Lemony Snicket's a Series of Unfortunate Events, Volume 1: The Bad Beginning

I NEVER THOUGHT WATCHING CHILDREN SUFFER COULD BE SO FUN!

Ok, maybe I THOUGHT it could, but I had to rely on Lemony Snicket to put it into action.
This is the first of a series of something like 13 books and, while I would like to blow you all out of the water by reading the next 12, I will probably refrain. Not because I didn't like the book (because I LOVED IT!) but because I'm not a lame-ass.

For those of you who are unfamiliar, Lemony Snicket prefaces A Series of Unfortunate Events with the warning that if you like books to end happily and not have any suffering in them, this is not the book for you and you should close it immediately. (If you do like stories like this, I would refer you to Snicket's introduction to Noisy Outlaws, Unfriendly Blobs, etc where he outlines several hilarious "tedious stories" that had Julie and I in stitches) Snicket them proceeds to made good on his promise, subjecting the Baudelaire children to any number of inhuman not-niceties including (but not limited to) the death of their parents, beatings, imprisonment, starvation, etc.

This is young adult fiction at its finest. I recommend it to everyone. read it. read it now. 10/10