This is a short review of the entire book series called A Series of Unfortunate Events. (Funnily enough, the complete collection is called The Complete Wreck :p)
All my life, I’ve seen references and recommendations for these books. I’m pretty sure I had the first volumes in my hands several times as a young boy. We even watched the first half of the movie in elementary school, and I remember being annoyed at the time that I never found out how it ended.
But I never read any of it.
Then, almost ten years ago, Netflix released an adaptation of the books. It looked interesting, so me and my sister watched the first season. (We watched a lot of series and films together. Most notably, we watched all of Avatar: The Last Airbender together, and at least half of all Doctor Who seasons.) We thought it was really interesting and well done.
As these things go, however, life gets in the way, you lose the habit of watching a show together, and at some point you’ve forgotten about the show entirely. For the second time in my life, I saw the first part of this series and was annoyed I never learned how it ended!
And that is how I decided to finally read all the books!
As usual, it’s not really a formal review. It’s more a list of my thoughts, remarks, insights as an author, etcetera.
This review is spoiler free for the first part. After the spoiler barrier (clearly indicated), I go into a bit more depth and have to give away spoilers.
What’s the idea?
The first book starts with the Baudelaire siblings—Violet, Klaus, and Sunny—learning that their parents perished in a terrible fire. They have to move in with a new guardian, Count Olaf, who turns out to be a villain who is after their parents’ considerable fortune.
Book after book, they move to new guardians (or simply other places where they hope to be safe), but Count Olaf chases them. Every time, they have to figure out his evil scheme and make sure it doesn’t succeed.
It’s a really simple, strong, effective idea. The story immediately starts off with an interesting event. The main villain has very understandable motives, while his many disguises and tricks allow for creativity and fun stories. You are left wondering why their parents were so rich, but most of all the idea immeidately makes you sympathetic. While reading, you constantly want their lives to stop being … a series of unfortunate events.
What did I like?
Writing Style
The writing style jumps out immediately.
The author has found a style that allows discussing these unfortunate events and using complex words without the story becoming too drab or too hard to read for children.
Every time some complicated phrase or word is mentioned, it’s followed by something like “a phrase which here means XX”. Sometimes this is an actual explanation. Often this is a funny interpretation of the word or phrase.
At the same time, the first book literally starts with a small quote “Beatrice—dear, dearest, dead”. These somewhat morbid and mysterious quotes continue throughout most of the books. It’s an odd way to start children’s literature, isn’t it? But it works within the entire narrative style and “vibe” that’s created.
On the same topic, there are also all these mysterious interjections. The “author” of the book, Lemony Snicket, is actually part of the story himself. He is researching these events so he can “release them to the general public”. The author often talks about visiting the same place as the scene in the story. Or he gives some remark about the trouble he had to go through to gather information about what happened here. This is, again, sometimes actual added information, and sometimes just a funny sequence of spying behavior.
As I read this series, I literally saw my own writing style change in real-time. Suddenly, I found myself using a difficult word and then “explaining” the word in a funny way. Suddenly, I found myself using more active narrators in stories, who would add remarks or reveal they influenced the story in some way. I try not to copy, of course, but it’s fun to see this slip in. And I feel it enhances my own writing style, so I kept most of that in.
Good Setup / Plot Framework
Additionally, as stated, the core idea lends itself to a very active plot, which flows easily. With this setup—Baudelaires are orphans, to inherit a fortune, villain tries to become their legal guardian so they get that fortune—you get a story framework for free:
- They go to a new guardian. This allows showing some new personalities, going to a new part of the world, introducing some fun new things.
- Then Count Olaf shows up. Sometimes in an obvious way, sometimes later or more subtly.
- Count Olaf enacts a scheme; they try to combat it.
- In the climax, Count Olaf appears to win, but they beat him at the last second.
- They go to a new guardian—and the cycle repeats.
The first few books follow this template very closely. But they are far from identical or repetitive. In fact, they might be the books I liked the best. Within this framework, there is more than enough leeway to change it up and add variety. For example,
- The guardian can be kind, or not, or something in between.
