Rating: Summary: tragedy not to be missed Review: the adventures of the baudelaire orphans will keep you coming back for more. violet, klaus, and sunny, each with their own talents (inventing, reading and biting, respectively) are likable characters trying to escape the evil count olaf as he tries to steal their fortune. the first adventure is a great way to begin the tragedy that these children suffered. each book is better than the last. as lemony snicket chronicles the lives and misfortunes of these three orphans, you just wish somehting would go right in their lives. but hey, that would take all the fun out of it....
Rating: Summary: this book rocks man! Review: I don't have too much to say, but I recomend this book for just about any one. An interestig twist between mystory, mysory and humor told by a hilarious auther (Lemony snicket.) This book is a wonderful read and a great way to learn new words.
Rating: Summary: this book rocks man! Review: I don't have too much to say, but I recomend this book for just about any one. An interestig twist between mistory, mysory and humor told by a hilarious auther (Lemony snicket.) This book is a wonderful read and a great way to learn new words.
Rating: Summary: not one of the greats Review: I've read reviews comparing the author to Edward Gorey and Roald Dahl (Gorey makes the most sense, especially since the gothic background and language seems at times an homage to, at times a a rip-off of, the past master's work). I found the books in the "unfortunate events" series to be, for the most part, like a day-old cookie or pre-opened soda. Looks promising, but ends up tasting stale and flat. There's just something missing that greats like Gorey and Dahl never lacked - let's call it warmth. What made Edward Gorey a classic author was not merely his use of the gothic or the grotesque, but the understated humor, the heart, with which he described his characters' pitfalls. One feels no such warmth within these books. Cynicism and sarcasm alone are fun, but they ultimately make for a thin read; the classics, the truly great books, have more substance than evidenced by this series so far.
Rating: Summary: ...if you like this... Review: ...might I recommend Awful End by Phillip Ardagh. It is a very funny childrens book from an English author with many similar traits to the wonderful Lemony Snicket.A dark tale with black humour and delightful from beginning to end. Not quite as good as Lemony but a good one to try.
Rating: Summary: The cool beginning and the awesome ending. Review: I love this book Violet,Klaus and sunny get in so much trouble when they hear the bad news from Mr.Poe and have to to stay with the villain Count Olaf and the sequels are awesome also I can't wait until the eighth book comes out, The hostile hospital.the second,third,fourth,fifth,sixth,and seventh book are awesome it's one serie's of unfortunate events you don't want to miss.
Rating: Summary: GREAT!! Review: I want to start out by saying that all of the Lemony Snicket books are great. They're funny and interesting. One of the great things about these books is that they aren't funny in the ways that most books are, if you were just looking for humor in normal places, these books wouldn't be half as good. However, if you read carefully, you will see how humorous they really are. Also, things that would be mildly sad in other books are some of the things that make these books good. Otherwise sad things can even be funny. As a Harry Potter obsesive, I think that these books aren't quite as good as Harry Potter, but they're close. They are good books to read while waiting for future Harry Potter books.
Rating: Summary: The best book ever! Review: "The Bad Beginning" is a starter in one of the best series around. It has everything that should be in a bestseller. I don't really read a lot - but when my sister gave me this book - I couldn't put it down. It has action, adventure, drama, and sorrow. If you like books that you can't put down, and books that are suspenseful, then read this book!
Rating: Summary: "Eh" is all I can say Review: I wouldn't call this a bad book - and yes I did remember that it was a children's book - but I wouldn't say it was on my "books to remember" list. My one main gripe with this book is the explainations of big words that, to be honest, weren't big at all. I can tell you for a fact that even a six year old knows what the word "rickety" means. Some of the explaination took paragraphs too. Now I would simply omit those parts, but that did interupt the flow of the book quite a bit and kept me from enjoying it. This is a hard book to get into and the lack of character development makes it hard to care what happens to the three Baudelaire children. The book was boring. You might think that I shouldn't say that because I'm an "adult", but if I lost interest a child is twice as likely to lose interest. But still I say that this book isn't horrible, but I would recomend it to a younger age group than 9-12. Perhaps an age group of around 7-12, but that's kind of insulting the 12 year olds who undoubtedly would take offense to the little deffinitions. By 12 most children have learned what "literaly" means and don't need a whole page telling them. This is a kind of wishy-washy review, what else can I say but... "eh" to such a wishy-washy book.
Rating: Summary: One-dimensional, emotionless , and just not very funny. Review: Five stars. One star. Hardly anything in between. What's areview-reader to think? I picked this book up one night at[abookstore] while they just happened to be running a promotion on Lemony Snicket. I was in the mood for something witty to feed my children's book habit and, after reading the promising letter back of the (beautifully designed) book and soaking up to [the bookstore's] promo vibes, I bought it. Perhaps because I had such high expectations, or perhaps because at 18 I'm just too old to understand such things, I was greatly disappointed. The storyline feels one-dimensional. The book carries no emotion, even regarding the children's loss of their parents. The book back's letter promises hilarity, but the contents are not really that funny. Baby Sunny's people-biting ceases to be amusing after the first couple of times she does it. Violet and Klaus have personalities only on the most superficial level: Violet likes to invent, Klaus likes to read. That's it. The characters don't sneer or whimper or even shout very often--they simply say whatever it is they're saying. (Now I know why my junior high English teacher didn't allow us to use the word "said" when we wrote stories. It gets boring very quickly.) The "mystery"--why is Count Olaf, who wants the children's inheritance money, forcing Violet to act in the Marvelous Marriage play, which just happens to also include a real judge--is not very mysterious, at least to an old geezer like myself. And lastly, Mr. Lemony Snicket takes a whole page near the end of the book just to warn the reader of the only thing in the story that might be considered a twist. I am baffled that reviewers compare A Series of Unfortunate Events with the ineffably sublime Harry Potter. I understand (and wholeheartedly agree with) comparisions of J.K. Rowling with Roald Dahl and even Shakespeare. (Do a theme analysis and just tell me what you see. There's a reason people keep reading that stuff.) JKR is a genius. Lemony Snicket, or the powers behind him, seem to have just decided one day to write a book. My advice: don't get this just because you're craving an HP fix. Pick it up in the bookstore and actually read a couple of chapters. If you like what you read, then go right ahead and get it. But do not purchase this book without having sampled it first. You may just find it to be missing the good stuff.
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