** spoiler alert ** How could the genius who produced A Series of Unfortunate Events produce this?

I recently read all of the A Series of Unfortunate Events despite the fact that I'm "technically too old for children's novels." I thought that I would try this since it's actually for people my age. This book makes me sad. I don't know why the crtical reviews called it hilarious. There was some humor in a satire style, but even with that darker humor, it was not very funny.

The twist that Natasha might not exist doesn't make any sense. Perhaps this is just part of that pesky unreliable narrator thing, but I still don't buy it. I tend to think that if Natasha does not exist, then Flora was the other member of the Basic Eight. It would make sense that she was the one who took the group picture since she is shown in other situations to be taking pictures constantly. And then after Flora blew the whistle, Flannery edits her journal to make it seem like Flora is the wierd outsider with an annoying obsession on world records. That's the only way that I can reconcile the number thing and Flannery's negative feelings toward Flora. Even with that theory, I'm not quite sure how everything in the story would be reconciled if Natasha truly did not exist and was merely a projection of Flannery's guilt or "bad side."

Hipster psuedo-intelluctual high school friends form a clique that does either trite things such as hosting dinner parties and listening to underground bands or dumb/criminal things such as poisoning teenagers and killing Flannery's crush with a croquet stick? No thank you.


*I think that the real difference between this book and A Series of Unfortunate Events is that the series is darkly humorous while this one isn't. It is just another cookie cutter "teens doing bad stuff" novel. The stuff that the teens did make it seem like it would be a dark novel, but it's not truly dark - it's just sinister and morally gross. There's a difference.