- Their new location can be welcoming, or not, or something in between.
- The Baudelaires can use past experiences and growth to change their mind-set or behavior in this new place.
- After a while, old characters or mysteries can return.
- Count Olaf can introduce himself into their lives in thousands of ways, of course.
- They can beat Count Olaf themselves, or with the help of an adult, or by finally getting through to the adults that it’s Count Olaf again, or some other reason might send Count Olaf away, etcetera.
The author seems to realize this in the first few books. But then … he doesn’t? Strangely enough, after a while the series completely moves away from this framework. And while you’d think this adds much-needed variety, I found the books to grow stale and repetive instead. The author could have stuck to the framework and been much more creative within it, if you ask me. The series would’ve kept its identity, while exploring the boundaries of what its setup allows.
Absurd Humor
Finally, I think there’s an absurdity and humor to the series that works really well (for the most part).
Adults are comically useless at all times. It’s sometimes actually frustrating to read because of how realistic it is. It’s also one of the (very) few children’s books that actually depicts adults as the dumb ones instead of the kids, which is refreshing.
Really odd situations are often treated as completely serious, and it works. In one book, the baby (Sunny) climbs an entire skyscraper just by using her sharp teeth, and it’s what solves their entire predicament then. It’s bonkers. But somehow, when I read it, I was like “yeah, seems fair” and continued.
I found the series quite witty and entertaining. Again, this even slipped into my writing a bit, as I wrote stories with far more absurd humor and levity during the month that I read these books.
What did I not like?
Repetitiveness
Let’s start with my problems with repetitiveness.
The somewhat stale nature over the overall plot, in the final books, is not even my main concern. I can understand that. Heck, I’m writing the 13th Wildebyte Arcades book right now, and I threw out my first attempt completely because I was accidentally writing almost an identical plot to earlier books. A franchise/series is defined by its main characters and “formula”, so you have to maintain this precarious balance of sticking to the formula while trying to come up with new stories. And whereas I am free to add a lot of magic/science-fiction in Wildebyte Arcades, this was never really a part of A Series of Unfortunate Events. So I can understand this formulaic nature and not finding a way out.
What’s more annoying is repetitiveness on a smaller scale. Literally repeated sentences, paragraphs, explanations, unanswered mysteries.
I stopped counting how many times the author …
- Explains again and again how mysterious the Baudelaire’s lives are, and how much they don’t know. Oh such mystery. Oh they don’t know this and they don’t know that.
- Explains again and again how every individual sibling thinks about a situation, feels, or plans to do. In a very stereotypical way. (Violet always wants to invent stuff, Klaus always wants to read stuff, and Sunny always wants to bite/cook stuff.)
- Adds another minor character only to have them be useless, disappear mysteriously, or die in almost the exact same way with exactly zero consequences.
Near the end I was literally skipping over these entire parts. I knew exactly what they’d contain, and I missed nothing by skipping. I could recognize the repetitive blocks of text by sight :p
I just don’t see why it’s needed. It wasn’t that obvious in the first books. If someone is reading volume 10, and especially if they’re already half way, they will know who Violet/Klaus/Sunny are and their overall personality. And if someone is reading volume 10, and you just added another character who says mysterious things and never explains anything for no reason …
Unresolved Mysteries
… your reader loses faith.
There’s this practical tip that I would give new authors: in your first chapter, promise the reader something, and also resolve it. Prove to the reader that you are a capable storyteller who can set up mysteries, but also gives satisfying answers. If you can do this “mini-story” in chapter one, you’re far more likely to get a reader’s trust and attention for the rest of the book.
Half the strength of a mystery lies in how you resolve it. If you fail to answer mysteries, readers stop taking them seriously. You can introduce all sorts of mysterious or interesting things, and the reader will just think “they’re probably inventing random shit” and not feel invested at all anymore. The longer this continues—the longer you fail to resolve mysteries—the less a reader actually cares anymore about the things you introduce.
A Series of Unfortunate Events, I am sad to say, resolves ab-so-lut-ely nothing.
I don’t think that’s a spoiler. I think that’s a very solid warning I should give anyone before they start reading it.
