarecrow after he finally gets the gift of a brain from the Wizard and was appointed the new ruler of Oz? The Scarecrow is desperately trying to make up for lost time and reads as many books as possible to learn more about his new kingdom. He has the brains, but he feels he still lacks the information to be a proper ruler… And things take a turn for the worse when his reign is threatened. He is not sure how to handle this situation, since something similar has never happened in Oz before. And the Scarecrow is so desperate that he will turn to anyone who can help, even if that might not be the best thing for his own future.
I liked this fifth novella a lot better than the previous ones, but I still stand firmly by my opinion that the novellas are nowhere as good as the actual series. Why do I still read them? I guess I already had the copies of the first few and I don’t like leaving a series uncompleted. The Straw King was probably one of the best novellas of the bunch, although the Scarecrow doesn’t exactly plays a big role it. At least it adds some new information to the original series!
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