Review: A Series of Unfortunate Events (Spoilers)

Most of you have probably heard of this series. Nickelodeon made an adaptation of the first three books into a movie back in 2004, starring Jim Carrey as Count Olaf and in 2017, Netflix released their 3-season adaptation of the books (which I watched when it came out, and it was a pretty faithful adaptation as I recall). However, I’m not going to be reviewing those adaptations. I want to focus on the 13-book series that inspired it all.

#1: Overall Layout

By “layout,” I’m not referring to the plot. I’m talking about the fact that these books are meant to represent the bad luck of the Baudelaire children. Each one has 13 chapters, (except for the last one which has an epilogue, which technically makes it 14 chapters) and the whole series is 13 books long. Some people might not get super excited about that, but I just think it’s a fun little detail that Lemony Snicket choose unlucky number 13 for his Series of Unfortunate Events.

#2: The Plot

As I’m sure most of you know already, this series revolves around the three Baudelaire children, Violet, Klaus and Sunny. They’re at the beach one day when they’re told by their parents’ banker that their parents have passed away in a fire that destroyed their house. Thus, the Baudelaire children are left in the hands of their supposed distant cousin, Count Olaf, as heirs of a massive fortune that they will receive when Violet turns 18. Knowing this, Count Olaf plots to force Violet into marrying him (even though she’s 14, he’s significantly older, and according to Fandom Wiki, is possibly her grandfather) so he can get his hands on the fortune. The children manage to thwart his plan, and the banker takes them to live with their excentric Uncle Monty. However, Olaf manages to find them, kill Monty, and the rest of the series continues with the Baudelaire children landing in the hands of random family members and friends of the family, who all get killed by Olaf and his gang of circus freaks, eventually leaving the kids to fend for themselves, landing them in increasingly perilous situations.

Meanwhile, as the series progresses, we begin to see a secret underground network that the Baudelaire parents were a part of called the Volunteer Fire Department, which was meant to put out societal “fires” and keep things “extinguished and quiet.” They were part of the good sect of this organization while Count Olaf was part of the sect that split off from the group to cause chaos. It finally comes around full circle when the children join it after Count Olaf finally dies in the 13th book.

#3: An Issue

While the series is enjoyable (despite all the deaths) and has a disproportionate amount of lore for a kids’ series, the main issue I had with it is that after a while, it gets a bit repetitive. Yes, we’re learning more information along the way and the unfortunate events are all different from each other, but one can only be impressed by unfortunate events for so long. The plot beats felt very similar with little variation throughout the series. I suppose that’s to be expected when a series is 13 books long, but I do wish it had been varied a bit more.

Another problem I had with it was that Count Olaf, according to the Fandom, is possibly the grandfather of the Baudelaire children. This opens up a massive plot hole in the story since if he is the grandfather, then why was everyone going with the marriage, even if it was supposed to be fake? Why didn’t they notice the legally binding contract sooner? Why didn’t they possibly look into the Baudelaire family tree or do a background check to make sure this guy was who he said was and wasn’t a complete psycho? Sure, Olaf could’ve scrubbed some things, but wouldn’t they have a government registry somewhere regarding this? Maybe some bank records? Birth certificates? Or since this universe is supposed to take place in a late 19th- early 20th century world, some baptism records? Are the adults in this series really that incompetent that they can’t go through the basic legal checks to make sure the guy is qualified to be the children’s guardian?

Overall, I’ll give this series an 8/10.

Until next time,

M.J.