Book Review: The Ersatz Elevator (A Series of Unfortunate Events #6)

The Ersatz Elevator (#6)
by  Lemony Snicket (Author), Tim Curry (Reader)
Date Read:  6/8/15
Rating: ★ ★ ★

The Ersatz Elevator is just more of the same from Lemony Snicket. The plots are always the same: a new guardian, Olaf in disguise, Olaf gets away.  But at least he’s playing fun at it now – “We can’t let him get away for the 6^th time”!

I want to put this out there early: I liked this reader, Tim Curry, much better than the previous reader (I just checked and he’s the actor too, in you were wondering!).  He has more inflection to his voice, and he speaks louder so I’m not having to blast out my speakers to understand.  I checked the CDs out from the library this time instead of the digital audio, in hopes that maybe it was the cable connection that made it so quite.  Alas, for some reason, these are just very quiet. I usually listen to the radio at 13 or 14…we have to turn the CD all the way up to 28!  And then when they whisper it’s still hard to hear!  But this reader is much more enjoyable.

There were a few times I found myself chuckling at this one.  There were a lot more descriptions of phrases and words in this book than I’ve noticed in some of the recent ones we’d listened to.  I think as long as your kid can handle death (of fictitious characters) then these books would be great for them. It builds their vocabulary and understanding of things in a fun way, without having to ask an adult what something means.

I did like that Quagmire Triplets have arrived.  That helped mix things up, and I really enjoy that they have friends.  Even though the Quagmires are in trouble, it still helps mix it up a bit.  The whole plot is just fixed on trying to get away from Olaf now; they are also trying to save their friends and solve a mystery.

Sometimes I feel like the story is dragged out a little too much though.  I found myself bored at times in this book.  Sometimes I enjoy his descriptions of “you would hope this….instead of that…” and he goes on for 3 examples, but at the end of the story, it was just annoying to me.  We know it doesn’t end happy, just end the book already…instead of adding on 2 more pages.

One thing I did like about this was the twist of where the dark passage way ended! <spoiler> I did not expect it to lead to the ashes of their mansion.  I’m interested to see where that part of the story goes.   That was a good twist that I wasn’t expecting. </spoiler>

I want to finish this series though so I can say we’ve read (listened) to them all and I’m still hopeful there’s a relatively happy ending for them at the end of book 13.