The Reptile Room by Lemony Snicket (1999)

Ever since Harry Potter has managed to grasp my undivided attention, I ve been on the lookout for good children s books. Lemony Snicket caught my attention in the search. Hailed as a rising children s book writer by Time magazine, and also having a series suspiciously titled A Series of Unfortunate Events , I decided to pick up the first few books to see what the fuss was all about.

For $9.95 retail price, the second book is a small hardcover 190-page book complete with illustrations every forty pages or so. The decoration on the inside cover, particularly the words Ex Libris , wrapped in vines set against a Victorian pattern, is clearly an attempt to create a sense of wonder for the young reader, as if the book belonged to a dark, dreadful city and is not in actuality a mere children s book.

In the first book, the three Baudelaire kids, Violet, Klaus and Sunny lose their parents to an accidental fire. The book hints this fire may not have been an accident, but this is something the author intends on revealing later. They are left to a huge family fortune, but unable to receive it, until they are eighteen. Now in need of a home, their lawyer, Mr. Poe, had the three children sent to the care of Count Olaf, a distant relative. Count Olaf, the evil villain of the series, treats the kids in the most horrible ways, starving and giving them a dirty cramped room, all the while scheming to marry fourteen-year old Violet and kill her, in order to then become the inheritor of the family fortune. Carrying out his plot, he encages Sunny and Klaus using them as collatoral to force a marriage between Violet and him. Without ruining the plot, the kids manage to escape and overthrow his plans, and Mr. Poe sends them to another home.

The second book follows up immediately after this. Mr. Poe takes them to the care of their uncle, Dr. Montgomery, a prominent herpetologist (one who studies snakes). Things go well, the kids are having a wonderful time and find Dr. Montgomery to be a gentle, caring being, far different from their previous caretaker, Count Olaf. Dr. Montgomery s previous aide disappears, and so he hires a new one, a mysterious man called Stephano. The kids recognize him to be Count Olaf in disguise but before they can tell anyone, Stephano or Count Olaf warns them that if they speak, he will cause bodily harm to one of them, and to prove his point, reveals a long, sharp, curved knife from his pocket. Plot revealed past this point will spoil the book for potential readers, so I will go no further. However parents can rest assured, as with most children books, the kids find a way to outwit the villain and reveal his scheme.

The Reptile Room is equally scary in comparison to the first. The villain, Count Olaf is dreadful. He threatens the kids repeatedly in the book, one time even brandishing the long, sharp knife underneath the table, and running it along Violet s knee. It is a scary image, and bound to put some fear into the reader. There is also the henchman of Count Olaf who makes a brief appearance in this book. Although he does not have a major role, he does have hooks for arms and is another violent image this book may hold for young readers. The scare in the series overall, comes more from the sheer terror that these villains are willing to inflict, and is different from other kid series, like Goosebumps, where the terror is mostly perceived but not real.

The benefit of reading The Reptile Room, and applies to all Lemony Snicket books, comes from the strong vocabulary that is taught throughout the book. The writing is vivid, easy to understand and contains gems of vocabulary inserted randomly throughout the book. In awkward moments, the author will suddenly pull the reader aside, explain a complicated word, and then thrust the reader back into the action. Exceptional words that show up in The Reptile Room are tenebrous , and brummagem , both of which I did not know myself until I read this book.

Where The Reptile Room fails to impress, is when it is compared to the first book, which seems to have broken ground in creating a horrifying, dreadfully pessimistic but exciting story. The Reptile Room utilizes the same formulaic approach, the author continually warning the reader of the further dreadful events that await the reader. For the first book, it is particularly appealing and unique of the book to be told as a reader that you are about to face a depressing and sad story. However, the message becomes far overused and repetitive, as the reader now expects the worst to happen.

In addition, the plot of the second is awfully simplistic and plain. Due to the author s over abundant, pessimistic voice, there are clear hints that something of the sort is going to happen, and what might have been considered a twist, like Stephano revealing himself as Count Olaf can be anticipated.

As a series, I found myself uninterested with the remaining books of the series, because The Reptile Room seemingly has established that a plot formula was going to be used in each book and perhaps the other books further in the series.

The similarities in the two books are as follows:

1) Putting the kids in a dangerous situation.
2) Telling or hinting to the reader about what tragedy will happen, effectively making the reader helpless.
3) The kids using their wits and skills; Violet s specialty is inventing, Klaus is reading and Sunny is biting, reveal or foil the villain s plot.
4) The villain escapes to live another day, and the kids get sent to another home, where they are likely to face Count Olaf s evil plans yet again.

This may not be true of the whole series, but because these books used such similar plot structures, it made the book far less interesting than if Snicket had decided to introduce a new villain, or a new dire circumstance for the kids, instead of continuing to overuse death threats from Count Olaf as the book s evil.

Overall, The Reptile Room is a decent read. Clear and fast paced, it took me no more than an hour to breeze through. However, at such a high retail price for a children s book, and the plot being somewhat similar to the first, The Reptile Room may be one to pass up. Still, if you don't mind the price tag and are looking to complete the collection, this is not a purchase you will regret.