Recently Read: A Series of Unfortunate Events books 5-9

[ellyssian]

#5: The Austere Academy
#6: The Ersatz Elevator
#7: The Vile Village
#8: The Hostile Hospital
#9: The Carnivorous Carnival
         -all by Lemony Snicket

As I read these in very nearly a lump sum - quite different from the first three which I read here and there over the course of many a Friday night between dinner and poetry circle - and seeing how I absolutely refuse to include plot summaries in my reviews, a combination of the five in one seemed best.

That, and, as a series, you really don't want to pop in and out on a book in the middle of the lot - you're really best off beginning at the first and travelling all the way through... although you could probably get away with doing so on the first three, the fourth has a bit too much of a twist that relies on the first three having been read. These would be right out, as they build more and more upon what has happened before.

Suddenly, things do build - it's not just the same thing happening over and over, it just takes off, gaining momentum towards the work as a whole. It's a nice evolution - it starts in the more familiar ground of children's stories, and then becomes larger in scope as it goes.

Which, in some senses, sets you up for ever more unfortunate occurrences.

And that, of course, is what drives the machinery to read more and faster, to find out what happens next...