A Series of Unfortunate Events

I'm just a little behind the times in that I finished A Series of Unfortunate Events by Lemony Snicket just four days ago, on the 13th. I do have to laugh at the irony of finishing a series chock full of bad luck, with thirteen books, on the 13th. Thank goodness it wasn't a Friday. Anyway, I suppose I ought to preface this by saying I probably read the first few books in their entirety while I was shelving books at the Bloomington Public Library. And I have seen the movie, which I enjoyed for various reasons, despite it not really covering the extent of the Baudelaire's plight. So there's that. But I decided I would begin at the beginning again, and so I did.

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Violet, Klaus, and Sunny Baudelaire are enjoying a gloomy morning at Briny Beach when they receive the bad news that their parents have perished in a fire that also utterly destroyed their mansion. They go to live with Count Olaf, who is *supposedly* a relative. Clearly, he doesn't care about the children. In fact, he is trying to get hold of their apparently enormous fortune. Oh joy. But these children are resourceful. Violet is an amateur inventor, Klaus is an avid researcher, and Sunny is a baby who loves to bite things. Between the three of them, and the use of a library, they manage to escape Olaf's clutches. And so on, and so on. In every book, Olaf disguises himself and comes after the children, always managing to be defeated by their skills, though certainly not with the help of any adult. The adults in these books are particularly ridiculous, because they are wishy-washy people who believe everything and nothing and are basically idiots.

The children are sent to their Uncle Monty, their Aunt Josephine, a horribly run sawmill, a very strange school, a townhouse with a fake elevator, and a really creepy and stupid village before finally ending up on their own. Then they set out across the hinterlands in search of somewhere safe, even though they are fairly certain there is nowhere safe, at least not until Olaf is finally gone. They then volunteer at a half-built hospital (really, what is with these people???), disguise themselves as freaks at a circus, and suddenly find themselves alone in the mountains. Meanwhile, the mysteries about their parents and an organization only known as VFD keep piling up.

In the mountains, they finally reach the last known safe place, only to discover that it too has been burned down. It is here, in book ten, The Slippery Slope, that things start to make some sense. The children also struggle with doing the right thing, and I found the morality struggle incredibly interesting. Though they are only kids (Violet is 14, Klaus turns 13 at some point, and Sunny is probably around 2 or 3), they know that there are things that are wrong and that doing those things doesn't really make them any better than Count Olaf and his troupe.

By book eleven, The Grim Grotto, the children have really begun to take things into their own hands, and have also met with other members of VFD, discovering more and more instances where good people have done bad things, and bad people have done good things. In book twelve, which was probably my favourite, The Penultimate Peril, they finally reach the Hotel Denouement, which is laid out like a huge library. Almost everyone from their past is there, and of course, bad things happen and the building goes up in flames. But they escape...with Count Olaf. It seems for a time, that they are on the same side. Yet the children do not want anything to do with him, they want to be truly distanced from him, but they also don't want to commit murder.

And then comes The End, the thirteenth and final book in this madcap series. the Baudelaires wash up on an island where they are told "everything eventually washes up on these shores" which has a distinct air of finality to it. And unfortunately, if I told you any more, I would be truly spoiling it for those who have not read it. All I have to say is that this book confused me more than the rest put together and I was disappointed in how it ended.

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Lemony Snicket, or more accurately Daniel Handler, is a master of writing. The tale of the Baudelaires was overly ridiculous most of the time, but throughout the series there is an awesome emphasis on reading. In fact, most of the names of places and people (and indeed, the babytalk Sunny uses) are taken directly from literature. I'm actually glad I read these as an adult, because I think I understood every single literary reference that was hidden in the books.

It wasn't my favourite kids series ever, but it was a fun one to read, and I found myself alternately laughing and shaking my head in annoyance within seconds of each action. And just like in real life, stories confuse us and end abruptly, with no good explanation.

Four stars for the series as a whole.

Twitter-style book reviews no. 1

Greetings, fellow book lovers!
Because I haven't been on here in kind of awhile, I'm not going to attempt to write full reviews for the books I've read since my last review.
This, unfortunately, may become more of the norm than the exception, just because of priorities.
But, we shall see.

Now, if I can remember the books I've read since my last posting....

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Pagan Christianity?: Exploring the Roots of Our Church Practices, by Frank Viola and George Barna.
    Umm, no. This book was badly researched and not really well-written. I will concede that they have a few good points concerning the practices that arose in the last couple hundred years, but the further back they go they just don't really have it right. Plus, both guys really seem to have a vendetta against the denominations that have structure, and that sickens me for many reasons. One star.

Spring Snow, by Yukio Mishima.
    Four stars. It was a good book, though difficult at times. Set in the 1910s in Japan, it gave me a wonderful insight into the Westernization of Japan.

The Hunger Games, by Suzanne Collins.
    This was a re-read. I originally gave it five stars, and I stick with that. It's an excellent beginning to the trilogy.

The Watch That Ends the Night: Voices from the Titanic, by Allan Wolf.
    THIS BOOK. Five stars. Oh, I cried. I'm a sucker for anything Titanic-related, and this was so excellent. It's a novel in poetry, all thoughts from real people who were on the ship. It was sooooo good.

Kafka on the Shore, by Haruki Murakami.
    Four stars. Another Japanese novel, this one modern and magical realism. It was quite a ride and a metaphysical one at that. Some weird stuff, too...but it was well-written and I enjoyed the dreamlike quality of the writing.

Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, by J.K. Rowling.
   I have no idea how many times I've read this. Five stars, as always. I love the beginning of Harry's adventures so much. Such an endearing book. I hope Rowling goes back to children's lit...her adult novel isn't really that great. (I can't review it yet as I haven't finished it, but ugh.)

The Kissing Sailor: The Mystery Behind the Photo that Ended World War II, by Lawrence Verria and George Galdorisi.
    Awesome story, not so awesome writing. Well, okay, the writing was all right. It was written like a research paper. But therein lies the problem. Each chapter read like a separate paper, with no good connections in-between. So much was repeated on almost every page and some things were clearly not in the right place. Two stars, though I would still recommend it for the story.

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Burrows.
    I give this adorable little novel four stars. I would give it five, but I generally reserve that for life-changing books. While this novel-in-letters set in 1946 and revolving around the little isle of Guernsey off the coast of France didn't change my life, I absolutely adored it. It was just cute and a feel-good novel in the end, even though there were some details that were horrific (relating, of course, to WWII).

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There you have it.
The books I've read recently.

Currently Reading:
1. The Casual Vacancy, by J.K. Rowling. (She could have left out MOST of the expletives...)
2. The Lovely Bones, by Alice Sebold. (I don't know who told this woman she could write, because she can't.)
3. Vanity Fair, by Thackeray. (Who would have thought it'd take me over a year to read this...)