A Series of Unfortunate Events: The Bad Beginning By: Lemony Snicket

“If you are interested in stories with happy endings, you would be better off reading some other book. In this book, not only is there no happy ending, there is no happy beginning and very few happy things in the middle”

Lemony Snicket, The Bad Beginning

I didn’t think that I would be reading children’s books when I got into my thirties but, here we are. So often I go into a book store and end up in the heavily toy filled, bright section of the store only to find books from my childhood that I just have to own or ones that I never got around to acquiring.

Bookstore worker:”Are you looking anything in particular for your child?”

Me: “No, just a childless Millennial trying to escape the monotony and disappointment of everyday life.”

This is not in anyway the first time that I have read this series. I think I first discovers this book in middle school and as a morose, early-teen bookworm, this book hit all the right stuff.

Overview: The Baudelaire siblings- Violet, Klaus and Sunny, receive the terrible news that their parents had perished in a fire leaving them orphaned and without a home.

The bad news continues when the orphans are put into the care of Count Olaf, a cruel, subpar actor who will stop at nothing to get his hands on the Baudelaire’s fortune.

My thoughts: It is such an easy to read when you have an afternoon off.

The unique set up of having the author be a character in the story is fun and creates an interesting dynamic through the book. This “mockumentary” style resonates with me personally as I am the right age where TV shows were utilizing this often.

Also, it is enjoyable that the story depicting adults as these clueless characters while the children are the only ones who see what is actually happening. It can be empowering to young readers to see characters their age taking control of things. On the other hand, it gives them the reality that life can be hard and sometimes happiness is hard to find even when you have done nothing wrong.

“They didn’t understand it, but like so many unfortunate events in life, just because you don’t understand it doesn’t mean it isn’t so.”

Lemony Snicket, The Bad Beginning

Overall, no matter what age I am, this book continues to be enjoyable. For adults, it is an easy read and for children it gives the opportunity for the reader to learn new things. I equate this to a children’s movie where you didn’t quite get all the jokes when you were younger but now that you watch it again, you realized what you were missing.

The entire book the children are constantly proving that they are more perceptive than the adults around them but when Klaus reveals to Count Olaf that he knows exactly what his plan is to steal their fortune, it shows that are still just children. That is the absolute last thing he should have done and he ends up regretting it. Klaus believes that obtaining knowledge is the most important thing but realizing that putting that knowledge into practice is where the real power lies. It is not enough to just gather the knowledge, it is what you do with it that really matters. A lesson that as the reader you hope he puts into practice for the rest of the series.

For this Series of Unfortunate Events, The Bad Beginning, is a great beginning

Rating: 5/5 stars