GJSHS book reviews » Mystery

The Penultimate Peril by Lemony Snicket

Christina Brownell — Fri, 16 Jun 2006 14:02:58 +0000

This book is an interesting new book with a twist for those who have started and continued the Series of Unfortunate Events books. This book continues to tell the tale of the Baudelaire children whose parents died from a raging fire as told in the first book. The children throughout this wild and “unfortunate” series must live with new guardian after new guardian in a chain of deaths and traitors. This book ends as a cliffhanger for the last and final book which will come out on October 13, 2006.

In this story, it begins with a mysterious cab ride to a hotel of mystery and suspense for the Baudelaire children. They enter as concierges. They do much spying on gruesome characters from their past who unfortunately enter the hotel. Some of these characters come from The Miserable Mill, The Austre Academy, The Slippery Slope and many others. They must get one thing that was mentioned in book 11 and get it fast to find out the mysteries of VFD and the 100’s of mysteries surrounding the miserable lives of these 3 children. Answers will be divulged as many new secrets begin. Count Olaf, the villain in each and every book, once again returns to power and escapes the authorities as he does every time.

So if you want great mystery and suspense and are looking for a good series, A Series of Unfortunate Events is the book for you!

Jesse C – 7th grade

The Bad Beginning by Lemony Snicket

Christina Brownell — Fri, 13 Jan 2006 18:39:59 +0000

I read the first book of The Series of Unfortunate Events called the Bad Beginning by Lemony Snicket. The book starts off by saying that there are three children that have lost their parents in a terrible, terrible fire. The three children’s names are: Sunny Baudelaire, Klaus Baudelaire, and the oldest, Violet Baudelaire. Every one of those children has a gift. Sunny is only a toddler but she is known for biting through anything that she can find; Klaus is the middle oldest and is known for his amazing vocabulary and knowing how to do a lot of things; and the oldest, Violet, is known for her extremely good sense of inventions. All she has to do is think of something and pull her hair back in a bow, and she can make anything out of very few supplies. Anyways, they were sent to live with their closest living relative named Count Olaf. Mr. Olaf wasn’t the nicest person you have ever met. As a matter a fact, it seems like he has no heart whatsoever. He only has one thing and one thing only on his mind, and that is to get the enormous Baudelaire fortune that the three children’s parents had left behind for them so when Violet comes of age she can inherit the fortune and take care of her siblings. Count Olaf puts the Baudelaire children through so much hustle and bustle. He ends up doing a major trick to one of the Baudelaire children, but little does he know that the children have something in mind to backfire his plan. That will most definitely stir up the story a little bit more than what has already been done. I’d rate this book a 5 stars because it was easy to read and very interesting, and most of all, fast paced. I highly recommended this book to you and any of the other people looking for a good book to read.

Jesse C. – 8th grade

Lulu Dark Can See Through Walls by Bennett Madison

Christina Brownell — Wed, 14 Sep 2005 18:33:05 +0000

Imagine a hillarious combination of Gossip Girl and Nancy Drew with a lot of sass.Lulu’s favorite purse gets stolen at a Many Handsomes concert in NYC. There wasn’t much in it… except the gorgeous lead singer’s phone number. She’s convinced that her archenemy, Rachel, stole it. After all, in middle school she did put a rotting fish in Lulu’s backpack. The book follows Lulu and her best friends Daisy, a “karate-chopping space cadet,” and Charlie, “sweet but oblivioius,” on the quest to get the purse back. The dead body in the river is perhaps the glamorous new student Berlin Silver; Sally Hansen is stalking Lulu and trying to kill her (Lulu has a great imagination); and someone is impersonating Lulu, doing things the real Lulu would never do, like hang out all night at clubs with the craziest, richest girls in her class and insulting people left and right. To top it off, Charlie is acting weird. Follow fast-paced, passionate, clever Lulu and her friends as they solve a few mysteries all wrapped into one, while still looking great.

–M. Funke, Librarian