A Series Of Unfortunate Events (Book Series)

Much likes His Dark Materials, I watched the Netflix series before I started the book series. I found the His Dark Materials books a bit different than the TV show, but I felt each complimented each other. I felt watching the TV show and reading the books was rewarding for different reasons.

It's a bit astonishing to me in hindsight how absolutely faithful to the books the Snicket TV series appears to have been. They've clearly done more with Lemony Snicket as a character, and added unrelated cliffhangers in the first season to keep things interesting, but I finally understand why Mr. Poe is always coughing and why Violet ties up her hair in a bow.

And let me just say in hindsight, as faithful as the show was, those things meant it was TOO faithful. Neither of those ideas played on-screen, and were in fact quite off-putting and incomprehensible to people like me who never read the books. And Violet would still be bright and clever on the TV show without the ribbon, and Mr. Poe would still be distasteful without the cold. Sometimes a good adaptation of a book knows which things to lose. I've never thought less of an adaptation for being TOO faithful before, but there is apparently a first time for everything.

Also should be pointed out that both of those character quirks are actually minor in the book, not relevant to anything else, and by preserving them the show was making itself more confusing than it should have been.

I think the legal plan of the book was pure nonsense. And I see a LOT of J.K. Rowling in Snicket as far as broad, unbelievable plot turns are concerned. And it is to Snicket's credit that I more easily buy his, even if the scenarios posited are even more far-fetched than Harry Potter's are. Because it treats the scenarios as ridiculous as they are, and is a winking comedy nod to the reader the entire time. Halfway through the Potter saga (right around the third book) Rowling decided that the reader should take the story seriously, and started for lack of a better world "World Building". Groan. And that's not something you can comfortably do after the first couple of books are essentially grade-school fluff. I can't take the pathos of Sirius and Dumbledore dying COMPLETELY seriously in the same franchise as Dobby the House-Elf and the Dursleys. Can't be done. To Snicket's credit, he doesn't even try to PRETEND this nonsense is believable, which makes it more credible within its own Universe. Maybe things will change. Maybe Snicket will turn as Grim/Dark as Rowling wound up becoming by the fifth Potter book. But I don't think so. Snicket is humorous enough to warn people away from a story this "horrible" knowing full well every time he does that people will just want to read on to see what he's going on about. It's clever how he doesn't take the saga remotely seriously. But the characters do, so it's all right.

I want to give a special shout-out to the fact that Mr. Poe is probably the suckiest character in the franchise, and worse than Count Olaf. If he were remotely competent, the Baudeliers wouldn't constantly find themselves in these fixes with Count Olaf. And I have to disagree with Lemony Snicket for the kind ways he describes Justice Strauss. I find her beyond useless and almost no better than Poe. She actually is stuck for a legal reason to deny Olaf marrying 14-year-old Violet to steal her fortune instead of having the common sense to say "I'm a judge, and I'm present, and I'm telling you 'No'." Olaf and his troupe are evil. Poe, Strauss and all of the other adults the Baudeliers encounter are utterly useless. I include Lemony Snicket in this judgment by the way. Anyone who calls Strauss kind and caring is immediately suspect, and cannot be trusted. By definition. It's hinted Snicket's been up to some shady stuff in the past. Let me just say I'm not inclined to believe his version of those events after that. I've never heard Lemony Snicket described elsewhere as an "unreliable narrator" but after hearing him say good things about Strauss he's actually nothing but.

That was interesting. And unfortunate. Can't forget that bit. Because that's how the story goes. 4 stars.

We're gonna have to have a little talk about Mr. Snuffleupagus.

If you didn't expect that particular sentence to begin this specific review, either you are sane, don't know me very well, or both.

I disliked it. Greatly. And I suspect I'm going to greatly dislike the rest of the books in the saga. The TV show was always on thin ice with me for how clueless and dumb the adults were. But it lasted for 50 minutes an episode and we just had to watch it. The unfairness of it in a book however is deconstructed and pointed out by the author making it intolerable instead of merely annoying. And here's where Mr. Snufflelupagus comes in.

Cynical adults who have no business judging either Muppets or preschool shows will tell you that Sesame Street has gone downhill. They are mad that Sesame Street is concerned with the needs of modern toddlers rather than grown adults. This strikes them as incredibly unfair for some reason. And they will swear that Sesame Street was high-quality in the 1970's until Elmo came along in the 80's and ruined it.

