The 100 Books Pact 10/100

Well as the name suggests, it’s just that. It’s a pact to read 100 books. It doing rounds on Facebook and I decided to give a shot too. I will list the books at my blog, 10 at a time just to keep a tab. And the reading begins!

There is a series of books by Lemony Snicket called “A Series of Unfortunate Events”. When I was in college, I used to share a place with AJ. Her family friends were our neighbors. They had two children (they are quite grown up now, that makes me feel old..) who were avid readers and for fun (and passing time), we borrowed the books in this series from them. Yes, this is a series for children. I had read a few from the series but could not finish it. I didn’t even remember the plot until I read them again as it was always at the back of my mind and I wanted to finish it and know how it all ended. So now with the access to the library, I read them all. It is a series of 13 books and each book has 13 chapters. I think the author is just trying to make a point, 13 being the unfortunate number for some. Throughout the series, the author repeatedly warns the readers to close the book and read some other happy story which makes the reader want to finish the series all the more. So the first 13 books of my 100 books pact would be this series, 10 of which I am mentioning here. I like the alliteration the author has used in each of the titles in the series.

1/100. The Bad Beginning – The series is about the Baudelaire children (Violet, Klaus & Sunny) who are left orphaned after their parents die in an unfortunate fire and their home perished. Violet who is the eldest is fourteen and is an inventor, Klaus is twelve and is an avid reader while Sunny is just an infant and has four very sharp teeth and speaks only a few words which only her siblings and parents can understand. Each of their skills comes handy many a times in their adventures. Their parents had left them a fortune which Violet will inherit when she is eighteen. Mr. Poe is a banker and is in charge of their accounts. It becomes his job to find a guardian for the children. He places them under the care of Count Olaf who is a crook and wants to steal the Baudelaire fortune. How he conspires against them (here and in the subsequent parts) and how they escape his clutches, how they convince Mr. Poe that he is not fit to be their guardian forms the plot of this book.

2/100. The Reptile Room – Now, Mr. Poe found the Baudelaire children another guardian in Uncle Monty or Dr. Montgomery Montgomery who was a herpetologist. The children immediately like him. They are fascinated by various species of snakes in “The Reptile Room”, a giant hall in which Uncle Monty’s reptile collection is stored. Count Olaf turns up as Stephano, the new assistant of Uncle Monty. This book again like many other books in the series is about how the children escape him and whether they were able to save their guardian needs to be read.

3/100. The Wide Window – This time the Baudelaires are deported to Aunt Josephine who lives overlooking Lake Lachrymose and is afraid of everything. She has a huge library of only grammar books and a window (The Wide Window) overlooking the lake. Count Olaf again disguised himself as Captain Sham and managed to charm Aunt Josephine. So as you might have guessed, the books follow a similar pattern à new guardian-Count Olaf in disguise-adventure-escape of the Baudelaires. However the adventures and the built up of each of the story is unique and interesting and that is worth a read.

4/100. The Miserable Mill – Here, the children take a train to Paltryville and their new guardian is the owner of Lucky Smells Lumbermills. Upon arrival, the children get to know that they will have to work in the mill as a part of the deal and Sir (the guardian, who is referred thus as his name is so long that no one can pronounce it right) will keep away Count Olaf, their arch nemesis. The children were miserable in the mill. They had to work all day, fed close to nothing and paid nothing. On the top of their woes, Klaus gets hypnotized and Count Olaf strikes again, this time in the guise of Shirley the assistant of the optometrist in town.

In all the books of the series, the author introduces new words and gives interesting explanation. Sample this - “nefarious” here means “Baudelaire-hating” or “curtly”, a word which here means “tired of Count Olaf’s nonsense”

In the end, as always Count Olaf is exposed and as always, he escapes!

5/100. The Austere Academy – Next the children find themselves in Prufrock Preparatory School where they come across new friends, new enemies and Count Olaf in another disguise. The school’s motto is Memento Mori which means “Remember You Will Die”. They make friends with Duncan and Isadora Quagmire. They are triplets but their brother Quigley Quagmire died in a fire along with their parents. They are in similar situation as the Baudelaires as their parents had left them an enormous fortune too. They are introduced to the gym coach Genghis who in fact is Count Olaf. In the end, Count Olaf’s identity is revealed and he escapes and this time also kidnapped the Quagmires who managed to shout “V.F.D” before being whisked away which leads us to the next part.

