The Bloody Brick Road
Maude Royer
The Bloody Brick Road: A Wizard of Oz Retelling by Maude Royer
Book Description:
In this wildly creative, horror-soaked reimagining of L. Frank Baum’s The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, nothing is as it seems in Dorothy’s dystopian nightmare. Fans of Tender Is the Flesh and Maeve Fly will want to follow her twisted journey down the yellow-brick road.
When nineteen-year-old Dorothy Noroît finds out she is pregnant, the road ahead seems bathed in golden light. She has a hard-working boyfriend, a beautiful home, and a job where she works with her best friend. But on October 2nd, 1994, everything changes.
Fast forward twenty-four years.
The city of Montreal is plagued by extremist group, The Winged Monkeys. The gruesome murder of a young man has just made headlines. Just when Lieutenant Henri Duhaime and his partner Detective Emilianne Saint-Gelais begin to wrap their heads around this heinous act of violence, another young man is found brutally murdered. And then another. As the body count rises, they race against the clock to track down the killer.
This unhinged retelling of the beloved classic, filled with a twisted cast of your favorite characters, brings together horror and revenge in a blood-soaked, funhouse mirror reflection of the timeless tale—and with endless Easter eggs for readers to discover. Translated to English for the first time from the original French, The Bloody Brick Road will transport you to a dark new world.
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My Take:
There are so many characters, you wonder if you are supposed to care about them all. Spoiler: you aren’t; many do not matter.
This book started off strong with immediate action and suspicion (as in “where are we going with this”). It felt great for the start of a thriller/slasher book, but then we slowed WAY down. Knowing that this is a Wizard of Oz retelling, we can be safe to assume we are going to have four “main” characters to meet and understand their role in the story – Dorothy, Scarecrow, Tin Man, and the Cowardly Lion. Obviously, there are a LOT of supporting characters, but it takes a long time to get to character number 2 (chronologically), then we waste a bunch of time in and adjacent to character 3, and character 4 is just rushed and thrown in in a side story. All the while we are meeting others and leaving them behind. Personally, in a thriller, I am actively trying to solve the case before the author, so keeping track of absolutely throw-away characters becomes daunting and then just irritating.
I was prepared to love a slasher Wizard of Oz. This is not it. The most fun was figuring out who the characters were supposed to represent.
I do love retellings and while going through the new version picking up on the threads of what is aligning with the original material. That basically became the highlight of the book. The actual plot got pretty messy [derogatory] by the end. And the last major scene may work better in a visual medium (tv show or movie) but in a book it just missed – you didn’t get the horror pay-off you’ve been waiting for nor the big reveal and plot wrap-up you earned.
The Final Verdict
My rating: 2.5 stars
Would I recommend? No
Disappointing overall with a rushed ending and little payoff.
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