If these people are telling you that, they are full of crap. Because Mr. Snufflelupagus in the 1970's was one of the most infuriating and outright cruel plotlines ever devised by adults for small children. Snicket cleverly (and accurately) calls out The Boy Who Cried Wolf and Little Red Riding Hood as being crappy kids' stories, but Mr. Snuffleupagus was worse than both of them put together. And it was ironic that Elmo was the hero of the episode that ended this bogus storyline, so pinning some sort of quality decline on the furry little guy is backasswards as long as he was the character who actually fixed the show's worst problem.

Big Bird's best friend was Mr. Snuffleupagus. A giant, brown furry creature resembling an elephant with no ears and a long dragging tail. Big Bird was a rare Muppet in which the Muppeteer had to get inside the puppet to perform him. It took TWO Muppeteers to operate Snuffy from inside his massive costume. Anyways, Bird's friendship with Snuffy (Bird; Snuffy always called him Bird, probably because Snuffy was the only person bigger than he was) was sort of sweet due to the fact that Big Bird is a pretty dumb character and Snuffy was even dumber. I don't want to rag TOO much on Old-School Big Bird, but in modern day Sesame Street he is NOTHING like he used to be. Even if you go as recently as the early 1980's he was nothing but a total dope. It was either Rob Corddrey or Stephen Colbert who referred to him as a "retarded yellow canary" on The Daily Show, and as cruel and unacceptable in the modern climate as it was, it was accurate to his characterization. He wasn't a curious and sensitive six-year-old back then. He was practically Lenny from Of Mice And Men. Julia created a big splash a couple of years ago for being the first neurotypical Muppet, but the fact that Big Bird was so stupid, and yet so harmless and well-meaning, means the shows was exploring mental impairments long before then. And not in a kind and understanding way.

Snuffy (being somehow dumber and even more naive than even Big Bird) was coincidentally never in the same scene as the adults. Or any other character for that matter. For whatever plot contrivance the terrible writers back then conceived of, Snuffy was the one Muppet on the show allowed playdates with no parental supervision required (did I already mention this plotline sucked and was harmful? That. That right there). As such no adult actually believe that Snuffy was real. The adults either believe Big Bird was lying, crazy, or both. Snuffy was Big Bird's imaginary friend, and every episode ended with the adults laughing at the poor dope while he stomps his feet and cries that his best friend is real and matters. The idea that somebody would actually like and respect Big Bird was treated as patently ridiculous by the adults. (Did I mention this plotline was harmful? That. That right there.)

The reasons the adults missed Snuffy were always asinine, predictable, and 100% badly written. They were pretty much the most debased and galling example of a TV phenomenon knows as The Inopportune Phone Call. In other words a mundane problem randomly happening at the precise wrong moment to completely mess up the best laid plans of Big Bird (and that would never happen in real life). Big Bird tells dopey Snuffy to stay right there while he calls the adults. And Snuffy sees a balloon and chases it away. Or he realizes he forgot his milk money. Crap like that. His excuses to fail his friend were lamer than Peter Parker's excuses for never talking to Gwen on The Spectacular Spider-Man. Which is saying something. That show was MAJORLY crappy, but even it wasn't as badly written as Sesame Street in the 1970's. (Seriously. "I'd better be going." And Weisman is considered a great writer? Ick.)

I was pissed off as a kid to see that. And most other kids were too I imagine. And I guess the writers thought it was smart, and a way to say kids are dumb without saying it to their faces (Santa Claus serves the exact same purpose, and I object to him for the same reasons). But by the 1980's, child abductions and molestations by family members became a more widely reported issue. I'm not saying they weren't a huge problem before then, but they weren't a problem anyone was willing to talk about, especially with kids. Stranger Danger and Bad Touching only took off after decades of social progress. And you might not consider the Reagan years as that, but in that regard? They definitely were.

And Sesame Street had basically spent over a decade drilling into impressionable toddlers that if they tell their parents or a trusted adult something that seems far-fetched (like "Uncle Billy sneaks into my room at night") those adults who claim to love you and want what is best for you won't believe you. For a trusted adult saying Uncle Billy is a bad guy as just as preposterous as Mr. Snuffleupagus. That's actually in fact what Uncle Billy whispers to the crying kid every night under the covers as the threat to keep them in line, and is in fact counting on the kid believing that, and every episode of Sesame Street Snuffy is telling that kid that Uncle Billy is right.

