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maggieoc_x's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
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
2.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child abuse and Death
Moderate: Death of parent, Gaslighting, Stalking, Suicide attempt, and Violence
Minor: Kidnapping, Abandonment, and Fire/Fire injury
julybunny's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
2.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Suicide, Child abuse, Death, Grief, and Murder
parasolcrafter's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
emotional
funny
sad
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
every book i read in this series makes me want to pull my hair out!!! literally i want to scream at the adults to listen to the kids please for the love of god just fucking listen to them i swear to god you are going to get them killed like oh. my GOD
Content Warnings
Graphic: Abandonment, Murder, Emotional abuse, Child abuse, Grief, and Death
Minor: Fatphobia and Transphobia
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
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death of parent, Child abuse, Emotional abuse, Gaslighting, and Violence
ashleycmms's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Death of parent, and Grief
Moderate: Blood, Child abuse, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail
booksthatburn's review against another edition
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.0
The Baudelaire orphans are passed to yet another relative, this time to a woman who lives on a rickety clifftop house overlooking the lake where her husband drowned.
I like how well-developed the relationships between the siblings are. The books are short so there isn’t a lot of room for it, but most of the space available is used for interactions between them as they deal with whatever misfortune has happened next. Aunt Josephine is a pretty one-note but understandable character, she’s yet another adult who seems completely unable to help or fully understand what’s happening and why it’s bad.
There’s a sequence involving one of Olaf’s accomplices, the one where the children can’t tell if they’re a man or a woman. The whole scene is a mess of transphobia and fatphobia, with part of the terror derived from Violet not knowing what pronouns to use, and not knowing whether they should be addressed with “Sir” or “Ma’am”. Given that they are helping Olaf, the children’s inability to guess their gender should be irrelevant to their characterization as probably evil, but instead the whole thing is handled badly and it brought my enjoyment of the story to a screeching halt. It makes as much sense as justifying fright from not being able to determine someone’s hair color, and it’s just bad. It’s combined with fatphobia, using language like “monstrous” and “creature”, commenting on their size as an additional frightening characteristic. As their terror increases the text begins referring to the person as “it”, further dehumanizing them. They’ve never spoken, which also seems meant to be scary, and at minimum reinforces the dehumanizing characterization.
Other than just being the next step for the children, this doesn’t wrap up anything specifically left hanging from the last book. The storyline is new and has a major thing that’s introduced and resolved. It leaves a few things for later books to carry on. The narrator didn’t change and continues to ominously talk about his own life and the children’s fates. It could make sense to start here, but there’s important backstory about Count Olaf as a villain and the children’s situation until now which is best conveyed by the earlier books.
The plot is good, it has a great setup and execution. There’s a pretty cool mystery that the kids have to figure out, and it’s one where the reader genuinely can solve it along with them. Olaf’s latest scheme hits a great balance between horrific and absurd, which is tonally appropriate for the series. Mr. Poe is useless, as always, and Aunt Josephine is handled in a way that makes her flaws understandable even as they’re exaggerated to a ludicrous level to make the situation as bad as possible for the Baudelaire orphans. I found myself enjoying it a lot until the transphobic and fatphobic sequence happened. Unfortunately it was even worse than in the first two books, and so I can't recommend this one at all.
I like how well-developed the relationships between the siblings are. The books are short so there isn’t a lot of room for it, but most of the space available is used for interactions between them as they deal with whatever misfortune has happened next. Aunt Josephine is a pretty one-note but understandable character, she’s yet another adult who seems completely unable to help or fully understand what’s happening and why it’s bad.
There’s a sequence involving one of Olaf’s accomplices, the one where the children can’t tell if they’re a man or a woman. The whole scene is a mess of transphobia and fatphobia, with part of the terror derived from Violet not knowing what pronouns to use, and not knowing whether they should be addressed with “Sir” or “Ma’am”. Given that they are helping Olaf, the children’s inability to guess their gender should be irrelevant to their characterization as probably evil, but instead the whole thing is handled badly and it brought my enjoyment of the story to a screeching halt. It makes as much sense as justifying fright from not being able to determine someone’s hair color, and it’s just bad. It’s combined with fatphobia, using language like “monstrous” and “creature”, commenting on their size as an additional frightening characteristic. As their terror increases the text begins referring to the person as “it”, further dehumanizing them. They’ve never spoken, which also seems meant to be scary, and at minimum reinforces the dehumanizing characterization.
Other than just being the next step for the children, this doesn’t wrap up anything specifically left hanging from the last book. The storyline is new and has a major thing that’s introduced and resolved. It leaves a few things for later books to carry on. The narrator didn’t change and continues to ominously talk about his own life and the children’s fates. It could make sense to start here, but there’s important backstory about Count Olaf as a villain and the children’s situation until now which is best conveyed by the earlier books.
The plot is good, it has a great setup and execution. There’s a pretty cool mystery that the kids have to figure out, and it’s one where the reader genuinely can solve it along with them. Olaf’s latest scheme hits a great balance between horrific and absurd, which is tonally appropriate for the series. Mr. Poe is useless, as always, and Aunt Josephine is handled in a way that makes her flaws understandable even as they’re exaggerated to a ludicrous level to make the situation as bad as possible for the Baudelaire orphans. I found myself enjoying it a lot until the transphobic and fatphobic sequence happened. Unfortunately it was even worse than in the first two books, and so I can't recommend this one at all.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Child abuse, Transphobia, Grief, Fatphobia, and Murder
Minor: Suicide, Animal death, Fire/Fire injury, Death of parent, and Death
CW for anxiety disorder.jenniferpalmblad's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
funny
mysterious
sad
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.75
I absolutely love aunt Josephine.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child abuse and Death
Moderate: Death, Death of parent, Emotional abuse, Fire/Fire injury, Gaslighting, Grief, Kidnapping, Murder, Physical abuse, Suicide, and Violence
hazel_t23's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
hopeful
mysterious
sad
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
3.25
Content Warnings
Moderate: Transphobia
Minor: Child abuse, Death of parent, Fire/Fire injury, Gaslighting, Murder, and Stalking
I didn’t really like how the “person who was neither a man nor woman” was described as “it”… could have easily just been described as “they” but then again the book came out 21 years ago so what’s done is done I suppose. That’s about it though.
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