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Summary: The most creative book I've read in a long time!
Review: I just love this book! Just the way it's written is extremely amusing. And I love the way he defines words. In case all the people who have complained about this habit of Mr. Snicket's haven't noticed, he doesn't actually give a definition or the word, it is mostly to add humour. Ie; (quote from "The Wide Window", his third book and the one I happen to have in front of me ^_^: "But even so, the three children were eager to leave the Anxious Clown, and not just because the garish restaurant-- the word 'garish' here means 'filled with balloons, neon lights, and obnoxious waiters'-- was filled with balloons, neon lights, and obnoxious waiters.") Okay, that is not the best quote, but I'm not going to search through the whole book looking for a better one! Anyways, you get the idea that he isn't actually trying to define the word for you. I just love how he does that! It adds a very distinctive and creative touch! And this book was SO funny! Hilarious even! After reading three of the series so far, I have laughed every time someone has died. And it's not just because I'm some sort of sicko (I hope ^_^)! The way he writes everything to sound so serious and sad is somehow quite funny! I don't know how the guy does it... talk about talent!
Rating:
Summary: The tragedy of pasta puttanesca!
Review: This tragic, but unbearably funny novel for youngsters is the first of a series entitled A Series of Unfortunate Events. Frankly, it's almost embarrassing finding oneself giggling uncontrollably at the misfortunes of the Baudelaire orphans. The story begins when they are informed by charmingly distracted Mr. Poe that their parents have been killed in a house fire which has destroyed everything the considerable family fortune had purchased for them. Things go from pretty dismal to astoundingly worse as the children are eventually trucked to live with a shirttail relative named Count Olaf who even attempts to marry fourteen year-old Violet to get her inheritance. This is a great book (and promising series) for young readers (adults as well) with highly developed sense of irony. There's even a marvelous, if ultimately tragic, scene involving pasta puttanesca.
Rating:
Summary: Wow.
Review: At first I was expecting a boring book about how the kids miss their parents or something. But I took a chance at reading it coz I was curious about the bads things that were going to happen. And they do really happen. I recommend it to anybody who's searching for something intriging and amusing to read.
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Summary: Laugh Out Loud Comedy
Review: The Bad Beginning, the first novel in "The Series of Unfortunate Events," is a great novel to start out a series that soon will be loved by all. Within the first pages the Baudelaire children learn that their parents have perished in a fire and that they must go and live with a long lost family member named Count Olaf. What the children don't know is that he has a plot to rob the children of the fortune that they were left with from their parents. Throughout this book you will experience great writing and drawings, marvelous characters, and laugh out loud comedy. The comedy in this book was very funny although it is just consists of snippy little sentences. Read this book for an ultimate reading pleasure.HAPPY READING!
Rating: 
Summary: a series of unfortunate events - and he's not kidding
Review: I bought this book expecting something darkly whimsical, something like Dahl, or Gorey, or Burton, perhaps. I wasn't entirely impressed. There wasn't enough whimsy for my taste, and I found the travails of the Baudelaire children not amusing but truly *depressing*. One horrible thing after another happens to the children, and it's really not as amusing or as charming as you'd think. As Mr. "Snicket" says, in the opening line of the book, "If you are interested in stories with happy endings, you would be better off reading some other book." And he's not kidding. Another reviewer remarked on the similarity of this book to the part in Harry Potter where he lives under the stairs "before the happy bit". I have to disagree. That was a good kind of melancholy - this is just plain awful. I also found the vocabulary lessons on every other page to be irritating. It was almost cute the first couple of times, but after a while, you just want to bludgeon Mr. "Snicket" to death with a dictionary. I also couldn't figure out if this book was intended for children or for adults. If it was written for children, I might question Mr. Snicket's taste - most of the adults are grotesque pedophilic monsters who constantly leer and drool over the children. Is he writing these books as proscribed therapy as a sex-offender? If it was written for adults, it comes off entirely too condescending and simple. Still, it has a certain.. je ne sais quoi. I would recommend that most people borrow this first book from a friend or the library before deciding to buy the series. However, if you are a truly mean-spirited, black-hearted, lecherous, leering villain, I recommend you run out and buy them all today: this series was made for you!