So finally the show realized the dangerous subtext to that plotline (which would have been self-evident to better writers or people who actually studied child psychology like the show always claimed to) and made a big decision in the 1980's to "out" Snuffy to the adults (with much media fanfare). Elmo was the hero of episode (which is why Elmo has actual value). But Elmo was the first person besides Big Bird to ever see Snuffy, and the little guy made SURE to hold onto Snuffy's snuffle so he wouldn't run off while Big Bird excitedly ran off to get the adults. For once and for all and for all the marbles. The adults arrive and are all dumbfounded as Big Bird excitedly points and yells, "I told you! I told you there was a Snuffleupagus!" And here is where Sesame Street earned its stripes for the second time (the first being the gut-wrenching death of Mr. Hooper). Big Bird had a long conversation with the adults about how hurt and sad he felt that none of his trusted adult friends believed him, and then they all went around and talked about the ways they failed him by them doing that. Some of the adults were more culpable than others. I think Maria never believed Big Bird, but I think she was generally supportive. And that was brought up, and correctly deemed not good enough. It was a huge media event and a watershed event in not just children's television, but television, period. Sesame Street decided to be a rare TV show to totally upend the status quo for the sole reason that it sucked and always did. And I give them a HELL of a lot of credit for jettisoning one of their most reliable and widely used plotlines once they realized it was harmful.

And I'm talking about Sesame Street in a review for the second Lemony Snicket book. The truth is, the adults never believing the Baudelieres about obvious true things about Count Olaf is the exact same problem as the adults never believing Big Bird for silly sounding things about Snuffy. But because the circumstances are less believable and understandable, the message is even worse. It tells the kids reading the books that adults cannot be trusted, and reporting abuse is futile. Literally, that's the moral. And what pisses me off most about this is that Snicket does this simply because it makes it easier to create forced drama. Sesame Street's writers in the 1970's were kind of clueless. The Author of the Lemony Snicket books is simply lazy and doesn't want to go to the trouble of either finding a plausible way for Count Olaf to continue being the major villain in the saga after having been identified as such in the first book, or simply creating different villains along the way. I'm not saying I could personally think of more plausible ways to keep Olaf in the story. But by having every caretaker the kids meet never believe or listen to them, even those Snicket praises like Uncle Monty, the author is telling kids that if you are abused, you're on your own. Maybe Snicket makes some distinctions of that not being applicable to the reader who probably has adults in their life they can trust. He didn't do that in the second book. If he does it in a future book I'll be surprised.

The thing I comfort myself with is as a book series, the age of the children old enough to read or have this read to them will be a bit older and more developed than the toddlers in the 1970's who suffered Snuffy-related trauma were. But it's still a crappy message to give a kid at any age.

There is a difference between giving kids a healthy mistrust of authority instead of telling them adults will never believe you when you have a problem. Especially if Snicket ends the book referring to Poe as "Well-meaning". I often sort of worried about this exact problem with the Harry Potter books, and some of the abusive adults and the adults that look the other way or excuse the abuse. But it's not only not on this level, but even the adults that dismiss Snape and Malfoy's utter crappiness, are as least supportive in other ways. Lupin is not actually useless, even if he shows Snape far more grace than he deserves. Dumbledore is actually a great father figure to Harry, even if he's turned a blind eye to Malfoy terrorizing the school for six years. Poe, and Strauss, and Monty, I don't think there is anything good about them. And when Snicket suggests people like Strauss and Monty, who don't listen or take the kids seriously are good, what does that tell the kids reading?

And what's so frustrating is that the message is probably worse than Snuffy when you get right down to it. While I confess it seems a bit of a stretch that in a Universe of talking giant birds and monsters that a Snuffleupagus crosses the line of believability for adults, it would in REAL life, so there is some sense to it. The excuses Poe makes are so dumb and obvious, and so obviously unfair and mistaken, there is no justification for it. The adults of Sesame Street used to be aholes to Big Bird. But the truth is, on some level there was a believability to that notion. Here it's just dumb and badly written.

