Oh the woe and misery of the Baudelaire’s won’t stop now and probably never will, at least with the dastardly Count Olaf and his troupe on the loose, still at large. Lemony Snicket is the writer of the woeful series of the Baudelaire’s. The book that my book review will be about is The Carnivorous Carnival, which I am devastated to say is full of all sorts of nefarious and cruel things. There are three weary, melancholy (and many other woeful words that I do not want to describe their luck as) Baudelaire’s. Violet Baudelaire who can invent or fix almost anything put in front of her or even way away from her. She is smart and acts like a mother towards Sunny. She is also the oldest Baudelaire at the age of 14. Violet has a ribbon in her pocket that she carries around with her everywhere. When Violet is thinking hard she ties her hair up with that ribbon.
Klaus Baudelaire is the second oldest Baudelaire at the age of 12. “Even though Klaus is only twelve, he had read more books than most people do in their whole life.” This is a quote from one of the previous books. Klaus will polish his “Harry Potter like” glasses when he is thinking hard. I compared Klaus’s glasses to Harry Potter’s because a lot of people have read that series. Klaus is by far the smartest in all different categories and has proven his knowledge by helping solve all of Count Olaf’s treacherous schemes.
Then there is Sunny Baudelaire, the last Baudelaire. Sunny was born right before the phantasmagorical fire burned down the Baudelaire mansion. Sunny is very small for her age, not much bigger than a loaf of bread. Being so small Sunny is probably the most overwhelmed by the bloodcurdling schemes of Count Olaf. Although Sunny is small, she makes up for her size with the size of her teeth. Sunny has razor sharp teeth, they are like two daggers in her mouth that have saved the Baudelaires many times. My favorite quote in the whole series is in the first book and it is about Sunny Baudelaire. “Even though the Baudelaires didn’t like their stay with the Poe’s, they were grateful for what they had. Violet tucked the covers in, Klaus put the books in stacks, and Sunny bit two teeth marks in Mr. Poe’s children’s shoes so she would not be forgotten.” The setting of this book is that there is a carnival in a desert in the Hinterlands on Rarely Ridden Road in an unpopular carnivorous carnival.
The Baudelaires always find a way to work around Count Olaf’s malicious schemes. The only sparks of good luck that The Baudelaires have is that: Violet’s inventions always work. Klaus always finds the right answers in his research. And Sunny’s teeth always come in handy. This time one of the most interesting things in the Carnivorous Carnival is that for the first time, the Baudelaires are the ones who disguise themselves. Violet and Klaus disguise themselves as a two headed freak to go in the freaks show. Sunny is disguised as a wolf baby. The attraction is that the two headed freak will eat sloppily and have people laugh at them. And Chabo (the wolf baby) will attack the audience while the acquisitive villains watch in delight.
One day Count Olaf and Madam Lulu (the leader of the carnival and a fraud fortune teller that is actually good but doesn’t want Olaf to know) go up to the Mortmain mountains to find out the real answer of the secret of V.F.D. Coming back with no evidence of the headquarters of V.F.D. they do bring back lions from the mountains that haven’t eaten in two days and are whipped by Olaf to do his bidding. Olaf and his troupe work all night to make a horrible pit which the lions will go in. In the morning when it is ready Olaf releases his dastardly scheme. “In the morning every day I will have one of the five freaks dive into the pit and perish for the amusement of the crowd. The audience will love it because it is sloppy eating and violence!” With the luck of the Baudelaires you can kind of tell who would be pick first to plunge into the pit first.
The only problem was that Esme Squalor threatened all of the freaks to throw Madam Lulu into the pit instead of jumping in themselves. It turns out that Esme wants Madam Lulu dead so she can have her boyfriend (Count Olaf) to herself. So there the Baudelaires were on the edge of the pit, about to jump into the pit. They didn’t want to throw Madam Lulu into the pit because Lulu was going to take the Baudelaires to the Mortmain Mountains to find the true meaning of V.F.D.
I enjoyed this book very much, actually I enjoyed all of the books in the series of A Series of Unfortunate Events. When I think of these books I think of some of the Roald Dahl’s tragedies like James And The Giant Peach. James was orphaned by a horrible tragedy that killed his parents and was sent with unsuitable guardians. I loved this book 5 STARS but there are thirteen books in this series that I don’t think that I would want to read it again so 4 STARS would be my final rating.