To prevent giving spoilers here, I’ll just focus on the one mystery that you know about—the one that starts the entire series. The fire that kills their parents and destroys their mansion. Who set the fire and why?
These things are not answered. Not in the slightest. As with other mysteries that appear early in the series, there are suggestions. Here or there, a character may say “well I think it’s this” or “I suppose it’s that”. But that’s just vague theorizing with no substance. It might seem obvious that Count Olaf set the mansion on fire, but this is never confirmed, a reason is not given, and he himself denies that in a way that seems genuine. That’s it.
How did the parents become so wealthy? Nobody knows. What happens to their fortune? Nobody knows.
The longer the series continued without answering anything, the less I cared. Why read about another mystery? Why introduce another odd wrinkle or add another question? It won’t be answered anyway, and if it is, probably not in a satisfying way. Better to just skip it and continue with the story.
Only, in this case, the mysteries are almost the entire series.
Maybe I’ve grown some calluses in this regard. I burned the series LOST to the ground for doing roughly the same thing: all mystery, no (satisfying/sensible) answers. After seasons one and two, which were in many ways really good, I just stopped caring, regardless of what happened then and what little mysteries they did answer.
For this series, giving it a lower grade because of that feels unfair. There are other strengths to the series. As is often the case, judging the series as a whole is hard, because some books are just much better than others.
I read an interview with the author about this very fact. He obviously didn’t like being connected to LOST in that way, but he explained himself by saying that the mysterious air of the entire series only works … if mysteries remain mysteries. It was simply his way of viewing (these) stories, the same way other authors might religiously believe that stories should be clear and neatly wrap up all story threads. I can understand that a little bit. But in my view, this means leaving 20% of mysteries a big interesting mystery. Not 90+%.
Conclusion
There you have it. I basically read all thirteen books in a month. They’re short books, quite easy to read, but this also suggests that I didn’t absolutely hate reading it.
The writing style is unique, well-done, and fits the stories well. Most of the books have a plot with momentum and action, which comes naturally because of the good setup. It tackles some tougher themes and words, but the writing style accomodates this by explaining things, and by often repeating (at start/end of novels) that “this is not a story with a happy ending” :p
Unfortunately, later books become quite stale and repetive, in big ways but mostly in much more grating smaller ways. They also reveal that basically all mysteries have no answers and everything was leading to … nothing, making me care less and less.
Spoiler Barrier!
Below I just want to dive into some specific reasons why I liked or disliked things. This requires giving spoilers, of course.
Stop reading now if you don’t want any of that!
The Secret Organization
This is a huge, huge mystery throughout all the books. It seemed like a good choice for giving more concrete examples of my criticisms.
- It starts with the mysterious eye imagery (eye tattoo on Olaf’s ankles, eye-shaped building, etcetera).
- Then they learn their parents were part of a secret organization called V.F.D., and they meet a few others who are part of that organization too (or children of such people).
- Over the course of a few books, loads and loads of alternative meanings for V.F.D. are proposed. Until it’s revealed that all of them were right: they simply named all their secrets and inventions and safe houses using this acronym.
- Similarly, a handful of tiny origin stories are proposed. That they actually started as the Volunteer Fire Department, then grew into Volunteer Everything Really. How Count Olaf knew their parents, that some object was stolen, who Beatrice was, that there were secret passageways between their homes. None of this is really backed up, or mentioned again, or even makes a lot of sense.
- And … erm … now what?
This mystery is a huge draw for the series. I remember, when watching the Netflix show with my sister, constantly talking with her about that organization, what it might mean, when/how that would develop, etcetera.
But it just doesn’t!
It goes nowhere. There is no substance here, no mysteries are resolved. And, if I’m honest, all those adults—and the Baudelaire parents—just look like deranged assholes from this point of view. Secrets for no reason, not telling their children anything, running the VFD in an idiotic way!
Even when they meet a few members—who could easily help them, keep them safe, tell them everything—it goes nowhere. They just don’t. They go away without explaining anything. They die in a silly way, because of course they do :p
It’s one of those situations where you’re almost sad to have wasted so much time on these stories. And you never want that, of course, as a writer.
