A Series of Unfortunate Events #5: The Austere Academy CD

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Summary: A Series of Unfortunate Events, The Austere Academy
Review: This book is called: A Series Of Unfortunate Events, The Austere Academy, by Lemony Snicket and I recommend this book because... Well just listen and you'll find out. Its setting describes an apartment that is forty-eight of eighty-four stories high, what is soon to be their new home. But before I go on, I will give you a quote told by the author, Lemony Snicket. "If you have just picked up this book, then it is not too late to put it back down. Like the previous books in A SERIES OF UNFORUNARE EVENTS, there is nothing to be found in there pages but misery, despair, and you still have time to choose someth ing else to read." Mr. Poe, a man who has helped them since their parents died, has to go to find their friends who Count Olaf has kidnapped, so he has to leave early and is unable to go on with them. Oh, and by the way, the elevator is OUT, so it is out of order. You'll find out what I mean when you read the book, so read it!!

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Summary: Not all Stories Have a Happy Ending
Review: A Review by Orion

In the fifth book of, "A Series of Unfortunate Events, by Lemony Snicket," Count Olaf has once again found the Baudelaire orphans. Now Sunny, Violet and Klaus must find out what sinister plans Count Olaf has this time, and how they can stop him from stealing the Baudelaire fortune. What's more is that now they have a horrible Carmelita Spats, and vice Principal Nero terrorizing and making crude punishments for them. Will the horrors never end at "The Austere Academy?"

In this book I like how it describes each of the main characters. When Lemony Snicket describes Carmelita Spats, he starts off by saying,"If you were to give a gold medal to the most undelightful person on Earth, it would have to go to Carmelita Spats."
Another thing I like about "The Austere Academy" is how it's the only story to not have a happy tale. If you read the summary on the back of the book it tells you, "If you were looking for a story about three happy youngsters, look else where." The only down fall to this book is that the level of reading was very easy. The hardest word in this book was "veranda," and the book even tells you what it means.

I would recommend this book to people you don't mind an unhappy ending. This is an extremely easy book to follow with moderately hard words. Still over all it is great book.
I would give this book 4 out of 5 stars.

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Summary: the monsterous monster and the ingenious inventor
Review: count olaf is back again, lookin good, and keeping up his disgusting disguises and evil schemes. this time he has running equipment to so he can escape from mr. poe-an idiotic banker who is atually a sweet man , but refuses to believe the baudelaires that coach gengis is count olaf, until he runs away kidnapping the quagmire triplets, [ the baudelaires best friends in prufrock prepatory] who help them escape from coach gengis and find themselves trapped with him. beware nasty carmelita spats because she is a cake sniffing girl and may give you a nasty nickname.

i am the biggest fan of violet baudelaire, the ingenious inventor, who, in ths book, invents a stapling device from ingriedients used in a side dish and also invents noisy shoes to avoid her siblings to get stubbed on their toe by terriotrial crabs living in the orphan shack.

also in this book, mr. snicket describes Isadora's feeling towards Klaus, Klaus's feeling towards Isadora, and Violet and Duncans feeling towards each other which makes the books warm, pleasant, friendly and lovely even though it is filled with misfortune, misfortune and more misfortune. in this book too, the secret of the three mysterious intials called VFD are opened like the chamber of secrets, which tempts the reader, how ever hard mr. snicket warns them not to be tempted, to by the rest of the books in the series. this is what we call excellent marketing.

let alone marketing, lemony snicket uses such interesting words and nice pharses that make you laugh even though the tale is wrapped with woe.mr snicket also improved my vocablury with words like cakesniffing, somniferous, etc. so, when you run across a lemony snicket book, grab a copy quikly, you will know that you have made the right choice.

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Summary: The Austere Academy is an AWESOME book!!!!
Review: Lemony Snicket once again puts his creative thougths together and comes up with the fifth great book in A Series of Unfortunate Events. The Austere Academy is filled with funky characters that will amaze and sometimes even disturb you! Such as the clueless Mr. Poe who can never see that the evil Count Olaf is right under his nose in pathetically-put-together-disguises. The imagination of the unthinkable is described in details that makes you feel as if you're experiencing the unfortunate events yourself! Like the room the Baudelaire orphans are forced to stay in. It's a small shack with terrible wall paper that will make your eyes water, obnoxious crabs that will make your toes ache, and dripping goo that will disgust you in every way!!! The more you read into Lemony Snicket's books the deeper your feelings will become for each unique character. This is definitely a-must-read-book!!!!!

