The Bad Beginning

[calzephyr]

I bought this, book 1 in A Series of Unfortunate Events by "Lemony Snicket", used and I'm glad for it. I can't imagine paying the original price of $13.50 for this turd of a children's book. Maybe the series got better and better with each book, but this first one doesn't leave me craving the others like Tamora Pierce or JK Rowling. I always thought that this series would have been along the lines of Joan Aiken or John Bellairs, that "fun" kind of dark and mysterious, but I was sorely disappointed. For starters, there's the hackneyed plot...and even hackneyed plots can be good and enjoyable if told right and the characters are interesting. What one gets is a pedantic, fill in the blank writing style, and well, the area under my kitchen sink is far more dark and mysterious than this book will ever be :-D I also can't tolerate books that talk down to readers, regardless of their age, and this book manages to do it every few pages when certain words are explained in detail. Maybe someone found that charming, but not me :-)