Customer Reviews

The Dilemma Deepens: A Box of Unfortunate Events, Books 7-9 (The Vile Village; The Hostile Hospital; The Carnivorous Carnival)

5 star:		(16)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Maybe you're just browsing through to see how good these books are because you've never read these, or because you've read up to book six and want to know if these are just as good, or up to par, or whatever. Well, fear not! These books are EVEN BETTER!!!

Since I am reviewing the box-sets, I would say this one is my favorite. Why? Well, it is because these books begin to change the series, they lead it into an entirely new direction as a whole. By the time you read these and get to the latest "The Slippery Slope", it almost feels like an entirely new series, but an a good way. The characters are more defined, the situations are more absurd, and the plots are tighter. So with that said... ONTO THE BOOK REVIEWS.! :D

Book Seven: The Vile Village - This is a book that deals with a town obsessed with birds(crows), and has thousands of rules that center around protecting them or protecting the rules. Its basically a totalitarian society. So this books focus is a primitve government that is out of hand. They have a system where you don't get a fair trial hearing, you don't get to tell your story, this is because all they care about is burning people at the stake. The reason that the children are here is because the village VFD goes by the aphorism "It takes a village to raise a child.", and so the children get to choose a village to be raised in since no one else will take them. They choose V.F.D. for obvious reasons(if you've read the previous books). So that is all I will reveal, because if I tell you more, it will ruin the story.!

Book Eight: The Hostile Hospital - I could'nt wait to get to this book.! Mainly because of the morbid cover, it looked awesome.! Anyways, this book has the children on the run(no I'm not going to spoil why.), so they find a way to become volunteers at the hospital in the Archival library in hopes of finding out information on V.F.D. and Jaques Snicket(wont ruin that either). Really their's not much I can say without ruining it. But this book is fun because it reveals a few secrets and takes some new twist in the characters and story. :D

Book Nine: The Carnivarous Carnival - This book is interesting because of how the Baudelaire's get here, what they do in it. Things they thought they wouldn't do in a million years, and over and over they find themselves doing them. I wont give anything away, its impossible to summarise the plot without giving anything away since if you're reading this you probably haven't read the other two preceding it, so I wont. But it captures the carnival atmosphere perfectly and its great.! :D

Anyways, I'd say that this is a great set to buy, of course if you can't afford it you can buy the three books seperately or go to library, but be aware that you WILL want each IMMEDIATELY after the other. So if you can, get ALL THREE AT ONCE.! + The Slippery Slope, which is in my opinion the best book yet, this series just keeps getting better.

God Bless & *enjoy* ~Amy

Let my start out by saying i loved these books (7-9) i am currently waiting for the 11th one to come out November 2004. These children Violet, Clause, and Sunny have the worst life ever recorded and lemony snicket has my deepest sympathy because he has to write these unfortunate books
In the 7th book the three are in VFD a village which is trying to help them beat olaf for good. the name VFD takes on a different meaning when they find out about all the rules and the odd nesting patterns of the VFD crows. the three meet a very strange character who helps out a lot and in the end the three barely escape the clutches of Olaf
the 8th book the hostile hospital starts out with the three on the run from count olaf and end up working in a hospital trying to unfold olaf's new pland to get their fortune there are many twists and turns to this book that u have to keep reading to find out. this book hooked me so fast that it took me about 4 hours to read.
the 9th book in the series takes place in a carnival where the children are in disguise as carnival freaks to try and figure out olafs new plot. This was one of the most exciting books i have read yet and when i finally thought that they had figured everything out __________________ happened. oh well i guess you will just have to read and find out.
I would recommend this book to anyone who has the stomach to handle all of their dispair and these books make you thankful for what you have. i would give this book the highest rating a 5 of 5 stars *****

This series seems to get more bizarre as it progresses. In the third boxed set there are twists and mysteries and ever more scary moments as the children try to make their way in the world. V.F.D. seems to crop up in ever more places without a resolution as to the meaning of V.F.D.

As a fan of this series is aware, in the last story, "The Ersatz Elevator", the Baudelaire orphans, Violet, Klaus, and baby Sunny, had just lost their last home as one of their guardians was in league with the awful Count Olaf. On the theory that it takes a village to raise a child, Mr. Poe, the children's supposed guardian, takes the children to V.F.D., a village populated by crows and weird people in the middle of nowhere.

The children's fortunes do not improve. The townspeople force the children to do chores all day long. Many of the people for whom they do chores little appreciate what the children do. Lastly, the children and everyone in town must follow an extensive list of incredibly ridiculous rules.

Soon after the children arrive in town they find a note (a rhyming couplet) from their previously kidnapped friends, Duncan and Isadora Quagmire, kidnapped two books ago by Count Olaf. As time proceeds, the children find more couplets written by Isadora Quagmire. The children hope and believe the couplets will lead them to the Quagmires.

As always happens, Count Olaf shows up again. As usual, he has assorted followers with him, including one surprise returning character (I'm not telling!). This time Count Olaf shows up as a detective to solve a murder in the village. The victim will be an amazing surprise to every reader (and I'm not telling you that one either!).

