The Bad Beginning by Lemony Snicket (1999)

To celebrate my two years of writing reviews on epinions.com, I wanted to do something different - write my first book review. Enjoy.

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Why I bought a book in the first place:

Reading is such a difficult task for me, unless if it is something that I am truly interested in. I hated reading back in elementary, jr. high, high school, and in college - especially British Literature.

Why on earth would I even dare buy a book called "The Bad Beginning" by Lemony Snicket you ask?

I have a goal of writing a book myself and I really don't know where to begin. Oddly enough, I love creative writing and I, too, have many tales of unfortunate events that perhaps writing a child's book instead of an adult tale would make it a bit easier for me to focus on the goal.

So this purchase was more for research than to actually read a book for enjoyment. This is something that I rarely do - read for enjoyment that is, even though I have been known to do such things every now and then.

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Why Lemony Snicket in particular?

As I went to go see The Incredibles (see my incredible review) the other day, I noticed a theatrical marketing poster for a film "A Series of Unfortunate Events...Lemony Snicket" featuring Jim Carrey to come soon.

Then later that day, while at Target in the book section, I came across these Lemony Snicket books. They were packed in a trio set at about $27.00 a pop. Not really knowing much about Lemony Snicket, I wasn't sure if I wanted to part with $27.00. From the packaging, I gathered the stories would be on par with say, Harry Potter?

With clever packaging and a nice little letter plastered on the back of the package, written by no one else than Lemony Snicket, it will easily tempt those who are tempted to do wrong when you are told how bad it is to do something that is wrong that you shouldn't do at all! Maybe it is marketing genius at work here - but really, Lemony's letter makes you want to pick up the book just to find out what really unfortunate things do happen, since the letter warns that that is all there is.......

Surely, the unfortunate events couldn't compare to those I experienced in my childhood - could they?

So the search was on to find the first book, in a series of more than twelve books for sure, and not part of a package, that I could hopefully pass a short amount of time with.

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About The Bad Beginning: Book the First (A Series of Unfortunate Events)

With a total of thirteen chapters over 162 pages and some delightful images, I managed to read this book from start to end over five days. (Just about right for me. This is another reason I don't enjoy reading - it takes me forever to get through books as my mind works to create images as I read word for word, producing its own movie version of what happens page per page.) It comes in a nice hard cover edition, moderately priced at Sams Wholesale Club for $7.88 (list price is $11.99 / Published by Haper Collins / (c) 1999).

Quickly, we meet the Baudelaire children: Violet, Klaus, and Sunny. Quickly, we learn that their world turns upside down when Mr. Poe informs them that their home and parents were instantly destroyed in a fire. Mr. Poe is one of the family's best friends and executor of the Baudelaire estate. He is now in charge to take care of the children.

Prior to this, the Baudelaire children had not known what it was to have an unfortunate event in their lives. Let alone, would they have known what unfortunate events were to follow.

And surely to not tease you, the worst was yet to come.

Enter Count Olaf, a distant family relative that lived in the city, an old man who has an eye tattoed on his ankle and drawn everywhere else in his grimy home, takes custody of the three kids.

The rest of the story introduces Mr. Poe's family, Justice Strauss - Count Olfaf's neighbor who is a judge, and many of Olaf's thug friends.

Just to give you a glimpse of how things may seem quite derrogatory, and in this sense it means not suitable for children by any means, here are a couple of plots that may make any father or mother kringe whilst reading such a tale of unfortunate events to their beloved young ones:

1. Count Olaf, an old man who is a drunk and quite mean - say on the level of the wicked step mother, plans to trick Violet, who is only of the tender age of say 13/14, to marry him.

Several passages mention that Olaf would sleep with Violet or how at one point, Violet had images of waking up with Olaf in bed. Hmmmm?

2. One of Olaf's thug friends keeps hitting on defenseless Klaus, insinuating that he had some plans for him when Olaf would get rid of him, making it impossible to not make one wonder if there are pedophilial themes here.

Definitely, these plots may be best read by a teenager, one that is of the ripe mind and age to understand such concepts.

Anyway, the book has its moments of "I got you hooked" and you will keep turning the pages. It also has some very dry moments. Sometimes predictable. Sometimes too farfetched to believe.

But I must say, the book does get you to read it. That is a good thing for a book - where it manages to make you want to read the ending. Whether for good or for worse, but just to finish the story.

I admit though, it was great for a book like this, whether appropriate enough for youngsters, to include clever methods in the writing to introduce strong vocabulary words (even some words were tricky for me) and how they are used in the English language. I will praise Lemony Snicket for doing such a great job at that.

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I was proud that I finished the book. Did it help with my research? I would say yes. I found the writing style refreshing, although I must say that I had to assume that Lemony Snickett is the narrator - which will leave me wondering - does Lemony Snicket appear in a later book or how does he/she know the story of unfortunate events?

To be honest with you, I may never find out. For me, this first book wasn't filled with enough charm or curiosity for me, personally, and by this I mean only as myself and no one else, to pick up Book Two. I am not completely against it, but I am not in any rush to continue following the series of unfortunate events.

I have too many of my own to resolve at this very moment.