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Summary: This is a book to read!
Review: This is a great book.It is very well written. You'll never guess what is going to happen next. The writting covers up for all the horrid things that happen. I strongly suggest this book to children around my age of ten.
Rating: 
Summary: Somewhat funny, but mostly a disappointment
Review: I bought this book because the jacket sounded hilarious. Unfortunately, this was not the case. Written for a younger audience, even youngsters with a good vocabulary would probably find this book dull and condescending, with its vocabulary lessons every page or two (if you haven't read the book, trust me, every other page there is a word that is given, along with is definition...this gets really old after the second chapter). While I thought that the unfortunate events that kept happening throughout the book were funny, the book couldn't hold my interest. I kept waiting for something more to happen. Also, the whole notion of one's legal guardian trying to marry them really turned me off. I thought that was quite repulsive. For Dahl fans who liked the book Matilda, maybe this one will be sufficient. However, I cannot give this book more than two stars.
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Summary: Things are certainly bad for the Baudlaire children
Review: "The Bad Beginning", by Lemony Snicket, is a great book on three very unlucky children. Violet, Krause, and Sunny are horrified to find that their parents have died and that they are left orphans. They inherit the Baudlaire fortune, however, and, as their parents wished, they are sent to live with a distant cousin. Once at Count Olaf's grimy home, they are even more in despair, especially when he is terribly cruel and plots to steal their fortune. What can these clever children do to save themselves? This was an entertaining, humorous book that grabs you as soon as you read the title! Be sure to read the others in the series ("The Reptile Room", etc.) and I'm sure you'd also enjoy the popular "Harry Potter" books, about another unlucky boy, filled with more British humor.
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Summary: The entertaining tale of three very unlucky children
Review: Violet, Sunny, and Klause are three very unlucky children. They are clever, have "pleasent facial features," and are all very talented in there own thing (inventing, reading, chewing) but there life is struck by disaster when there parents die. Sent to live with the evil Cout Olaf, they find that all he really wants out of them is the forture Violet has inherited for when she comes of age. He cooks up a devious plan and will do anything to get it out of them, anything. I think that this was a very clevery written book. Though it is impossible to figure out what time period it is of what country it takes place I found it to be very entertaining. It's not the happiest book in the world (filled with dark humor) but it's something I would reccomend to all fans (past and present) of Roald Dahl. I hope you enjoy it!
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Summary: Clever Children Only!
Review: This Series is nothing short of brilliant. However, not for every child. Clever kids, smart children, quiet 'outsider' types and those who like to defie thier parents should definitely read this one. It's one of the few books that is better for boys than for gilrs! Average kids and simple adults just won't get it. What we have here is Gothic for children (I refer to "Gothic revival" as outlined by Richard Davenport-Hines in his book "Gothic- -Four hundred years of excess, horror, evil, and ruin") The literary merit of these books is beyond question. There are hundreds of linguistic jokes ("to snick" means to wound; Mr Poe works for "Mulcturary Money Management" --- go head, look up 'mulct') The author includes himself as a charater. In each book we find out a little more about what happened to him and his Beatrice ("Dearest, darling, dead.") As for the concern about the 'incest' mentioned in the review below, I understand this to be a lack of knowlage concerning classic lit. - the evil uncle coniving to marry his pretty niece is stock story line from Plautus, the Mid-evil stage, all the way to Molaire and 19th C. melodrama. Finally, the books are handsome to hold a wonderfully illustrated- -making them fun to own. Make no mistake; horrible, awful and very sad things happen to the Baudelaire children but that is all the more reason they are perfect heroes for the 10-14 year old set.
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