Book Review: The Vile Village (A Series of Unfortunate Events #7)

The Vile Village (#7)
by  Lemony Snicket
Date Read:  7/17/15
Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★

This story has been my favorite so far of the series. It was the most interesting and seemed to move the fastest – it also helps that Tim Curry is a much better reader than Lemony Snicket was (he should just stick to writing!).

What I really appreciated about this story is that Count Olaf in disguise wasn’t the main focus. He actually only shows up for a very short time at the end.  Most of the story is focused on the Boudelaires trying to solve the mystery of VFD and finding their friends.

The poems were fun to try to decipher – of course I was able to determine how it was going to turn out pretty early, but it was still fun.  I’m interested to see where the twist of who Jacque really was goes.  There’s been a lot of little snippets around Lemony Snicket, but I haven’t been able to piece anything together about him yet either.

I really liked Hector.  Although who was too afraid to speak out, he was a very caring guardian. It was nice for the orphans to have someone who cared about them again and tried to help them.  I also enjoyed seeing him gain the courage to speak out at the end.  Again, this book was just so much better than the rest.  His flaw was realistic, his character developed over the course of the story. It was just so much better than the last few.

I thought the main phrase “small potatoes” was strange the whole time. I kept thinking to myself, “who uses that phrase?”  I’ve never heard that phrase before….and then…I was re-watching season 1 of Chuck (the best show ever!) and in one of those episodes, Casey uses the phrase! Seriously?!  Haha. So proof that these books will actually teach kids something.  =)

I hope that Duncan and Isadora (and Hector) show back up at some point in the series – but thankful that the author didn’t keep dragging that out as well.  But I really like that Violet, Klaus, and Sunny have friends, so I hope they don’t stay away until the very end.

Also, with an almost 10 month old, I enjoyed that Sunny finally took her first steps at the end of the book!  That was so exciting – and I can’t wait for my daughter to do the same!  But it also makes me sad that their parents missed it.  =(

I do wish though that we would start getting more pieces to the puzzle.  We’re 7 books in now and really no more knowledgeable than we were in book 1!  I’m very interested to start figuring out everything though. I do think that 13 books is overkill for this series which is why everything is so dragged out right now – but I know the connotation with the number 13, so he wanted to write 13 books.