The Dark Unwinding (UBER QUICK REVIEW)

Katharine Tulman has been sent by her aunt to inquire on the mental state of her rich uncle. Katharine’s fate and fortune is tied to her aunt’s, so when she discovers that her uncle is just a little bit different, she decides to return to London and inform her aunt that all the family money should be taken away from him.

However, while Katherine is there she begins to rethink her decision. While her uncle has many mental issues, he is at the same time a brilliant inventor, and employees over 900 people, giving down and out families a chance at a better life.

But things around the manor are not as they seem. Katharine herself begins to have fits and memory lapses, and the workers and house servants act peculiarly around her and sneak around in passageways and in her uncles workshop when he’s not there.

This novel moved a little slow for my taste, but I liked the actual story.

The End (Series of Unfortunate Events #13)

I stupidly decided to finish this book while at work today. Multiple coworkers came up to ask if I was ok, only to laugh at me when they saw I was crying while reading. Even though I knew what was going to happen, and had read the ending before, it didn’t stop me from crying through the last 60 or so pages. 

Trapped on a small boat with Count Olaf, the Baudelaire children sat waiting for something to happen while in the middle of water with no land in sight. What was insight was a storm, and a bad one at that. The boat was torn apart, and the three Baudelaire children hardly manage to hold on to each other, but the waves do wash them on the shore of a small island. If you thought that VFD had secrets, it is nothing compared to what the island holds. As it turns out, many former members of VFD, castaways, villains, politicians, evildoers and volunteers are living on the island, all under the rule of an evil man who once knew the Baudelaire parents.

While the islanders initially welcome the three children and turn Count Olaf away, things quickly turn as secrets the islanders have been keeping from each other start to surface. To make matters worse Kit Snicket has washed upon the shore, in labour and Olaf has released the deadly fungus. 

After being poisoned, the islanders all leave on a newly constructed boat, but refuse to take Kit, Olaf and the Baudelaires. So often in this series things are not as they seem, and this ending is no different. In the last moments of life, Olaf helps Kit deliver her child and it is revealed that before the VFD schism, the two were lovers, and the baby could possibly be his. Kit dies while in labour, after making the Baudelaires promise to raise her child. 

After a year, Violet, Klaus, Sunny and the baby Beatrice (whom they named after their own mother), are able to finally leave the island wanting to rejoin the world despite the evils that it holds. 

I love this series, and am so glad that I reread it despite the sadness that certain parts brought. So much of the magic, and amazing things the novel provides I have left out of my reviews, as I do not want to give every secret away. I hope that everyone finds the time to read these books at some point in their life, it is well worth the time. 

The Slippery Slope (A Series of Unfortunate Events #10)

Thank god that Violet is an inventor, or she and her brother and sister would have been in Count Olaf's clutches or dead long ago. Violet's quick thinking and inventive prowess saved herself multiple times over the series, and chapter one of The Sleepy Slope was no different. Violet and Klaus had been pushed down the side of a mountain by Count Olaf, and the trailer they were trapped in was going faster and faster, closer and closer to the edge of the cliff. Violet was able to slow the speeding cart just enough for her and her brother to jump out, now all they have to do is climb all the way up the mountain and find their sister.

This is the first time in the series that the children are truly separated. Before the longest they were apart was when Sunny was trapped in a cage overnight, but even then her siblings were able to see her. This created two parallel stories in this novel, one that followed what happened to Sunny, and the other that followed Violet and Klaus,        

We will start with Sunny. Trapped in a car with Count Olaf, Esme, and the rest of the evil associates, Sunny was only being kept alive so that the Baudelaire fortune could be stolen, and so that she could do the chores and cooking for the villains. Sunny herself even said she was being treated like Cinderella. What makes this storyline so amazing, is this is the first time we see how grown up Sunny has become. Looking back, one can see signs of her no longer being a baby, but this makes it very evident. Not only is she walking and cooking, even her “babytalk” doesn’t always need a translation. Her one and two word sentences actually make relevant sense to the storyline. Sunny spends most of this novel spying on Count Olaf and making mental notes of all the things she over hears since everyone thinks that she is just a baby who doesn’t understand.Klaus and Violet’s story is the one that brought tears of happiness to my eyes though. After narrowly escaping death, the two start up the freezing mountain. While traveling upwards they meet the Snow Scouts, a group of young adults similar to American Scout troops, lead by Carmelita Spats from boarding school. Disguised under their layers of clothing, Carmelita doesn’t recognize the Baudelaires, but someone does. A boy, not dressed in the scout uniform begins talking in phrases that all have the initials VFD. When he leads Violet and Klaus away after the others are asleep he reveals himself to be the thought to be dead triplet, Quigley Quagmire.