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Summary: Review of The Austere Academy
Review: I just finished third grade and love to read books in series. The Austere Academy was one of my favorites in this series, and I have read them all! I can't wait to read the 10th book this fall when it is available! I liked No. 5 because the Quagmire triplets were in some of the same situations as the Baudelaire children - they also were orphans and had a fortune that Count Olaf was trying to pilfer. There were more unfortunate events in this book than others. What I thought was the funniest was when Sunny had to work as a secretary and make her own staples! The orphans are also forced to attend preparatory school where they must listen to a 6-hour violin program where a person who does not know how to play is the performer. They also have to do S.O.R.E., which Count Olaf says stands for Special Orphan Running Exercises. I highly recommend this book and the others in the series!

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Summary: Will the Real Lemony Snicket Please Stand Up!
Review: I am surprised and saddened to report that on reading books one through five of the Unfortunate Events series, I have discovered with this volume that Lemony Snicket is a fraud, "fraud" here meaning that there is more than one author passing themselves off as the cranky curmudgeon who writes these books. Part of the appeal of the Snicket books is that the author is sort of anonymous but at least sort of the same person. I was amazed to learn as an adult that there was no Franklin W. Dixon who wrote the Hardy Boys books of my youth, but rather a series of writers ghosting as the ficticious author. But surely, I thought, Lemony is gonna be one fellow all the way through. And then we get to the Austere Academy which blew that theory all to pieces.
The tone of the book is much different than the previous volumes. Granted, horrible things still happen to our unfortunate orphans, and the style tries to mimic the first books, but the word usage and sentence structure and style is, at times, wildly different. In a way, the writing is much more adult in the way it is presented. The first four books played pretty loose and were very conversational between author and reader, as if Lemony were telling a terrible story to a younger group of children. They also explained things and expounded on ideas that may be new to a younger reader. The Austere Academy, however, is a much more straightforward young adult novel in approach and becomes stilted when it tries to be conversational. The choice of words, phrases and concepts used are sometimes surprisingly more mature and advanced as if written by a person used to dealing with an older audience. One of the key elements of the series, defining larger words in an informative and humorous way, is very different as simple words and concepts are expounded upon, and larger words, like "tyrannical," pop up and are passed over as normal parts of childhood speech. The characters are essentially the same, but in a very rote way. Sunny, the baby of the bunch, is especially different as the second author has her think and act much older than she should be able to. Her four sharp teeth, unlike the first books, play almost no part as the writer seems to forget that she has a tendancy to bite everything in sight. Her speech, always garbled, was almost always expounded upon in the first books giving a meaning to what she has tried to say, but in the Academy, she just blurts out odd words and the story just keeps on going much of the time. Count Olaf, too, is sort of downplayed as he is but one of a number of sinister figures that wreck the orphan's lives rather than the evil mastermind who is waiting around every corner. I could go on, but you get the point.
This book isn't bad, in fact it is a decent story, but it is more of a straightforward (and a trifle bland) version of the unfortunate events depicted. Much of the wit, lunacy and charm of the earlier volumes is severely lacking. So either Lemony Snicket is more than one writer (which I suspect), or between the fourth and fifth books, somebody started slipping him some Prozac to even him out.
Oh, the book would only get two stars, but it redeems itself by introducing the term "Cakesniffer" into the English language.

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Summary: A GREAT BOOK
Review: This book is about two sisters and their brother. They are always having bad things happen to them. In the first book of the series their parents die in a fire. They go to live a distant relative named Count Olaf. He is a mean man who only wanted to get the childrens fortune. He tries many ways of trying to get the fortune. In each book the children go and live somewhere else and with a different person but Cout Olaf always finds them and is always in a different disguise. Count Olaf never gets away with his plan but he always escapes and returns again to cause the children more misfortune. In this book the children, Violet, Sunny and Klaus, go away to a boarding school called Prufrock Prepartory School. When they get there they go to vice principal Nero's office. The vice principal has many odd rules like if you are late to a class you have your glass taken away at your next meal. They run into Count Olaf again there, but no one but their two new friends, Isadora and Duncan, believes that it is him. Count Olafs plan this time is one of his sneakiest plans ever. There the children are forced to live in a crummy shack and live without many other comforts. To find out the rest of this book you need to read it yourself. I thought this was a great book. It is thought provoking and you want to know what will happen next. It was one of the best books I have read. If you like suspence and not knowing what will happen next I would encourage you to read this book.

