Title: The Ersatz Elevator [A Series of Unfortunate Events 6]
Author: Lemony Snicket
]Genre: Middle Grade, Mystery
Length: 198
Rating: 5 Star
Series Review: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13
Description/Synopsis:
Dear Reader,
If you have just picked up this book, then it is not too late to put it back down. Like the previous books in A SERIES OF UNFORTUNATE EVENTS, there is nothing to be found in these pages but misery, despair, and discomfort, and you still have time to choose something else to read.
Within the chapters of this story, Violet, Klaus and Sunny Baudelaire encounter a darkened staircase, a red herring, some friends in a dire situation, three mysterious initials, a liar with an evil scheme, a secret passageway, and parsley soda.
I have sworn to write down these tales of the Baudelaire orphans so the general public will know each terrible thing that has happened to them, but if you decide to read something else instead, you will save yourself from a heapful of horror and woe.
With all due respect,
Lemony Snicket
Review – MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS
My favorite one so far. This review will contain spoilers so I suggest only reading if you do not care what is said or if you have read the book already.
In this book the children enter a home where is kind of looks like they have finally found a home where things are not so bad, nearly as good as when they were with uncle Monty, with their new caretakers Jerome and Esme. Esme only cares about what is ‘in’ and this makes our orphans worry about when orphans are no longer in, but Jerome listens to what they want and seems to go out of his way to make things comfortable. For example he gave them each a room which would accommodate each of their individual needs. He is even willing to help them or at least let the children look for their kidnapped friends the Quagmire triplets who Count Olaf got at the end of the last book.
And can I take a moment here to just fail to imagine how big this new penthouse the children move into is? Its has 75 bedrooms or something. Thats just the bedrooms, that doesn’t count any extra rooms like kitchens, bathrooms or lounge rooms. Can you picture just how big that is? How big was this damn building?
In their search for Olaf and the Quagmires the children climb down an elevator shaft with homemade rope and guess who they find at the bottom, the Quagmires. I was so happy to have them found, but they were locked up and they had to leave them to go and get something that would open the cage they were held in. By the time they returned however Olaf had moved them and hidden them in an item that he planned to sell at Esme’s auction. Later the children raced up and told Esme what was happening hoping that she would cancel the auction, but it turns out she was actually working for Olaf and is in love with him. She pushes the chidlren down the elevator shaft which has now had a net placed in it to keep the children captured until they returned for them. She screams about doing it because of Beatrice, the women our author keeps mentioning throughout the books. What on earth?! Need answers now!
Here is where I find something to complain about, everything up until now was very exciting. In order to escape Sunny must climb up the shaft with her teeth to fetch their home made rope. Lets picture that for a moment. If at all possible, it would takes years or her teeth would have to be super long and be able to kind of walk themselves up the shaft. Moving on though.
They go down the shaft and out the tunnel and pop up in their old burned down house. Again, what the hell! Esme was clearly involved somehow but we have yet to get any answers at all. The children don’t even get to rescue the Quagmire triplets and to make matters worst, because Jerome doesn’t like to argue and isn’t brave, he gives the children up to Mr. Poe again because hunting down the Quagmires seemed to dangerous. My heart wept for the kids in this book. So close, everything was so close but no dice.
My favorite quote from this book would have to be:
If we wait until we’re ready, we’ll be waiting for the rest of our lives.
Till Next Time…
