The Witch Must Burn {Review}

“You can’t choose who you are. But you can choose what you’ll become.”

-Danielle Paige 

This prequel novella is told in Jillia’s perspective. Jillia is a maid that works at the Emerald Palace. She worked there when Ozma wasn’t crazy and absolutely loved life. She also felt like Ozma was her only motherly figure. Ozma took Jillia in when Jillia was a baby, she was found in a village, alone. Jillia becomes the head maid eventually. Something interesting about Jillia is that she is half fairy, which she later finds out about. When Dorothy takes over Oz, Jillia started to hate her job. The way Dorothy treated her and the other maids was horrible. One day, Glinda the supposedly good witch, visits Dorothy and asks to take Jillia just for the summer. Dorothy is hesitant but eventually lets Glinda take Jillia to her pink castle. Jillia doesn’t understand why Glinda wanted her, but she soon realizes that Glinda wants her for her special powers. Because Jillia is half fairy, she has a strong power that no one else has. Glinda wants to use Jillia for her magic-mining project. The experience is physically painful for Jillia. She has to be strapped to a chair as “waves of pain, each one worse than the last” shoot through her. Common people wouldn’t survive the procedure, so when Glinda tries it for the second time, she doesn’t expect Jillia to wake. Basically, Glinda leaves Jillia there to die. What Glinda doesn’t know, is that Nox works at the castle, too. He rescues Jilla and takes her to the Revolutionary Order of the Wicked. A group that was a big part of Dorothy Must Die. Once Jillia is there, she agrees to be on their side. Now she is the eyes and ears of Dorothy’s palace.

This book fills in a lot of blank spaces from Dorothy Must Die. Jillia was always somewhat of a mystery to me. I always wondered how she got to work for the Order of the Wicked in the first place. Now I know. The Wicked want to turn Oz into what it was when Ozma, the true princess, was ruling. Jillia wants that too.

I absolutely loved this book! However, I still think No Place Like Oz, the first prequel novella, is much better. Nonetheless, this book answers a lot of questions and makes the Dorothy Must Die series an incredibly detailed book with a super-strong plot. I will always and forever, admire Danielle Paige for her ability to create all these books on this one idea.

(The reviews I publish on the prequel novellas to the Dorothy Must Die series will be quite short because of their numbers. A whopping 9.)