6/100. The Ersatz Elevator – Ersatz in author’s own words mean a situation in which one thing is pretending to be another. The Baudelaires are taken to their new home 667 Dark Avenue by Mr. Poe. Its dark as lights are “out” or out of fashion. There they meet Mr. and Mrs. Squalor - Jerome and Esme who are their new guardians. Esme Squalor is the city’s sixth most popular financial advisor and is most concerned about what is “in” and what’s not. In fact, they decided to adopt the Baudelaires because orphans were “in”.  Esme meets Gunther, the “innest” auctioneer (auctions are “in”, you see) who in fact is Count Olaf. The Baudelaires tell Esmé about this, but it is revealed that Esmé knew who Gunther was, and was actually in on the plan to kidnap the Quagmires. In the end, as always, the Count escapes along with Esme. Jerome wants to keep the Baudelaires but is too cowardly to help them find Quagmires and they refuse!

7/100. The Vile Village- This time, the Baudelaires are transported to a village named VFD – village of fowl devotees based on the saying that “It takes a village to raise a child”. They meet with the Council of Elders who decides that the children will do the chores of the entire village and will stay with Hector, the handyman. In this book, they get united with the Quagmires and again get separated with them in the end as they managed to hop on to Hector’s hot air balloon device. This time Count Olaf comes as Detective Dupin and Esme was Officer Luciana. A series of interesting events later, it ended with Count Olaf and Esme escaping but the Baudelaires were left in the town of VFD asking them to wait until the crow is attended to and after that they will be burned on stake. How the children escape the elders of the town would be seen in the next book I believe. Until this book, the author had managed to keep the interest quite high, however from this book onwards, the downslide begins. I still decided to finish the series not with that much vigor though.

8/100. The Hostile Hospital – I am too bored to write reviews about the rest. I did not find them as interesting as the earlier parts.

This one ended with a great fire in the hostile hospital. By applying great wits and showing exemplary courage as usual, the Baudelaires managed to escape the fire and hopped on to the trunk of Olaf’s car to get the rest of pages of the Baudelaires file from the library of records so as to clear the mystery of their parents’ death, VFD and also find the Quagmire triplets.

9/100. The Carnivorous Carnival – In this book Count Olaf was himself and it was the Baudelaires who resorted to disguise. In the end, Count Olaf hired the three freaks as his comrades and kidnapped Sunny along with them.

10/100. The Slippery Slope –

They met Quigley Quagmire whom everyone supposed was dead and who completed the Quagmire triplets. In the end Sunny is reunited with Violet and Klaus, but Quigley is separated from them. Olaf and Esme manage to recruit Carmalita Spats, the horrendous girl from Prufrock Preperatory School who had made the lived of the Baudelaires and Quagmires difficult even there.

They are left with a name of a place which is the last safe place to find the volunteers and a poem which supposedly is coded and they have to decode them as well as find a way to reach the last safe place and a new adventure awaits.

Want to join? Here are the guidelines. Please copy into your first post as a participant....
-To show case your love for reading.
-This is not a competition.
-There is no strict timeline.
-As you read, you post the picture of the book you read with hashtag #100bookpact.
-You get to know what your friends are reading and pick up recommendations. Yes, we do have apps and websites with the same intent and purpose, but hopefully this is something light and motivating as FB makes sure that it is right in your face all the time.
-You can include books that you have already read too. It does not have to be, from now on. If so make sure that these book have been something that fundamentally touched you in some/many ways.
-If you have a child, you can post your child's reading updates also.
In that case there can be repetitions too. My children take pleasure in reading the same book again and again and I believe that they dig deeper with every repetition.
-Here is the format(1)add #100bookpact mark the book as 1/100, 2/100..etc(2)Post front cover of the book(3)Add review - optional(4)Tag people who you would think would enjoy the book - optional(5)If it is your child you are posting for do #100bookpact 1/100 nickname/name of child. ‪#‎100bookspact