I have no clue, after reading all thirteen books with full focus, what the VFD is or was, why I should care, or any more interesting details about the events that kicked off the entire thing. Kids can’t have fun conversations about whether they’d want to be part of the organization, or what role they’d want to have. Kids can’t have a fun time wondering whether their parents have a secret VFD too, because it’s so vague as to not have any defining characteristics at all.
Imagine how cathartic it would’ve been to end the story by finally meeting all members of the VFD, being welcomed and safe, and getting answers about what happened. Imagine how much less stale the books would’ve been if, say from book ~7 onwards, they would’ve become members of the VFD and could’ve worked together with a few members on missions of some sort. Imagine what could’ve been if the massive VFD mystery had actual meat on its bones.
I just … don’t understand? You could’ve easily kept a bunch of mystery surrounding this organization, while also giving loads of satisfying answers and involving them. At a certain point, the VFD knows exactly where the Baudelaires are and what they’re doing. And it changes nothing. The “author”—Lemony Snicket—is a living member of the VFD who has experienced all these events, and they explain nothing and change nothing.
I guess that’s my second point about not resolving mysteries. It means that introducing the mystery changes nothing. So it’s dead weight, stopping the momentum of the plot, filling pages with static. A mystery only moves the plot along if it causes the characters to act differently (to get answers/solve the mystery), and then it gives the plot a boost again when it’s fully resolved.
If you throw mysteries in the air, then do nothing with them, every word used for these mysteries is a waste that merely ruins what was otherwise a good story.
That’s the most succinct way in which I can explain my disappointment (and slight frustration) with a story that wastes all its mysteries.
Again, I know the author was going for a general “vibe” of unfortunate events, sadness, things going wrong, etcetera. A sort of gothic, noir, grim children’s story. But you can do that perfectly well while resolving (most) mysteries too. In fact, that’s what most stories do! Many mysterious backstories are revealed to contain sad events, unfortunate accidents, fights, etcetera. Actually giving that specific information doesn’t take away the mystery or “grimness”—it adds understanding, empathy and interest for readers/viewers.
Repetitive Journeys
There are several books where a “tough” or “dangerous” journey is central to the plot. Think of climbing the elevator shaft in The Ersatz Elevator, or the slope (covered in ice/snow) in The Slippery Slope, or the underwater journey to the abandoned research station in The Grim Grotto.
There is some repetitiveness here in general, but as stated, I don’t really mind that. Stories all use similar frameworks anyway, and journeys/traveling quests are some of the oldest and most common types of stories. Because they work, if done well.
The issue, however, is that what could be an interesting and diverse journey is constantly reduced to nothing.
“Oh no, such a slippery slope, it will be really hard to climb it! We might die!” Then they climb it, and it’s really easy and not that interesting to read. Then they go up and down the slippery slope another three or four times, and now it’s just a single sentence, because the journey is so easy and uneventful.
It feels as if the author realized that a certain character needed to be somewhere else for the next scene to happen. So they just had them make the perilous journey again … and again … and again … to end up where they needed to be in that moment. Saying the journey was long and hard doesn’t mean anything if it’s not shown—and if the only things you get (as a reader) make it seem like the journey was super easy, barely an inconvenience.
For example, they climb up and down the elevator shaft several times in one night. Not only does this not make sense with how long it’s supposed to take (as stated by the author, and how tall the building is), it’s absolutely impossible for young children to be able to perform that climb even once before their muscles give out :p And I get that the stories are somewhat absurd on purpose. But in cases like these, I am reading this and thinking “why on earth are we making the same boring unrealistic journey again and again in the space of a few pages? At least make it funny or meaningful or something.”
In my view, the author used a weird middle ground where picking one extreme would’ve been best.
- Either do the journey once (maybe twice), but give it time, and detail, and enough realism to make it mean something.
- Or do the journey over and over, but don’t set it up to be “hard” or “dangerous”, and don’t waste more than a sentence on having it happen each time.