I think what bother me most about Snicket is that he plainly understands these books are read by kids and in fact goes out of his way to add discretionary warnings on their behalf. The fact that he devotes an entire page to the word "ever" in telling kids to never ever play with electrical sockets (funniest moment in the book by the way) means that he understands young people will be taking messages from what he writes, so he needs to be careful in what he does. I wish he had thought to do that in regards to all adults in the books being evil, useless, complicit, or the latter two together.

I'm not happy. I had similar thoughts about the TV series, but I assumed the source material would be more coherent. It turns out the series was FAR more faithful to it than I knew. And frankly as a TV series it got away with a lot of ridiculousness I would never tolerate in a book. And I don't. I don't like The Reptile Room and I don't think I'll like most of the rest of this series. 1 star.

Not as terrible as the last book, but that's no kind of bar. The adults are still dumb, cruel, and pointless for no reason. Well, actually the reason is because Daniel Handler is not a talented enough writer to write a story in which they aren't. He knows the scenario lacks credibility so the dumb, cruel, pointless adults aren't allowed any either. Which is pretty much the worst and laziest reason to create a dumb, cruel, and pointless character.

And I still haven't forgotten what a bad message that sends kids. My treatise on the evils of Mr. Snuffleupagus from the last review stands firm after reading this.

Speaking of which, at one point Snicket tells the kids reading the book that monsters under the bed are real. I take comfort knowing that most kids who read this are old enough to know he's joking, but it still makes me utterly loathe him.

Pretty bad. 1 1/2 stars.

Book four and we're already in a rut. There are only so many ways to write a story where horrible things happen, the recurring villain gets away, the status quo is upheld, and thing are only lightly PG-rated. And you repeat yourself. Over and over. By book four.

I'll tell you one thing the book has going for it. It's starting to give more overt clues about Snicket's past and even a connection to Count Olaf. Beatrice is more fully mentioned here than anywhere else and we are led to believe Olaf killed her. This is the most fascinating aspect of the books (and it was the series too) and it's neat it's going on in the background.

But that got stale quick. The series is already running on fumes. 2 stars.

I seemed to recall me liking the TV series more as it went along, and I couldn't remember if the quality had improved or I had merely gotten used to the sensibility. Apparently, the books themselves improved.

Ironically, as far as this book goes, and possibly the rest of the series, the TV show might be better. We get a fuller picture of things because every scene in the book features the Baudelaires, whereas the TV show has a LOT of extra stuff Snicket didn't reveal here (or at least not yet) that didn't feature those kids. And I'm not going to say that the character of Olivia Caliban was make or break for the franchise, but the TV show was better for having her there.

Carmelita Spats is still just awful (and awesome), although she's funnier to actually watch on the show. I'm disappointed that the scene of her sniffing the cake was an invention purely for the TV show. Snicket should have come up with it for the book fifteen years earlier. It was the best part of that outing and its absence is noticed. To be fair, it wouldn't have been as funny to read as it was to see.

More hints about Lemony's background with Beatrice, and VDF is mentioned for the first time. This is also the first book to end on an outright cliffhanger, which is fine for a streaming series, but can get frustrating for a series of books. I binged the entire series at once because I got to it after it was over, and I'll be fortunate to be able to do the same with the books.

Plot related stupidity still reigns supreme, but this book is an improvement over previous outings because the Baudelaires know it's coming, and attempt to work around it. They aren't entirely successful (and Vice-Principle Nero is the most loathsome kiddie-lit character I've read since Dolores Umbridge, and for the same reasons). But it's nice the kids are learning to work around the adults instead of trying to convince those useless idiots.

I liked the first book but this is the first book in the series I've liked since that one. 3 1/2 stars.

Not good, not bad. In the middle.

I was impressed that Snicket went out of his way at the end of the book to cast shade on Jerome for how useless he actually was. He is also really starting to get down on Poe too which is also long overdue.

I feel like we are running in place a bit and not learning enough. Say what you will about Harry Potter, each of the seven books had its own satisfying share of revelations. I think Daniel Handler is stingy in doling out both clues and pay-off. I know it's a sad ending, but answers can be given along the way too.

Beatrice apparently robbed from Esme. Whoever Beatrice actually was, I like her very much.

Again, only so-so. 4 stars.

Honestly? I found the first half somewhat refreshing. Hector the adult actually meant well and wasn't entirely useless. And looking at the clues for the Quagmires was interesting too.