Of course the story climaxes in a way that might lead the reader to believe that the Baudelaire's will escape. Well, the children do get away from town, but they are on the run for a crime they didn't commit. The ending of this story neatly fits into the beginning of the next book, "The Hostile Hospital."

In the eighth book in the series, we not only get to be miserable with the Baudelaire orphans, we also get to be afraid. "The Hostile Hospital" picks up where "The Vile Village" left off. The children are walking away from the village of V.F.D., trying to figure out what to do now that they are on the run from the law.

The children come to a general store in the middle of nowhere, which fortunately contains a telegraph. They try to contact Mr. Poe to tell him they did not commit the crime of which they are accused. Unfortunately, the children do not hear back from Mr. Poe before the person that delivers the newspaper arrives and shows the store owner a picture of the children in the newspaper. After a chase through the store the children escape into a van containing the most bizarre collection of hospital volunteers that you have ever seen.

The children realize they need to do some research to see if they can find more information about their family, and the murdered person in the village of V.F.D. By a strange coincidence, the hospital has a huge records department in the basement containing hundreds of file cabinets of information from all over the county. By another strange coincidence the children are able to volunteer to work in this facility.

As you can imagine, the children have to live somewhere, and they would rather not have to drive back and forth in the van lest someone recognize them. Further, where would they go anyway? So the children live in the unfinished half of Heimlich Hospital, using a canvas cover for a blanket and to keep warm.

The children's search through the records is disturbed by the arrival of, you guessed it, Count Olaf. This time we see very little of Count Olaf, and instead see another character the reader will know from a previous story (I'm not telling!). During a chase through the records room one of the Baudelaire orphans is captured, and Count Olaf and his gang of criminals plan to do an operation on the captured orphan that is planned to turn fatal.

The Baudelaire orphans left "The Hostile Hospital" in a very dangerous way. However, once again the children use their wits to figure out how to escape their predicament.

The children find themselves in a rundown carnival with another bizarre cast of characters, including several supposed "freaks." However, the freaks are not really all that freakish, one being a contortionist and one being ambidextrous. The children disguise themselves as freaks and manage to fool Count Olaf and his gang for most of the book. However, as we all know, eventually Count Olaf finds the children and another harrowing ending ensues.

Over the last two or three books we've been given tidbits about bigger mysteries surrounding the children and their parents. In this book the tidbits become much more substantial, and give us a clue as to the direction the series might take. While it may seem that my description is a bit vague, that is because I do not wish to give away any of the surprises in this book, and there is at least one very big surprise for the children and the reader, as well as a number of smaller surprises.

As I noted earlier, there are a lot of surprises in this book. Those surprises make for one of the most intriguing books in this series. I am anxiously anticipating the next volume, and even more, the end of the series, when I am hoping all the mysteries are solved.

These three books will provide readers with hours of enjoyment. The mysteries deepen with each, and all I can say at this point is, when will we see the final book in the series?!?!

I love that 3 books are packaged this way. I have been buying them 1 package at a time for my little sister. She's 12 and loves the series. Unlike most other books it stirs her imagination and gets her reading. Which is something I've been trying to get her to do.
She was dissapointed that this set didn't have a poster or something cool in the packaging. But she's thrilled with the books anyway.

My 14 yr old daughter who does not care to read has loved this series. She struggled thru volumes 4-6, but breezed thru 7-9 and is looking forward to the next in the series. Highly recommended from my standpoint.

The books Snicket writes are different from other books. Like no happy things happen. Everyone in my class loves them! The movie is good too but not better than the books. The first book is The Bad Begining if you want to start reading them. But you should read the frist tree books frist before you watch the movie!! Take it from some who reads them, ME!

THE VILE VILLAGE: BOOK 7 - Thanks to the evil Count Olaf, all of the Baudelaire's distant relatives refuse to take them in, for fear of being dragged into some unfortunate demise, like the rest of the distant relatives who opened their homes to the Baudelaire's. Hence, the three Baudelaire Orphans - Violet, 14; Klaus, now 13; and Sunny, a baby not much larger than a watermelon - have been enrolled in a program where they will be raised by an entire village, due to the saying, "It takes a village to raise a child." The children quickly choose the village "V.F.D." as their new home, for it is these three initials that the Quagmire Triplets shouted to them before they disappeared once again. However, the Baudelaire's are quite let-down by what they find in "V.F.D." They are forced to live with Hector, a man who has a secret library, a secret inventing studio - they are secret because the "V.F.D." Council of Elders have made them against the law, along with thousands of other rules; if broken you will be burned at the stake, or imprisoned - and loves to cook Mexican food. While he's very kind to the Baudelaire's, when they are accused of murder and thrown in jail, he doesn't defend them or even give them an alibi. Now it's up to the three Orphans to use their strength to escape from jail and find their friends the Quagmires, before it's too late.

