I hate adverbs, but there was something intriguing about this collection of stories written by the author of the Lemony Snicket books. Unfortunately, this is one of those books that aspires to be something more than it is. While I like the interconnectedness of the stories, I couldn't help feeling like I'd seen this trick somewhere before...and executed less self-consciously. Anyone whose read Series of Unfortunate Events is aware of the author's insistence on always keeping one foot in the story. Handler is notorious for his winking asides to the audience and references back to himself, and there's some of that in this book too--in that you feel just a little too uncomfortably aware of the mechanics operating behind it all. You can almost envision Handler clapping himself on the back for all of his cleverness. My favorite part of this book was Handler's contribution to the jacket that mocks self-congratulatory authors. Surprisingly (to use an adverb) the joke ends there, but the self-congratulatory part does not.