But once Count Olaf shows up this goes all to hell. The murder of Jacques Snicket should be a game-changer, but we learn nothing about him in this book and all we get from Olaf is more nonsense that would only fool very stupid people. It just felt dumb.

About the best thing I can say for the ending is that the Baudelaires realizing that they couldn't count on adults to care for them and that they'd have to care for themselves, because that's what they'd actually been doing since the beginning was about. Damn. Time. I just wish the rest of the climax getting them to that point had been less frustrating. 3 stars.

On some level I hated the hell out that. And on another I greatly respected it. Because as despicable as the adults in the story are to the Baudelaires, the story finally lives up to the horridness of its premise. Don't get me wrong. It sucks for it too. But it's stopped treating the idea of a horrible story as a joke and just turned into a horrible story for real. I hate it and take it seriously for the first time ever.

Lemony Snicket is proving to have a lot more personal pathos in the book than a stoic, deadpan guy like Patrick Warburton could ever hope to give him on the series. We still haven't gotten an explicit explanation of how he's related to Jacques, but the picture with the Baudelaire parents means this investigation is actually personal to him. I don't think Snicket gets everything right here. But it's because he's connected to the parents that he gets more right than the adults the kids encounter.

We also got a much needed answer: As of now, Snicket does NOT know the location of the orphans or if they are alive or dead. That's interesting.

The end of the book came up with a specious argument, by which I mean an argument that is untrue, not an argument having to do with different animals species. But I know it will be further explored. But the idea that Klaus and Sunny worry that because of the lying and trickery they had to do to survive that they were turning in villains like Olaf is nonsense. And I am aware this is going to be further explored, but I don't think the kids themselves deserve to be thinking that. Hal is held up as a model of an innocent they had to lie to and trick, and their excuse for his behavior at the end is that he believed they burned down the hall of records. The truth is he turned on the kids before he knew that happened. After working with them and getting to know them and knowing how kind and helpful they were. And the Baudelaires still considered this louse an innocent victim they hurt. Just for that the Baudelaires are not villains. Not even close.

It was a pretty great cliffhanger. And while the story is STILL annoyingly stingy with answers and clues, we got more in this single book than we did any other previous single book. I'll give it that.

I loved and loathed that in equal measure. 3 1/2 stars.

I guess I'm just not into this.

Olivia appears in the books after all, but she wasn't set up earlier and I don't care about her the way I do the show. And she ultimately betrays the kids which is another reason I prefer the show's version.

I am not happy that the kids are questioning the morality of the things they are forced to do. They are surrounded by monsters, villains and civilians alike, and they've done a DAMN fine job navigating it. After what I just saw of every other disgusting person in that carnival and the audience, it pisses me off Snicket is suggesting it might be up for debate.

Tod Browning was clearly an influence for this particular book, and that did not make it any easier to read.

The kids always getting interrupted right before they learn what the initials VDF stand for is starting to get supremely annoying. That is bad storytelling, Daniel Handler. That may be how THIS story goes, but it's not how a good one does.

Sigh. 2 1/2 stars.

This book isn't much as interested in giving answers, as it is in solving mysteries that will eventually lead to answers. That's something I like. Once I learned about the Volunteer Fire Department, the schism, and the two conflicting mottos of the two schisms, the subtext of the entire series became clear enough for me. I can handle a sad or ambiguous ending because this specific book gave us both enough answers and enough tools to figure out those answers on our own. As such, I believe it's the best book so far. 4 1/2 stars.

I actually like this one. The children have been growing and starting to ask All The Right Questions. I wasn't happy about Fiona's betrayal, but the ending was doubly good. First because of the reveal of Kit Snicket. The second thing is what I felt was the actual turning point for the kids: Them finally standing up to and denying Mr. Poe's crappy authority over them. It's been so long since they've been put in that position and it's nice to see they have grown enough that they utterly reject it now.

I coulda sworn that Fiona didn't betray the kids on the show, and the Hook-Handed man actually switched sides here. If I'm remembering that right, I like the TV version better.

Mr. Poe is the worst character in the book. So any book that ends with him being put in his place isn't actually Unfortunate after all. 4 stars.

