Review of THE
VILE VILLAGE by LEMONY SNICKET
(seventh in the
A SERIES OF UNFORTUNATE EVENTS series)
“It takes a
village to raise a child,” which is why the village of V.F.D. decides to accept
guardianship of the three Baudelaire orphans. Unfortunately, the people in this
village seem to have the saying a bit backwards. They expect the children to do
all the chores for the entire village. To make matters worse, this town lives
by a long, loooong list of strict rules: everything from what books (not many)
are allowed in the library to how many nuts are allowed on a sundae. Punishment
for disobeying any of these rules is being burned at the stake.
If you’re a
silver lining sort of person, though, let’s focus on the fact that the town
handyman takes the children under his wing. (You’ll get the pun when you read
the book.) Hector is very much like Jerome from The Ersatz Elevator: nice and
well-meaning, but sadly too much of a coward to be that useful as a guardian.
Hector might be a reasonable person who knows all the town’s rules are alarming
nonsense, but he’s too fearful of those in charge to speak up about anything.
There’s a fun
mystery in this novel as the children discover a string of poetic riddles that
they’re convinced their friend Isadora is leaving. They suspect their kidnapped
triplet friends must be nearby...which means Count Olaf is probably nearby,
too, not that his presence would be much of a surprise by now.
This may be one
of my favorite books in the series so far. As I mentioned in earlier reviews,
some of the books start to feel too repetitive in formula, but this addition had
more of a complete plot within the one installment - thanks in great part to
the poems mystery.
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