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The Bad Beginning (A Series of Unfortunate Events, Book 1)

The Bad Beginning (A Series of Unfortunate Events, Book 1)

List Price: $11.99
Your Price: $8.99
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Exciting!
Review: Being a children's author myself I know how hard it is to write an exciting book that appeals to both kids and adults. Well Mr. Snicket has done it. The adventures of these wonderful children is like Oliver Twist times three. If you are a parent your kids will not only love the writing but learn quite a lot. Lemony has a very clever way of teaching new words. And he does this at the same time he keeps the story compelling. Thank you for a great read.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Dry wit, dark humor.
Review: If you like dry wit, wordplay, and dark humor, this is your book. The basic plot is not terribly original: Orphans forced to live with a mean relative who is only interested in their money. It's the way this story is told that sets it apart.

Several reviewers claim that there is nothing positive in this book. Not true. These children are very smart, and they use their intelligence to overcome (sort of) the obstacles they face. There is a lot of emphasis here on education and reading. There is also a lot of emphasis on family. The children clearly care about each other, and go to great lengths to protect each other.

At one point, the evil guardian does slap one of the children. And the guardian's nasty friends do make comments about the oldest girl's looks. Contrary to some comments in other reviews, these incidents are not handled in a graphic way.

If your child is (or you are) hyper-sensitive, or very easily frightened, this may not be the best book for either of you. If your child is (or you are) intelligent and imaginative, you'll have a great time with this book.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Worst book ever!
Review: Ugg! This was the most awful book I've ever read in my entire life! NOT!!!!!!!!!! This book is a very very great book. None of the endings are happy ones. But let me warn you parents, the 2nd book has two curse words in it. (Their one page 94 and 96). Just to let you know. Please be cautious. I won't even let my little sister read that book until I cross out those nasty words.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Morbidly Funny --- Just the Thing for an 8-10 year old
Review: As soon as I finished this book, I immediately ordered the next 4 in the series. I have read many children's books in which a horrible mess or bad event takes place and through an impossible, over-the-top, unbelievable, sugar-sweet course of events (Holes by Louis Sachar, for example), everything turns out hunky-dorey, right-as-rain, golly-gee-great in the end. The Bad Beginning turns that sap around 100% and offers an hysterical Series of Unfortunate Events, in which Murphy's Law prevails at every turn. The characters are delightful, the story-telling is fantastic, and the tone, especially the running vocabulary lessons, is light-hearted and personal. Now I have to stop writing this review so I can go start the second book.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: The most creative book I've read in a long time!
Review: I just love this book! Just the way it's written is extremely amusing. And I love the way he defines words. In case all the people who have complained about this habit of Mr. Snicket's haven't noticed, he doesn't actually give a definition or the word, it is mostly to add humour. Ie; (quote from "The Wide Window", his third book and the one I happen to have in front of me ^_^: "But even so, the three children were eager to leave the Anxious Clown, and not just because the garish restaurant-- the word 'garish' here means 'filled with balloons, neon lights, and obnoxious waiters'-- was filled with balloons, neon lights, and obnoxious waiters.") Okay, that is not the best quote, but I'm not going to search through the whole book looking for a better one! Anyways, you get the idea that he isn't actually trying to define the word for you. I just love how he does that! It adds a very distinctive and creative touch! And this book was SO funny! Hilarious even! After reading three of the series so far, I have laughed every time someone has died. And it's not just because I'm some sort of sicko (I hope ^_^)! The way he writes everything to sound so serious and sad is somehow quite funny! I don't know how the guy does it... talk about talent!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: The tragedy of pasta puttanesca!
Review: This tragic, but unbearably funny novel for youngsters is the first of a series entitled A Series of Unfortunate Events. Frankly, it's almost embarrassing finding oneself giggling uncontrollably at the misfortunes of the Baudelaire orphans. The story begins when they are informed by charmingly distracted Mr. Poe that their parents have been killed in a house fire which has destroyed everything the considerable family fortune had purchased for them. Things go from pretty dismal to astoundingly worse as the children are eventually trucked to live with a shirttail relative named Count Olaf who even attempts to marry fourteen year-old Violet to get her inheritance. This is a great book (and promising series) for young readers (adults as well) with highly developed sense of irony. There's even a marvelous, if ultimately tragic, scene involving pasta puttanesca.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Wow.
Review: At first I was expecting a boring book about how the kids miss their parents or something. But I took a chance at reading it coz I was curious about the bads things that were going to happen. And they do really happen. I recommend it to anybody who's searching for something intriging and amusing to read.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Laugh Out Loud Comedy
Review: The Bad Beginning, the first novel in "The Series of Unfortunate Events," is a great novel to start out a series that soon will be loved by all. Within the first pages the Baudelaire children learn that their parents have perished in a fire and that they must go and live with a long lost family member named Count Olaf. What the children don't know is that he has a plot to rob the children of the fortune that they were left with from their parents. Throughout this book you will experience great writing and drawings, marvelous characters, and laugh out loud comedy. The comedy in this book was very funny although it is just consists of snippy little sentences. Read this book for an ultimate reading pleasure.

HAPPY READING!

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: a series of unfortunate events - and he's not kidding
Review: I bought this book expecting something darkly whimsical, something like Dahl, or Gorey, or Burton, perhaps. I wasn't entirely impressed. There wasn't enough whimsy for my taste, and I found the travails of the Baudelaire children not amusing but truly *depressing*. One horrible thing after another happens to the children, and it's really not as amusing or as charming as you'd think. As Mr. "Snicket" says, in the opening line of the book, "If you are interested in stories with happy endings, you would be better off reading some other book." And he's not kidding. Another reviewer remarked on the similarity of this book to the part in Harry Potter where he lives under the stairs "before the happy bit". I have to disagree. That was a good kind of melancholy - this is just plain awful. I also found the vocabulary lessons on every other page to be irritating. It was almost cute the first couple of times, but after a while, you just want to bludgeon Mr. "Snicket" to death with a dictionary. I also couldn't figure out if this book was intended for children or for adults. If it was written for children, I might question Mr. Snicket's taste - most of the adults are grotesque pedophilic monsters who constantly leer and drool over the children. Is he writing these books as proscribed therapy as a sex-offender? If it was written for adults, it comes off entirely too condescending and simple. Still, it has a certain.. je ne sais quoi. I would recommend that most people borrow this first book from a friend or the library before deciding to buy the series. However, if you are a truly mean-spirited, black-hearted, lecherous, leering villain, I recommend you run out and buy them all today: this series was made for you!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: This is a book to read!
Review: This is a great book.It is very well written. You'll never guess what is going to happen next. The writting covers up for all the horrid things that happen. I strongly suggest this book to children around my age of ten.


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