The children are, again, the well behaved and courageous children I have grown to very much like while reading the previous books. Sunny is growing up, bit by bit, and, although she still can only talk in short words (actual ones or invented), she helped someone prepare hot chocolate with cinnamon (after her very own recipe). Making me all the more curious to see how she’ll turn up when she’ll be a bit older. Madame Lulu seemed to me to be quite a promising character, at least because of her smarts if not her decisiveness (I’ll admit she was quite confused), and I would have loved to see more of her in future books. Oh, and let’s not forget Esme Squalor, whose character becomes a bit more fleshed out in this particular book — we discover her to be the jealous type and quite a possessive girlfriend (but does she actually have feelings for the Count? Is she actually capable of feeling? we do not yet know).

This book seemed to me to be a turning point in the series. Up until now the three children were sent in various places and Olaf, in disguise, went along and made their life hell. Here we have the Baudelaire kids taking offensive action for the first time (and probably not the last): this time they are the ones in disguise, closing in on an unsuspecting Olaf, searching for information that could help them get rid of him. Their situation doesn’t improve the tiniest bit though, and the ending is the most suspenseful one yet (for the first time the children have to part). At the same time though there is a certain ray of hope shining onto them, and I am starting to think that I do know how it will all end up. I may of course be wrong but either way I am quite curious to see what happens next.

As usual, the author placed a warning at the very beginning of the book (I’m having fun imagining him wrecking his mind in order to find new ways of telling basically the same thing – “reader, stay away” – at the beginning of every volume). Here’s the current one:

Three times over the course of this story, characters will be inside some terrible place with little chance of escaping safely, and for that reason I would put this book down and escape safely yourself, because this woeful story is so very dark and wretched and damp that the experience of reading it will make you feel as if you are in the belly of the beast, and that time doesn’t count either.

What I liked most: The fact that the answer to a question the reader might have had after reading the previous books (“How did Olaf always knew where to find the children?”) is now revealed. And it’s quite a simple and logical one too.

What I liked least: I must confess I was a bit bothered about the way the lions were treated by the Count, as I do not like reading about cruelty to animals. I do understand the fact that the story needed that (the Count being the vile person that he was he couldn’t have acted any other way), I just did not enjoy it.

Recommend it to? Anyone who enjoys children’s books. Especially dark and gloomy ones. Knowing the prequels is not absolutely mandatory but would very much help.

This book is a sequel to:
The Bad Beginning
The Reptile Room
The Wide Window
The Miserable Mill
The Austere Academy
The Ersatz Elevator
The Vile Village
The Hostile Hospital

This book is followed by:
The Slippery Slope
The Grim Grotto
The Penultimate Peril
The End

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