In The Vile Village, an entire village decides to adopt the Baudelaire orphans. But, instead of taking care of them, the villagers just put them to work. Nothing goes easy for the Baudelaires but they pull together to survive and protect each other. 

From Amazon re: The Hostile Hospital.

In Lemony Snicket's eighth ghastly installment in A Series of Unfortunate Events, I'm sorry to say that the Baudelaire orphans will spend time in a hospital where they risk encountering a misleading newspaper headline, unnecessary surgery, an intercom system, anesthesia, heart-shaped balloons, and some very startling news about a fire.

From Amazon re: The Carnivorous Carnival.

A carnival is a place for good family fun—as long as one has a family, that is. For the Baudelaire orphans, their time at the carnival turns out to be yet another episode in a now unbearable series of unfortunate events. In fact, in this appalling ninth installment in Lemony Snicket's serial, the siblings must confront a terrible lie, a caravan, and Chabo the wolf baby.

 

Throughout the three books, the Baudelaires find more clues about the initials VFD and what happened to their parents. Then again, everything they learn only leads to more questions. Count Olaf continues his villanous behavior and efforts to get his hands on the Baudelaire fortune. The warnings from Snicket to stop reading still make me laugh as do his explanations of what words mean (always set in the context of the story).

Grief...

Last week was a slow week for me, ridiculously slow. We picked up a new customer at work sometime late last year. Despite the months spent preparing for last week when we officially started to handle the account, we had so many issues. Information they were suppose to be sending us was being sent over incorrectly, our system wasn't able to communicate with theirs, procedures they had put in place for us were randomly changed at the last minute and we weren't informed, and just when we thought we had everything figured out; there was a massive recall >: Sadly, this is probably the smoothest transition we've had with a customer :( With everything going on at work there was overtime, loads of overtime, and very little sleep. I managed to finish one entire book, read secretly under my desk while waiting for IT to call back for the third time, and I'm surprised I was able to finish it.

Books Read: 1

The Carnivorous Carnival: This is the ninth book in A Series of Unfortunate Events and it's currently my favorite of the series because it's the only thing that kept me from yelling at the IT guy. 5 stars.

Total Read for the Month: 18

Still doing good this year and fingers crossed I'll get back on track in March.

❝ The Beaudelaire orphans were in the belly of the beast - that is the dark and cramped trunk of a long, black automobile.❞

I took a small break from the terrible adventures of these extremely unfortunate orphans. Now I'm back to finish their story. I switched to the audio versions this time, as it truly enhances the story. Tim Curry is a superb narrator and voices Count Olaf just as I imagined him.

In Carnivorous Carnival, the children follow their mortal enemy in the hopes that he would lead them to the mysterious V.F.D. They end up in a carnival show that is being run by a fortune teller, Madame Lulu.

We have completely abandoned the formula used on the first seven books: the children being passed from one guardian to another, until Count Olaf tracks them down and tries to snatch their fortune. He fails and tries again. Alas, it grew a bit predictable and after the 'Vile Village' it was a pleasant change to have the children trying to make it on their own. On every book the children discover a part of themselves and they always learn a lesson. Time after time, they prove just how resourceful they are. I immediately started the next book after I finished this one as it ended on a very dreadful way...

P.S: I use this book for this month's keyword challenge: "Fire". It will be a tweak of the word obviously, as there are far too many fires on these series. The fire on this one is special as