THE HOSTILE HOSPITAL: BOOK 8 - The Baudelaire Orphans - Violet, Klaus, and Sunny - are up to their ears in bad luck, and it looks as if their luck is about to grow worse. The three Orphans are on the run from the police, after being falsely accused of murdering Jacques Snicket, a man who was trying to give them some very important information, that would help their situation very much. Unfortunately, he met his untimely demise before he could reveal his secret, and now the Orphans are trying to hide from both the police - who would love to arrest them, pronto - and the evil Count Olaf. The Orphans, looking for a hiding place, hop in a van with the VFD: Volunteers Fighting Disease, who spend each and every day of the week visiting Heimlich Hospital, in an attempt to cheer up patients by singing them a rather annoying song, and handing out heart-shaped balloons. At Heimlich, Violet, Klaus and Sunny are immediately put to work in the office area, where they shall spend time filing paperwork. All is fine, until the Orphans find a file about their very own family, and Count Olaf decides to perform a very grim operation on Violet, that will render her lifeless, if she does not escape.

THE CARNIVOROUS CARNIVAL: BOOK 9 - When you are a Baudelaire sibling, you do not dream of fun days at the carnival, eating cotton candy, and playing games in which you could possibly win prizes. No, as a Baudelaire orphan, you are usually trying to escape the greedy, murderous Count Olaf, and doing crazy things, such as dressing up as a freak, which is exactly what Violet, Klaus, and Sunny must do in Snicket's ninth Unfortunate Event. Violet, Klaus, and Sunny have found that Count Olaf and his troop of bandits are residing at the House of Freaks. So to ensure that they have a roof over their head, and food in their stomachs, the three Baudelaires pose as freaks and get jobs at the Carnival. But when they and their fellow freaks are informed that one of them will be thrown into a pit of hungry lions, the three Baudelaires must find a way to escape from the Carnival. But there's only one problem...escaping is impossible when Count Olaf and his cronies are involved.

Having been an avid reader of A SERIES OF UNFORTUNATE EVENTS since the release of THE BAD BEGINNING, it is hard to believe that Lemony Snicket has been able to keep the attention of readers, by coming up with even more miserable things for the Baudelaire orphans to deal with. But he has done just that with books 7, 8, and 9, by introducing new bizarre characters and strange ordeals that the Baudelaires must overcome. THE DILEMMA DEEPENS is one of the best boxed sets for A SERIES OF UNFORTUNATE EVENTS available at the moment, as book 9 features a cliffhanger ending, that will leave all readers scrambling for Book 10: THE SLIPPERY SLOPE. Snicket has done it again, and introduced even more misery into the world of children's fiction. Misery that will keep you pleased for hours upon hours.

Erika Sorocco
Book Review Columnist for The Community Bugle Newspaper

My 12 year old daughter and I enjoy reading these books together. These books manage to capture both our attention, despite the age difference of 22 years.

Mr. Snicket's refreshing voice continues to be a presence in this installment of sad events. His prose conjures outrage in the reader, while at the same time will not let you stop reading! Characters are introduced beautifully and woven into what appears to be a completely seamless plot. In this set the reader will cheer as the Baudelaire trio make a powerful decision on how to live their lives, a decision that changes their approach to the danger around them.
Oh read it!

As a first-time children's author, Lemony Snicket has endured a comparatively rough start and continued on to write these three books: "The Vile Village," "The Hostile Hospital," and "The Carnivorous Carnival." Though the merits of each of Snicket's books are strong as individual units, he has only begun to interlace the series into a solid unit of overlying congruence. Choices made first during the fourth through sixth books set the series as they today stand into two differing units: the simpler, more formulated novels of his early career and the later books which delve into V.F.D. and the overall culmination of a coalescing unit. Now that Snicket has eased through the transition, we find the Violet, Klaus, and Sunny in an entirely new series of events - ones in which they must save their newfound friends the Quagmires, piece together the mystery surrounding their parents' deaths, and possibly put an end to Count Olaf and his villainous associates. Their goals have increased in scope from day-to-day survival, the well-established futility of saving unsympathetic characters, and momentary escape from the troupe. A further pleasant surprise can be seen to convey the dynamic progression from novel to novel: the elimination of a common return-point between books described through the character of Mr. Poe, overseer of the orphans' affairs, who was earlier used to take away the Baudelaires at the end of one story and deposit them in the next. Finally, the characters themselves are changing, becoming more able, and slowly starting to grow up.

Book seven, "The Vile Village," immediately turns things on their ear in regards to structural prescription, but Snicket is wise to keep some elements intact. Every novel describes differing yet categorically similar situations; for example, the common presence of a guardian (legal or otherwise), the application of unpleasant chores or labor upon the orphans, and the acting skills of Olaf to insert himself and his associates into the otherwise nonthreatening cast. While Olaf was once unfailingly revealed by the orphans approaching the books' conclusions, however, this is no longer the case. These novels have finally found the Baudelaires far enough from home that personal safety is not in the recipe of each story's conclusion. By the ninth book, "The Carnivorous Carnival," more structural changes have taken place. If this trend continues, subsequent installments will prove to be much more dependent upon one another rather than as stand-alone reads. Snicket is going somewhere with his series, and we are still waiting to reach the apex.