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yourstrulyemi 's review for:
The Bad Beginning
by Lemony Snicket
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Three stars which here doesn't mean it's bad, but that it had some failed aspects despite its good writing and an overall pretty entertaining story.
We follow three Baudelaire orphans (named after the well known poet, most likely as a reference to his own miserable life) after their house burned, killing their parents in the process. Their parents left a will behind that only a relative of the family could adopt the children and unluckily for the kids, the only relative that's close to them both geographically and genealogically is Count Olaf, a greedy old man that is very much after the huge fortune that the Baudelaire couple left behind. Armed with their knowledge and wits, the children try to survive as best as they can.
As best as they can, here means, they try to copy whatever they found in a book and apply it to real life, while simultaneously revealing their plan to the enemy like an anime protagonist. Which could make for a funny story if the author wasn't so hell-bent in reminding the reader how tragic the fate of the children was (which it really was). This shouldn't really be a criticism, given the fact that it is a children's book and I'm an adult reading a children's book and holding it up to the same standards as I would a book targeted at adults. Shame to me, shame to my family and my cow! (In my defence, I didn't deduct any stars for that).
However, the writing style, the setting, the tone and the events reminded me old books and movies I used to read and watch as a kid, which it obviously would as an old children's book. So the somewhat nostalgia wave was very welcome, and a great companion for my breaks.
If the audiobooks of the sequels are also voiced by Tim Curry, then I'll gladly read them all. His voice alone makes half of the content.
We follow three Baudelaire orphans (named after the well known poet, most likely as a reference to his own miserable life) after their house burned, killing their parents in the process. Their parents left a will behind that only a relative of the family could adopt the children and unluckily for the kids, the only relative that's close to them both geographically and genealogically is Count Olaf, a greedy old man that is very much after the huge fortune that the Baudelaire couple left behind. Armed with their knowledge and wits, the children try to survive as best as they can.
As best as they can, here means, they try to copy whatever they found in a book and apply it to real life, while simultaneously revealing their plan to the enemy like an anime protagonist. Which could make for a funny story if the author wasn't so hell-bent in reminding the reader how tragic the fate of the children was (which it really was). This shouldn't really be a criticism, given the fact that it is a children's book and I'm an adult reading a children's book and holding it up to the same standards as I would a book targeted at adults. Shame to me, shame to my family and my cow! (In my defence, I didn't deduct any stars for that).
However, the writing style, the setting, the tone and the events reminded me old books and movies I used to read and watch as a kid, which it obviously would as an old children's book. So the somewhat nostalgia wave was very welcome, and a great companion for my breaks.
If the audiobooks of the sequels are also voiced by Tim Curry, then I'll gladly read them all. His voice alone makes half of the content.