I don’t think many people, especially children, read books just to see main characters travel the same boring path over and over :p
“Smarter Than You Think”
For years, I have been dumbfounded by how most adults think kids are too stupid to do or understand anything. Children’s stories (especially movies/shows nowadays) need to be dumbed down to the point they have no substance at all. Some of my old writing work has been rejected by publishers for literally using a word or two they thought kids wouldn’t know, or for trying to introduce any sort of emotional/serious theme at all.
First of all, you learn new words by hearing or reading of them. Stories are one of the best ways to actually grow your vocabulary or understanding of language. Because they are fun and interesting, yes, but mostly because the context helps you understand what that complicated word means.
Second of all, this is obviously not true. Kids are very intelligent. They are, in almost all ways, simply adults with a lack of experience.
These books were, therefore, interesting to me because they challenged this idea too. They are grim, sad, unfortunate stories from start to finish.
As stated, it starts with an epitaph “Beatrice-dear, dearest, dead”. Many (good) people die, and without ceremony. The story ends with the main villain just dying in a very regular way, and one of the only VFD members they ever met and was kind to them (Kit Snicket) dying in childbirth. Making them parents to someone else’s baby while being children themselves, alone on an otherwise deserted island.
The books use many complicated phrasings and words, but the narrative style explains them in a smart and funny way. The books touch on several complicated or “serious” themes, while painting adults as incapable, insufferable, stubborn beings.
And yet, to the surprise of the author (or so I’ve read), they were accepted and published. And loved by children all over the world. And understood easily.
At the very least, I can praise these books for showing that children are smarter than many think. That they can not only handle more serious stories, unique art or complicated language—they can really understand and enjoy it.
When reading other reviews and comments online (about this series), I noticed how many people started reading these at a very young age. They also remarked how nice it was to have their experiences with (useless) adults reaffirmed :p Here was a book series that showed kids that no, the older person in the room isn’t automatically wise and perfect. That yes, you can be smarter, and you can solve problems yourself if you apply yourself.
The series contains a lot of intelligent humor. It shows the realities of imperfect adults in silly ways, without ever becoming some scathing rant.
It was instructive too. Despite having this belief (as well as a firm belief that any story is for anyone), I could be a bit uncertain about how to phrase something or whether to use a “perhaps not kid-friendly” event in my stories at all. But these stories just … make it happen, describe it simply, don’t dwell on it. And it works fine—it worked fine for the millions of other young readers. At worst, have a clear narrator who interjects and does some extra explanation in a humorous way.
The Ending
The ending of the whole thing is quite clearly inspired by the story of Genesis. They are on a secluded island, with a “wise” leader called Ishmael, and some huge ancient tree that grows apples you’re not allowed to eat. Their pet snake, who was mostly absent ever since book 2, returns, of course. Because it’s the story of Adam & Eve.
It’s just funny how often authors revert to some variation of Adam & Eve (or religious origin story in general) when they have to bring their (fantasy) series to a close.
It’s as if they can’t help themselves! As if there’s this lesson taught at writing school that your story is only deep and profound if you refer to an ancient tree, eating apples, sin, a (possibly evil) snake, or better yet all four of those things :p
It even has a remote island in the ending, like LOST! And of course (very minor/vague spoilers), LOST’s eventual “resolution” is almost entirely based on another story from the Old Testament. As I said: writers just can’t help themselves!
I guess it’s an attempt to add some more depth to something, perhaps an origin story or a more philosophical note. The book tries to say some things about “schisms”: about how, eventually, any group would split in two. Good vs Evil, or simply “I want this” and “I want that”. As if this is an explanation for the schism within the secret organization that caused a massive streak of killing and fires.
It made an attempt to get a point like this across. I don’t think it really achieved that.
On its own, it’s not a terrible ending or final book. But if you view it as the finale of 13 books, it’s extremely underwhelming and does not answer many mysteries at all.
I’ll leave it there. I am not sure if I’ll watch the Netflix show. My interest in learning from adaptation is overshadowed by my severe disappointment with the lack of resolved mysteries, and I doubt the series changes so much from the books. But we’ll see.
