Quest for the Book: Dorothy Must Die

After finishing, Sleeping Freshmen Never Lie, by David Lubar (review can be found here) I knew I had to find another book quickly. On the morning of September 18, I went to the library to turn in some rather disappointing books I had checked out to read over the weekend and get more books to read. While I originally planned to check out, Dorothy Must Die, by Danielle Paige the laptop to locate books wasn’t set up and I was too lazy to log onto another laptop and search the books location for myself. I was forced by my own lazy nature to wander through the rows of book shelves to see if I could spot the title among all the other books.

Reflecting back on that day I realize that books in the school library are organized by genre and then author’s last  name so if I remembered Paige I could have probably, maybe, found the book. Of course, I was such an idiot that I didn’t even take a second glance when looking at the title a couple days ago so good job past me at being stupid, I’d like for you to know that present you hasn’t learned her lesson yet!

Ahem, any who, as I was wondering around the catacombs with few interaction with other human beings (seriously, why didn’t I ask a Liberian?) I realized I might never find the book without direction and decided to turn my search elsewhere. I began looking at the books on top of the selves since I knew they must be there due to being interesting catches right? A particular book caught my eyes a couple of times and I mean that in quite a literal sense. A Face Like Glass, by Frances Hardinge. Dressed in a silver mask with velvet eye shadow and eyes as blue as the waters of the Caribbean (at least that’s what think the water in the Caribbean look like). Suddenly I was drowning in a calm and hypnotic ocean, unable to even glimpse at the surface. The book had me completely under its control, but I simply pretended as though I was still alive and not a water-logged bag of flesh the various sea creatures to feed off.

I looked around some more for Dorothy Must Die and browsed some other titles before the bell rang for first period and I made the split second decision to acknowledge that I was dead. Metaphor aside (or simile, I’m too lazy to check if I used, “like” or “as”), I checked out the book along with three others and I’m currently satisfied with my decision. It’s a dystopian society, but somehow I don’t think I’ve seen this sort of take on it. The human race lives underground because the sun is dangerous and they have stopped showing their emotions on their faces and have to learn them now. The main character Neverfell however has a face like glass and shows her emotions on it without her having to mentally trigger it, so she has to wear a mask (there, saved you the time of wondering why the title is what it is). I do hope it doesn’t have too much death (like entire civilization massacred or something close to that) like most dystopian novels, but rather takes the time to really explore the mechanics of a world where people don’t naturally show their emotions. The plot is currently going in that direction, though I’m only on page 115 and there’s 485 pages total so things could always start to go downhill. I feel optimistic though and don’t think it’ll go that way.