Reviews tagging 'Violence'

The Bad Beginning by Lemony Snicket

23 reviews

ophycore's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious sad fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Emotional abuse, Child abuse, Adult/minor relationship, Pedophilia, Injury/Injury detail, Ableism, Fatphobia, Violence, Grief, Death, and Death of parent

Moderate: Transphobia and Alcohol

Minor: Fire/Fire injury

Neglect, Abduction

annoyedhumanoid's review

adventurous dark mysterious sad fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

i feel weird critiquing when i know i'm no longer the target audience (🥲) but there are literally five plot points it’s so short. i don't think i fully realized, as a fourth grader, the gravity and emotional trauma of the Baudelaire's situation… like

the slap to the face and all the other adults laugh

?!? pit in my stomach. also, this is not an attempt to "cancel" the book, but what must it be like to read this as a child going through abuse only to have Mr. Snicket tell you twenty times "it doesn't get better for these kids". i guess that’s its form of a trigger warning?

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Confinement, Death of parent, Fire/Fire injury, Child abuse, and Physical abuse

Moderate: Alcohol, Adult/minor relationship, Violence, Grief, and Death

Minor: Incest, Blood, Injury/Injury detail, and Pedophilia

johannarose's review against another edition

adventurous dark funny mysterious sad tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Body shaming, Violence, Toxic relationship, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Confinement, Child abuse, Gaslighting, Death, Death of parent, Emotional abuse, Grief, Adult/minor relationship, Domestic abuse, Injury/Injury detail, Kidnapping, Fire/Fire injury, and Sexual harassment

thebookpaiges's review against another edition

adventurous funny mysterious fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

2.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death of parent

Moderate: Fire/Fire injury, Violence, Child abuse, and Adult/minor relationship

joisaddler's review against another edition

mysterious sad fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death of parent, Gaslighting, Child abuse, Emotional abuse, and Violence

scruffie's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious sad tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

I read this one in one go but I'm not sure how I feel about it now that I have. Curiosity certainly kept me going, but I found the story and the characters in it disturbing. Also it relies heavily on the trope of physical traits reflecting people's inner worth and qualities, which I don't like and find dangerous, in general. The explanations "—the word X here means Y—", though somewhat funny at first, were overused in my opinion, and lost their charm after the first few uses.

I'm curious enough to check out the next books, but I'm not as impressed as I'd hoped I'd be.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Kidnapping, Torture, Emotional abuse, Misogyny, Confinement, Sexual harassment, Violence, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Child abuse, Domestic abuse, and Toxic relationship

Moderate: Death of parent and Fire/Fire injury

Minor: Blood, Grief, and Alcohol

sallytumbler13's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional funny inspiring lighthearted mysterious relaxing sad tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Physical abuse, Adult/minor relationship, Blood, Fire/Fire injury, Abandonment, Bullying, Death, Death of parent, Emotional abuse, Murder, Pedophilia, Gaslighting, Grief, Misogyny, Toxic friendship, Toxic relationship, and Violence

Moderate: Pedophilia, Injury/Injury detail, Alcohol, and Toxic relationship

moonbin's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious sad fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Confinement, Gaslighting, Kidnapping, and Adult/minor relationship

Moderate: Grief, Physical abuse, Violence, Child abuse, Confinement, and Incest

Minor: Fire/Fire injury and Death of parent

cloveofgarlic's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious sad tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Abandonment, Adult/minor relationship, Alcohol, Confinement, Death of parent, Death, Kidnapping, Violence, Emotional abuse, Fire/Fire injury, Child abuse, and Pedophilia

booksthatburn's review against another edition

dark fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.0

I read this series originally as a kid, and I loved them when they first came out. Re-reading them as an adult, I appreciate what they meant to me but I don't know if I'll recommend the series as a whole when I finish my re-read.

THE BAD BEGINNING is the start of Count Olaf's attempts to get the fortune of the Baudelaire children, newly the Baudelaire Orphans, with the deaths of their parents as the book begins. When Count Olaf finds out that merely being the childrens' guardian is not enough to obtain their fortune, he attempts to marry Violet in an elaborate ruse.

It's very up front about terrible things happening to the children, so much so that part of the framing is that the narrator (who is also kind of a character in the series) actively attempts to dissuade the reader from continuing at several points. That part of the framing holds up rather well, generally.

One of the villains is a large non-speaking person of indeterminate gender… and that’s pretty much it as the story’s justification for monstrosity. They’re socially marginalized and in the proximity of Count Olaf, therefore they’re creepy. While being in Olaf’s troupe is indeed sufficient grounds to be deemed terrible, this person is described in dehumanizing language by the narrator. Even the hook-handed man has specific dialogue where his actions are monstrous separate from his physical abnormality, but the non-gendered person is treated as though their mere existence is monstrous. Because the various troupe members are referred to by physical descriptions rather than names, there is a repeated emphasis on their strange appearances, which just reinforces the issue. I don't consider them to be queer representation because they don't provide any statement of their identity, it's just that the narration states that the Baudelaire children read their gender as ambiguous, which (in this context where ambiguous equals creepy) is judgmental and meaningless.

I know why this series gripped me as a kid, but I don't recommend this book now because of the way it equates physical difference with bad intentions, lumping in choices (like wearing all-white makeup) with physical characteristics (like baldness or being fat). It could have just been that the children are frightened by adults in the company of an adult who has declared his intentions to do them harm, but the way dehumanizing language is used makes it feel like the narrator shares in moral condemnation of the way certain characters look.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse

Moderate: Fatphobia, Transphobia, Confinement, Sexual harassment, Alcohol, Violence, and Domestic abuse

Minor: Fire/Fire injury, Death of parent, and Death