invisibleobserver13's review against another edition
3.0
I enjoyed reading the first three books in Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events. Klaus is my favorite character, followed very closely by his older sister Violet. Like Klaus, I am an avid reader and a bit more knowledgeable than some of the people around me. Violet's intelligence is more technical and scientific. It is amazing how she can invent things with everyday things around her. As for Sunny, there isn't much to her except that she is a toddler who makes up her own words (and somehow people know what she is saying) and bites things really hard, despite only having four teeth. Despite how smart and resourceful the Beaudelaire children are, they are still flawed and aren't as clever as they think they are. They, especially Klaus, have a habit of bragging that they know Count Olaf is in disguise and what his plans are, yet they do so in his presence (usually when they are alone with him), and don't go about proving it until after he has already defeated them in some way. Violet needs to pay attention and be more supportive of Klaus' theories and observations, such as when he realized that Uncle Monty wasn't bitten by the Mamba du Mal snake or when Aunt Josephine's so-called suicide not was filled with grammatical and spelling errors, despite the fact that Josephine was a grammar nazi. The writing is very repetitive and formulaic in that Lemony Snicket gives the reader vocabulary lessons and each entry in the series has been roughly the same with different details. All the adults in the series are useless, evil, or dead. However, I do want to finish reading the series just to find out what happens to the characters, despite how unlucky the Baudelaire children are.
nicnackerz's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
funny
mysterious
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.0
frumpleton's review against another edition
5.0
Thanks Mum and Dad for buying this awesome boxed set as a gift for me for Christmas one year in my childhood. I really enjoyed this set, started me off on a long awesome bout of reading through primary school.
tangleroot_eli's review against another edition
3.0
These three books are incredibly funny and made me laugh – out loud! Not great literature, even as children's books go, but with that sense of the macabre that parents are always trying to keep their kids away from and that most kids already have. Plus, it's sort of steampunk-lite (gears and inventions and a strange timelessness, despite the constant presence of things like walkie-talkies and credit cards and Jeeps), which I appreciate. I got tired of the narrator saying, "Sunny said, 'x,' which meant something like 'y.'" And I can see the pattern forming that might get old by the 13th book: Mr. Poe shuffles Baudelaires off to wacky new relative; Count Olaf finds them but in a disguise; no one believes the children; wacky relative dies hideous death; children's ingenuity saves them from Olaf at last possible instant. So I don’t really need to read the rest of the series.
margheritazaia's review against another edition
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
4.25
ktbxter's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
funny
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
I was really surprised to have enjoyed this book (all 3) as much as I did. I'd seen the film and the Netflix series so I knew what was going to happen but the writing style really got to me and really made me love the story. The fact that the blurb on the back literally tells you not to read it if you're looking for a happy story and, yeah, the humour just sits right with me.
pumpkinleikn's review against another edition
5.0
Série lue il y a longtemps, récemment remémorée par la série Netflix.
L'une des meilleures série de livres jeunesse, quand on aime l'humour noir.
L'une des meilleures série de livres jeunesse, quand on aime l'humour noir.
ximradletshuggx's review against another edition
4.0
3.6/5 stars (based on individual star ratings of each of the books)
jenmiller253's review against another edition
3.0
I like how he isn't afraid to use bigger words (and then defines them) but after the first book or two is always the same. Fun but repetitous, I wanted things to end happier but I know the whole point of the series is that they don't.