A Series of Unfortunate Events: A Bad Beginning by Lemony Snicket Review

Fiction
176 pages

Dear Reader,
     I'm sorry to say that the book you are holding in your hands is extremely unpleasant. It tells an unhappy tale about three very unlucky children. Even though they are charming and clever, the Baudelaire siblings lead lives filled with misery and woe. From the very first page of this book when the children are at the beach and receive terrible news, continuing on through the entire story, disaster lurks at their heels. One might say they are magnets for misfortune.
     In this short book alone, the three youngsters encounter a greedy and repulsive villain, itchy clothing, a disastrous fire, a plot to steal their fortune, and cold porridge for breakfast.
     It is my sad duty to write down these unpleasant tales, but there is nothing stopping you from putting this book down at once and reading something happy, if you prefer that sort of thing.
With all due respect,
Lemony Snicket

Completion: A
Writing/Style: D
Characters: C-
Plot/Pacing: B-
World-building/Atmosphere: C-
Sub-genres (Romance, Humor, Mystery, etc.): D-

Final Grade: C Library Rental

Disclaimer: For all those out there that have fond feelings toward this book, you all might want to turn away from this review now. I did not really care for it. At all. Proceed with caution.

Alas, I wish I could have liked this book more. I have only heard good things about this book and I hate to say that I couldn’t have been one of those people who loved it. I know many people love this series and are nostalgic to it, but I'm afraid I just could not see the appeal. The story was adequate and not too shabby. If you are able to suspend your disbelief, the mystery of Olaf’s scheme is actually pretty clever. However, the characters, especially the main three, relied more on stereotypes and quirks than anything else, which made it hard for me to become emotionally invested in them. As well bad things happen from start to end (as the title suggests), and yet they are made out to be mundane and even forewarned so I hardly blinked an eye when they happened. Evil people are evil for no reason, and we are to root for the main characters because, well, they are the main characters. Furthermore and most importantly, the narrator frequently uses higher leveled words and then explains what the words mean, which only serves as interrupting vocabulary lessons that stunt the story. For example:

“They purchased garlic, which is a sharp-tasting bulbous plant”.

So kids won’t know what garlic is, but they’ll know the word “bulbous”? How does that make any sense? Plus, part of the point of reading is the subtle learning through context clues and other techniques and not shoving it down their throats. As a whole, I felt these additions were condescending. In other cases, it seems like these vocabulary lessons were meant to be humorous, but in my case, they really did not come off well. For example:

“He saw Klaus sitting at the table and smirked, a word which here means ‘smiled in an unfriendly, phony way”.

Oh, boy, isn’t that just hilarious? No? Well, have fun with that being the only source of humor throughout the whole book. Also, now this is just nitpicking at this point, but I have to point it out because it bothers me so much:

“Violet Baudelaire, the eldest, liked to skip rocks. Like most fourteen-year-olds, she was right-handed…”

Uh, say what? Most fourteen year olds are right-handed, you say? What does hand preference have to do with age? Why do these details even matter? Ugh. As you can probably tell by now, the writing style nearly killed me. If this had been a longer book, I would not have finished it for this reason. It’s sad to think that the writing style could overshadow the good aspects of a book, but it did.
Having seen the movie, I must say that I believe this story would have benefited from being in a different medium like a graphic novel or cartoon, which would have allowed it more leeway in suspending disbelief. In its current state, I found it more than a bit lacking.