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Summary: The Baudelaires book 5
Review: The author of The Austere Academy is Lemony Snicket. Every book in the whole series is always dreadful and mischievous. At the same time it is full of action. The main characters are Klaus, Sunny, and Violet Baudelaire, and Count Olaf .The Baudelaire's are always against Count Olaf and he is always following them, so he can steal the fortune their dead parents left behind. This book takes place at a boarding school. In the book Count Olaf is after the fortune again! This time he is a gym teacher, while the Baudelaires are forced to live in the Orphans Shack instead of where all the other students live. Count Olaf asks the Baudelaires to run laps at night instead of sleeping so they get so tired they get expelled. Will they get expelled or not?
I like this book and all of the books in the series. I liked this one especially because the Baudelaire's meet the Quagmires and they helped the Baudelaires. I also liked it because in this book and all the others in the series, so far there is never a happy ending. I like not having a non-happy ending because it isn't what you would expect from a book. I also like it because there are two enemies instead of one. One of them is Count Olaf (Duh), and Vice Principal Nero. Vice Principal Nero is the principal of Prufrock Prep.
The theme of this book is to be brave no matter where you are or what condition you are in. I think the theme is bravery because if you want to live your troubles if you are rich you still have to be brave.
I definitely recommend this book or even the whole series for someone looking for a book that is beyond the ordinary. This book is out of the ordinary because there is more than you expect from a book, in this book. This book is out of the ordinary because everything doesn't seem like a book it seems like a real life adventure that never ends.

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Summary: Don't let the momento mori pass you by
Review: Further dire straights for the siblings three. Now our Baudelaire friends have been plunged into the depths of academia. In effect, they are no longer being put into the perilous hands of pseudo (and increasingly dying) relatives. Instead, they find themselves plunked into Prufrock Prep (motto Momento Mori). Their Vice Principal Nero is just as insane as their last guardian, but at least his set of crazy rules aren't too terrible. Though the Baudelaires do have to sleep in a dank, crab infested, fungus dripping shack, they're given enough to eat and new friends. Enter the Quagmire Triplets (of which there are two). Like the Baudelaires, their family died under mysterious fire related circumstances. Such similarities don't end there, however. The Quagmires also have a fortune awaiting them. With these new friends, the Baudelaires face up to the newest evil scheme of Count Olaf and his ridiculous disguises. This time, however, something goes terribly wrong.

You know what I'd like to see in the series? I've only read five of these books thus far, and maybe this has already happened, but what I would really like to see someday is Count Olaf actually fool the Baudelaires with a disguise. Wouldn't that be interesting? But I suppose part of the point of the books is that Olaf really is a terrible terrible actor, despite his aspirations. This particular book in the series is a welcome addition. The first book established the plot, and the next three had a similar formula. With "The Austere Academy" we get a whole new element thrown in. The Quagmires are basically just as kind and intelligent as the Baudelaires, but with (ha ha) a little less luck.

I've come to view these books as a kind of updated "Alice In Wonderland" for our generation. Like the Alice books, the Baudelaires are the only sane people in a world of half-crazed, maddened, and useless adults. Unlike Alice, however, they've an evil Count on their trail, constantly attempting to get his oily paws on their fortune. This is also the first book that I've noticed where Sunny begins using real words on a regular basis. It just goes to show that though the formula may remain the same, the characters are growing in spite of their circumstances. It bodes badly for the Baudelaires, and well for the series in general.

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Summary: Wowwwwwwwwwww!!!!!!
Review: I loved this book! It is really good. All of Lemony Snicket's books are good, but starting at five, they get reeally good! I would definitley recomend this book. It is full of adventure, and suspense. Read the Austere Acadamy today!!!!!!!