Liz (Bent Bookworm)'s Review of The Miserable Mill (Series of Unfortunate Events, #4)

by Lemony Snicket

Mr Poe delivers the three Baudelaire orphans, Violet, Klaus and little Sunny, to their new guardian, the owner of the Lucky Smells Lumbermill in Paltryville. But far from living in the mill, they rapidly discover they will be working there and even worse, there is a book in the library by a Dr Orwell, sinisterly shaped like Count Olaf's eye tattoo. Each morning Foreman Flacutono wakes the workers by banging metal pots together and directs them through a day of arduous logscraping, with only chewing gum for lunch and damp casserole for dinner. Their guardian, a terrifying man with a cloud of smoke where his head should be, known only as 'Sir', proposes unsatisfactorily that if they work in his mill, he'll 'try' to keep Count Olaf away. Klaus trips over Foreman Flacutono's strategically placed foot and his glasses get broken. He returns from the village eye doctor, none other than Dr Orwell, strangely changed. Violet believes Klaus has been hypnotised, and when they discover Dr Orwell's receptionist, Shirley, is really Count Olaf dressed horribly, her worst fears are confirmed.
Dr Orwell herself becomes the victim of the nasty accident at the lumbermill she, Foreman Flacutono and Shirley have arranged. Sir decides to pack the children off to their next dismal adventure at The Austere Academy.

~*Full series overview here on The Bent Bookworm!*~

Whoo-boy, here we go – The Miserable Mill picks up where The Wide Window left off, with the Baudelaires going off to yet ANOTHER guardian, this one the most mysterious and incomprehensible yet. Things are getting extremely repetitive at this point, so much so that I was tempted to not read this one. But the books are so easy to get through and so FAST to get through that I persevered.

This book gives a new spin to the Baudelaires mistreatment – they actually ARE slaves in this one, for the most part! Thrown into a sweatshop/poorhouse type sawmill, they are used and abused and try to hold each other together. Hope seems to be slipping away from them as they are too exhausted to do anything at the end of the day. But then Klaus breaks his glasses and has to go see the “optometrist.” And all is not as it seems…because nothing ever is, for these kids. Of course no one believes them when they say they are being stalked. Of course no one sees anything wrong with 3 children working in a sawmill – actually, someone does, but has no guts to do anything about it, typical of the “good” adults in these stories. In the end, they of course barely escape per the usual. However, this time, the ending doesn’t have them going off to another relative, it has them going somewhere else entirely, so maybe the next book will have a change in plot. I very much hope so because I really think even most children would be bored with these by now.

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The Miserable Mill (Series of Unfortunate Events, #4)

by Lemony Snicket

Reviewed by Liz (Bent Bookworm) on Feb 3, 2017

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