That bordered on operatic. The kids joining Olaf at the end made perfect sense BECAUSE all of the "noble" (snort!) adults have failed them. I think the biggest failure of the book goes to Kit Snicket who couldn't even be bothered to properly prepare the Baudelaires or answer their questions before thrusting them into that life or death situation. They had absolutely no way of telling who was Frank or who was Ernest, and Kit was an idiot to think they could. Justice Strauss is equally culpable for never having sensed the obvious malice the Author had described the auras of The Man With No Hair But A Beard, and The Woman With Hair But No Beard containing. And I think Lemony Snicket himself is culpable for not doing more on the one occasion he had a chance to. He justifies it by suggesting it would have simply prolonged the orphans' misery. He has no way of knowing that, and I believe it's merely the excuse he uses to help himself sleep at night. Unreliable Narrator, indeed.

Sunny's Scalia joke was fabulous, and even though he's dead, it's timelier than ever.

The kids almost getting Olaf to turn over a new leaf until Poe screws it up was amazing. "What else can I do?" is said by a lonely and broken person.

The one thing about the book I hated unreservedly was the backwards print. Having to have to read some of the book in a mirror was a pain in the ass I did not remotely appreciate. Kids might think it's neat, but it pissed me off. That should not be necessary. I can't even fathom how that would work on Kindle.

Hal sort of redeemed himself for me here by siding with the Baudelaires at crunch time. It didn't help anything, but the thought mattered to me anyways.

J.S. being Justice Strauss and Jerome Squalor was smart. I was like "Aha!"

I felt the trial on the TV series was far more interesting because the crimes and alternate theories of Olaf are clearly laid out (and are controversies worth exploring). Snicket has the children feeling this level of guilt for certain things, but it was great to hear it out loud. It also makes Olaf seem brighter than his lame defense offered here simply because he knew the fix was in. The reader had to wait a little longer to learn that, so it was a bit alarming to see that perhaps Olaf could actually be found innocent on the facts, after he's twisted them so much.

I feel like the TV show will have offered more explicit answers. But as much as I loved that adaptation of this, it doesn't have a moment as chilling as Sunny telling them to burn down the hotel. It's the most horrible thing of all, and you realize it's the right thing to do, even if more people will die (although the badder the person, the more likelier their death.) Her biting Justice Strauss' hand broke my heart too. In a world of nothing but stupid and cruel adults it breaks my heart and does it good in equal measure that the kids finally have washed their hands of them all. They'll take their chances with Olaf. He's an evil, but he's also a known quantity. Her wears his evil on his sleeve openly while somebody like Poe's evil is due to their stupidity, neglect, and inaction. And maybe that makes Olaf the evil lesser and safer for them.

It's an ambiguous ending for the next to last book. Hopefully the last book offers a few answers and still satisfies me. 5 stars.

I don't care what anyone says. Lemony Snicket lied to us. He just gave us a happy ending. Seriously pleased with that.

I don't recall if the TV series made the fact that Beatrice was the Baudelaires' mother explicit or not. If it did, I must have missed it. But I thought it was a brilliant final twist. It was so perfect I almost knew it was coming a couple of pages before-hand.

We never learned the deal with the sugar bowl which is disappointing, yet on-brand.

The Quagmires' fate is a lot more explicit in the books, and suggests a VERY bad end. That's one thing I didn't like.

Olaf and Kit's previous relationship was a lot more explicit on the show, but the small kiss still said volumes. Him carrying Kit to the shore was played as more of a Hero Moment on the TV show.

It's interesting that Olaf refuses to admit he set the fire that killed their parents. I'm glad the idea was brought up, but I DO think it's better that idea remained up for debate by the end.

Ishmael is the banality of evil personified. His actions are every bit as damaging as Mr. Poe's, but his personal philosophy adds up to nothing but neglect. It would be out of character to the series if he got his comeuppance in Book Thirteen but I wish he had.

Do you know what I think the TV show has over the books? I'm pretty sure it brought up the fact that Olaf always going after the Baudelaires' fortune is counterproductive, and it was long before they were stranded on an island. Considering his vast resources, and power, and influence, it's purely small potatoes, and the show was smart enough to point out that Olaf was too dumb or blind to see it. I had hoped the book would have had that point of view expressed too, but it didn't.

And the franchise breaks the curse with Book Fourteen starting on Chapter Fourteen. I have less idea how Snicket actually obtained this specific information than he did on the TV show.

There will be grumbling from some people who wanted real answers to the mysteries. But that's not how the story goes. And maybe a surprise happy ending should be enough. It was for me. 4 1/2 stars.