Rating: 5 stars
Cover synopsis: If you haven't got a stomach for a story that includes a hurricane, a signaling device, hungry leeches, cold cucumber soup, a horrible villain, and a doll named Pretty Penny, then this book will probably fill you with despair.
It's an interesting experience reading a story in which the narrator bluntly tells you again and again that it will not have a happy ending. Despite these warnings, I find myself holding out hope that something good will happen -- even though I know it won't. Even when Snicket tells you exactly the bad thing that is going to happen early in the book, so you know it's coming, you still hold out hope that it all turns out OK in some way.
It's also an interesting experience to read a book about other people's misery in which I find myself laughing out loud. I never thought of myself as someone with a dark sense of humor, but Snicket is a very talented story teller, with the right mix of suspense, desperation, comedy, wit and truth. His asides about grammar, appropriate behavior and life lessons are a delight.
This book, of course, has the orphans staying with Aunt Josephine, a woman who is deathly afraid of everything, and is therefore a terrible guardian and not much fun to boot. Still, she's better than Count Olaf. Or should I say "Captain Sham?"
