Tuesday, September 12, 2006

Book 80: The Slippery Slope

The Slippery Slope is the tenth volume in A Series of Unfortunate Events by Lemony Snicket. Having disguised themselves as Carnival Freaks and pretending to join Count Olaf's gang in order to get to the VFD headquarters, the Baudelaire Orphans have been discovered by Count Olaf and while Sunny was kidnapped, Klaus and Violet or locked in a trailer and are rolling backwards down a mountain road with no control over the trailer. This is where we begin The Slippery Slope. The elder orphans struggle to find a way to save themselves and then make their way back up the mountain to the secret headquarters, and Sunny struggles to find an opportunity to escape to find her siblings or to learn more about the scheme of Count Olaf.

As always, one book in this series is quite similar to the others, but we learn much more about the mysterious VFD that has been hinted at for several books now and somewhat more about the Quagmire Triplets is also revealed. One gets the sense that Snicket truly is wrapping this series up and leading towards an end (not to mention that book 13 is called The End). The Slippery Slope is a satisfying book and one which should please longtime readers of the series. The fun, the despair, the words of warning, the riddles and rhymes, and the new mysterious about the old villains...all of this is included. If you like the first nine, you'll be happy with ten.

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