Cannonball Read 18

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A Modern Encyclopedia Brown

All the Wrong Questions: Question 1 by Lemony Snicket

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Dan Handler, writing as Lemony Snicket, wrote the A Series of Unfortunate Events books. I LOVED those books. They were brilliant—funny, smart, and not afraid to dig into hard topics like grief and death. So when I saw this new series, All the Wrong Questions: Question 1 (aka “Who Could that be at this Hour?”), I hopped right on it. The story features Snicket as a 13 year old boy who is roped into a mysterious mission to recover a stolen artifact. He is whisked […]

“Are you confused?”

Poison For Breakfast by Lemony Snicket

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Lemony Snicket, the pen name of writer Daniel Handler, is such a clever writer.  If you haven’t read his Series of Unfortunate Events, stop reading this right now and go read those books instead (they will prove to be better written and more amusing than any book review I can write.)  After you read them, watch the wonderful Netflix adaptation starring Neil Patrick Harris.  But I digress, so does Lemony Snicket, he digresses and rambles on throughout his charming new book Poison for Breakfast (digress […]

The End is Never the End

The End by Lemony Snicket

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The final, and 13th, book in A Series of Unfortunate Events is fittingly titled The End. It has taken me about a month to finish the entire series and I confess by this book some of the story’s tics had worn me down a bit. I was no longer entertained by the constant definitions of words and phrases for humorous effect. The Baudelaire orphans, I felt, had become predictable and even a little boring. I enjoyed the villain Count Olaf more than the main characters. […]

A YA Book that Quotes Richard Wright

The Penultimate Peril by Lemony Snicket

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Who knows when some slight shock, disturbing the delicate balance between social order and thirsty aspiration, shall send the sky-scrapers in our cities toppling? — Richard Wright, Native Son The Penultimate Peril is the 12th book–the penultimate book–of A Series of Unfortunate Events. For my reviews of the 10th and 11th books, go here and here. The travails of the Baudelaire orphans continue in The Penultimate Peril, and if anything, get darker. The book takes place in the Hotel Denouement, where the children take on […]

We All Live in a Broken Submarine

The Grim Grotto by Lemony Snicket

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The Baudelaires drifted along in cold, dark silence, feeling afraid and confused and strangely lonely. – The Grim Grotto After reading Book 11 The Grim Grotto in A Series of Unfortunate Events, a heretofore unknown thalassophobia has seized me. Maybe that’s why this book in the series seemed the darkest thus far. For background on the series, see my review here. Calling this the grimmest book of the series is saying something. The Baudelaire orphans have been on the run from the villainous Count Olaf […]

Reading this Series is a Slippery Slope of Delight

The Slippery Slope by Lemony Snicket

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Fate is like a strange, unpopular restaurant, filled with odd waiters who bring you things you never asked for and don’t always like. – The Slippery Slope The 13-book series “A Series of Unfortunate Events” is conversely the most fun I’ve had reading in ages, written by Lemony Snicket (the pseudonym for author Daniel Handler) (by pseudonym I mean a different name and persona) (that aside is inspired by one of the recurring conventions in the series) (all will be revealed soon). The series follows […]



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