The Reptile Room

Lemony Snicket

The Baudelaire orphans are back, and things haven't gotten any better. Which should be no surprise to the readers of Snicket's twistedly humorous Series of Unfortunate Events (of which this is book the second, which means "he wrote one before it, and an unspecified number afterwards." "Unspecified," here, means...). We pick up not long after we left off, with Poe having found the children a new relative to stay with, herpetologist Montgomery Montgomery (with all the literary allusions, one marvels that Snicket didn't call him August August, and a hundred points to anyone who gets the reference), to whom the children grow quickly attached. However, these are the Baudelaire children, and nothing good can happen to them for very long. You're always waiting for the other shoe to drop, and Snicket never fails to deliver.

When the shoe finally does drop, it is, surprisingly, both predictable and unpredictable at the same time; you know what Snicket's going to do, you just don't want to believe you're right. (Alas, you are.) The book wends its way along with the same black humor and sometimes-educational-sometimes-not definitions, and fans of the first are sure to enjoy the second. Those who found the humor in the first too black, though, are probably going to wonder if Snicket is actually a serial killer in disguise with this one, so be warned. The more twisted your sense of humor, the better, where Snicket is concerned.