 |
| TITLE: Grimm Fairy Tales: Oz AUTHOR: Joe Brusha PUBLISHER: Zenescope Entertainment PUB DATE: Mar 18 2014 |
The world faces a gathering storm that threatens to drown it in darkness. The only hope to stop the coming evil rests on an unlikely hero: a Kansas farm girl named Dorothy Gale.
Unbeknownst to Dorothy, highborn blood flows through her veins and with it, the power to save Earth and the realms of power that surround it. But Dorothy must first learn to use her unharnessed abilities before the witches of Oz destroy her and everyone else that stands in their way.
Zenescope Entertainment presents another incredible tale of adventure and fantasy with this mesmerizing and epic re-imagining of a classic!
- Source: Goodreads
Rating:
Have I ever mentioned how much I love retellings? If you’ve read some of my blog entries about other books I’ve read, I may have mentioned it a few times... okay maybe more than a few. And you may be already annoyed. Sorry. Let’s move on...
While I may not be much of an Oz fan, I didn’t pass up the chance to read Grimm Fairy Tales: Oz. I’ve read a few Grimm Fairy Tales since this one, and I really liked most of them. So it is with deep regret that I felt differently for Oz. I still love the art and creativity that went to every aspect to create this story, not to mention a fascinating darker version of the classic, but this just didn’t do it for me.
Oz had an interesting set of characters much like the original, there’s Dorothy, Toto, Glinda the Good Witch, the Cowardly Lion, the Tin Man, and the Scarecrow, and most of all, who could forget, the Wicked Witch. They are all looking stunning, albeit little scantily clothed females, appearing all gallant and significant, some even have pasts too dark to revisit, and I was just dying to know more about each one. Alas, it was a disappointment. The flashbacks were rather shallow and didn’t dig deep enough to trigger an empathizing bone in my body – I’m a bleeding heart, so I should have been one of the easiest people to appease on that department.
I’m no prude but earlier on, I mentioned that the female characters were scantily clothed. Let me divulge on that a bit. I work in the art industry as a 3D artist, and part of being in this industry is looking at pictures of naked bodies, artistically studying the human body to get the right contours, curves, shape – you get the idea. Also, looking at the artworks of other artists, video game characters, and the like, there would not be a day that passes by where I wouldn’t see pictures females wearing less than appropriate clothing, and I wouldn’t even bat an eyelash. However with the characters in this book, I couldn’t stifle a cringe. It was too much and rather ridiculous to look at. At least with the other stories, like Robin Hood, her clothes had function to it even if it were sexy. Dorothy’s were simply trashy. If she was outfitted in clothing with more sense to it, I wouldn’t mind at all.
The main plot of Oz didn’t fare any better either. While the concept of going off to “find the wizard” was still there, it didn’t appear as adventurous as I was hoping. Oz did not come short on action scenes though, but that too wasn’t enough to invigorate my needs and wants as a reader.
*Thank you, Zenescope and Netgalley for granting my request to view Grimm Fairy Tales: Oz.
