A Series of Unfortunate Events: The Bad Beginning (Book 1) by Lemony Snicket

[Alina]

If you like books with happy endings, then this book isn’t for you. Bad things happen in the lives of the Baudelaire children. You see, One day, while out on Briny Beach, Violet Baudelaire, who was skipping rocks with her right hand and thinking of an invention to create, noticed a shadowy figure coming toward her and her siblings. Klaus Baudelaire, who liking reading, had knowledge on many things and was currently using that knowledge on tide pool creatures noticed the shadowy figure too. Sunny Baudelaire had too noticed the shadowy figure and had been making unintelligible shrieks for quite a while to get her sister and brother’s attention. When the shadowy figure turns out to be their parents friend, Mr. Poe and when Mr. Poe says that their parents have died in a terrible fire that destroyed their house, the Baudelaire orphans world gets turned upside down. Mr. Poe tells them that they will be staying at his house until a guardian can be found for them in the city by their parent’s request. After a few days at staying at Mr. Poe’s house, the Baudelaire orphans go to Count Olaf’s house as he is their new guardian. Once there, the Baudelaire’s realize that Count Olaf is more than what he seems. Count Olaf has come with a plan to gain the Baudelaire fortune, which is not to use until Violet is of age (18). Count Olaf’s plan is clever yet simple. See, the laws in this city says that a young girl can marry someone if the guardian agrees to it. So then whoever the girl is married to, if say she had enormous fortune, the man could inherit that fortune to and use it however he likes even if the girl is not of age. Count Olaf’s plan is to put on a play by Al Funcoot (totally fake play writer by the way) and during the play (Count Olaf has asked an actual judge to play a judge for the weeding in the play, has the actual papers for marriage) he will marry Violet for real and inherit their fortune. After he inherits the fortune, he plans to get rid of Klaus and Sunny and probably Violet too, if she doesn’t do what he says. Will the Baudelaire’s be able to stop Count Olaf’s plot ?

I love this series because of all the plot twists it has and the creative ways of how the Baudelaire’s get out of their unfortunate events in all 12 books. I have seen both the series on Netflix and the movie made by Nickelodeon and they seem pretty spot on with some of the details but, (Spoiler Alert!) the Nickelodeon (2004) film has Klaus burn the marriage papers from the first book (the film goes though the first three books) with a set of lenses that if positioned correctly can focus the rays of the sun. Klaus realizes that this was how Count Olaf set fire to the Baudelaire mansion and killed their parents. This doesn’t happen in the book and in the series on Netflix. In the series on Netflix, (Spoiler Alert!) The fire was started by Count Olaf but, instead of a set of lenses starting the fire, Count Olaf went though a set of tunnels underground that lead all over the city and set fire to the house on the inside.

Rate: 5 out of 5 stars.