After the fire, the siblings were sent to live with a distant relative named Count Olaf, a terrible and greedy man. Their misfortune began with an enormous fire that destroyed their home and killed both their loving parents, which is enough sadness to last anyone a lifetime, but in the case of these three children it was only the bad beginning. Of all the people in the world who have miserable lives-and, as I’m sure you know, there are quite a few-the Baudelaire youngsters take the cake, a phrase which here means that more horrible things have happened to them than just about anybody. I am sorry to tell you that this story begins with the Baudelaire orphans traveling along this most displeasing road, and that from this moment on, the story only gets worse.

Lousy Lane traverses the Grim River, a body of water that is nine-tenths mud and that contains extremely unnerving fish, and it encircles a horseradish factory, so the entire area smells bitter and strong. Lousy Lane runs through fields that are a sickly gray color, in which a handful of scraggly trees produce apples so sour that one only has to look at them to feel ill. The stretch of road that leads out of the city, past Hazy Harbor and into the town of Tedia, is perhaps the most unpleasant in the world. I felt as though the story sort of died after the climax and it were all mush after that with the resolution being the obvious because of the way the series ties each series goes together. I'm not sure if this is similar to the other books in this series, but the story started out endearing and then went a little off kilter with the climax and ending a little mushed together. There are many snakes, presumably poisonous, and an assistant who appears and seems familiar to the children but no ones believes them. This seems a little sketchy for them enough, knowing the the series is about the children not having very good luck and going through a series of unfortunate events. This specific Lemony Snicket book is about the orphaned children moving to the home of their Uncle Montgomery, the Herpetologist. I am so glad I did! His voice and enthusiasm for the story put so many visions into my head that I can now imagine him reading any of the other Lemony Snicket books (if I can't find him narrating them on Audible 😉 ). He has been a favorite actor of mine for so many years, that I knew of he were narrating this book then I must give it a chance. That flavor, for me, seems to be the rich and fluid voice of Mr Tim Curry. I had tried to get into Lemony Snicket books many times in the past, but they just felt dry and needed something to inject a little flavor. Adding Curry to Lemon(y) makes for a yummy recipe!

The series of unfortunate events book 2