A Series of Unfortunate Events the Bad Beginning

I do not think I have ever been so creeped out by a children's book before. The first line of the book gave a good indication of how the book would go "If you are interested in stories with happy endings, you would be better off reading some other book. In this book, not only is there no happy ending; there is no happy beginning and very few happy things in the middle." The three children the Violet, Klaus, and sunny were some of the unluckiest children ever. Their parents died in a fire and they are taken to live with a distant relative Count Olaf who is only after the money that is left to them by their parents. The first impression that the children get of Count Olaf is that he is a horrible person. "I wish I could tell you that the Baudelaires' first impressions of Count Olaf and his house were incorrect, as first impressions so often are. But these impressions—that Count Olaf was a horrible person, and his house a depressing pigsty—were absolutely correct." 

Count Olaf is horrible from the start. He never hides that he's after the money even after he learned that the money was only accessible when Violet turned of age. The time that they lived in Count Olaf's home was miserable. He forced them to clean his filthy house, only gave them one room to live with one bed. Ordered them to cook a meal for his acting troop then threw a fit when they didn't make roast beef. He then made a plan to get his hands on the money by forcing Violet to marry him by threatening her with the well being of her baby sister. Fortunately, Violet can ford his attempts and save her sister. Still, Count Olaf manages to get away, not without promising to get his hands on the Baudelaire fortune and killing the children.

As I said, I have never been so creeped out by a children's book, but that didn't mean that I didn't enjoy it. It was interesting to see how the children got themselves out of a horrible situation. At the same time it broke my heart when it seemed like no one was willing to help them when they were obviously needing the help. Then the one person in the whole book that cared for them and let them use their library couldn't keep them in the end. I'm not sure how I had gone this long and never read a series of unfortunate events.