I think it might be worse that the Baudelaire children have these moments of happiness and hope, it makes the end result so much sadder. For a few days, it seems that maybe things are looking up. Quigley helps them scale the mountain and rescue Sunny and they talk about their families and hope for the future. Of Course it doesn’t pan out though. Once at the top of the summit, the three children rescue Sunny, only to have Quigley be separated from them when the waterfall/river unfreezes and sends them in opposite directions.

Every book gets more heartbreaking, but this book gives the reader and the Baudelaires themselves some insight into why all this happens. This novel speaks more of the secret organization that, as it turns out, all of the parents and guardians were a part of at some point in their lives. It also becomes somewhat apparent that both the Baudelaire children and the Quagmire triplets were being groomed to join the organization (the good side of it of course).

I would just like to apologize for the delay in this review. Life kind of got in the way of my finishing this series in two weeks,

The Hostile Hospital (Series of Unfortunate Events #8)

After running away from the Village of Fowl Devotees, the Baudelaire children find themselves in yet another unfortunate circumstance in The Hostile Hospital by Lemony Snicket. While traveling through the desert, the Baudelaires come across a group calling themselves VFD, Volunteers Fighting Disease. Pretending to be new volunteers themselves, the three children get into one of the vans heading for the hospital. After questioning all the volunteers in the van, the orphans realize that this is not the VFD they are looking for.

While at the hospital Violet, Klaus and Sunny end up working in the records room and come across a file with their name on it. Inside there is a picture of their parents and some of their friends. Attached to the file is the last page of a report, a report that had been torn out and removed. The last page was enough to make the children look at each other with wonder; the page mentions that someone from the fire is not dead. Violet and Klaus hope beyond hope that one of their parents are still alive, but before they can do any more research Esme and Count Olaf appear in the hospital, setting it on fire.

The only way the three children can escape is to sneak into the back of Count Olaf’s trunk as he drives away, and this 8^th novel ends there, with the three Baudelaire orphans hiding in the trunk of the man who wants them dead.

I apologize for the quickness of this review, but it could not be helped. 

Ersatz Elevator (Series of Unfortunate Events #6)

This series gets more and more thrilling with each book! The action of the Ersatz Elevator by Lemony Snicket keeps the pages turning long after I had planned to take a break for work and sleep. The story starts, as they all have, with the Baudelaire children meeting their new guardian. This time it is a rich couple names Esme and Jerome Squalor. Esme only cares about money and what is in it fashionable. Jerome is actually loving and caring, despite his faults if hating arguing and going with whatever Esme wants. The situation a actually starts out rather favorably, the Squalors happen to live near the Baudelaire's old home, so they are at least in an area with one caring guardian for the time being. 

All that changes when Esme begins working with a new auctioneer, Gunther who is really Olaf in disguise. The children try and tell Jerome but he doesn't want to listen as a using Gunther could potentially lead to an argument. While trying to find out Count Olaf's plan, the children stumble over the kidnapped quagmire triplets who have been caged in a broken elevator shaft. 

Knowing there aren't dead brings hope to the Baudelaire orphans, but they lack the ability to free them at the time of discovery. 

Hoping to save them during transport, Violet, Klaus and Sunny once again go to Esme for help, this time with proof. Unfortunately, Esme has been in league with Count Olaf the entire time. The two met years before, and Esme has been infatuated with him ever since. 

With Esme's help, Olaf is once again able to escape with the quagmires and evade police capture. Jerome, wanting to forget the whole mess tells the children that he will continue to care for them only if they give up trying to rescue the quagmires. Violet tells him no, they won't give up in their friends. So the three once again find themselves alone and without a guardian.