There is nothing to be found in the pages of A Series of Unfortunate Events but misery and despair. You still have time to choose another international best-seller to read. But if you must know what unpleasantries befall the charming and clever Baudelaire children read on...Within the chapters of The Vile Village Violet, Klaus and Sunny face such unpleasant matters as migrating crows, an angry mob, a newspaper headline, the arrest of innocent people, the Deluxe cell, and some very strange hats. With 5 million copies sold in the UK alone, one might consider Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events to make him one of the most successful children's authors of the past decade. We, however, consider these miserable so-called adventure stories and the Hollywood film starring Jim Carrey that accompanied the books for children as nothing more than a dreadful mistake.
This is the first book in the series that I'm reading for the first time (the others were childhood rereads) and one of the best. I love the village and the way the Elders are constantly bickering over their rules, and there was some nail-biting action going on at the end. I'm looking forward to learn more about the whole VFD thing, and how Mr Snicket himself is involved in the whole thing. He keeps giving us small clues, but I hope there will be some bigger clues in the next few books (or at least in the final one).
