A Series of Unfortunate Events: The Austere Academy (Snicket)

A Series of Unfortunate Events: The Austere Academy, Lenomy Snicket (aka Daniel Handler), 2000

How do you keep a series fresh after four repetitive volumes? Add lots of new characters.

The Baudelaire orphans find themselves staying not with yet another distant relative, but rather at a boarding school. Now, if this was allowed under the terms of the will, why not just give custody to Count Olaf's neighbor from Book One? Okay, let's not go there.

The Austere Academy introduces new tragic figures, such as the two Quagmire Triplets (that's right, two), along with a new nemesis (more of an irritant), Carmelia Spats, a new handy tool, the commonplace book, and a macguffin, the "VFD", which will drive the plots of several books to come even more than finding a permanent home for the Baudelaires.

Up to this point, I was still enjoying the books because, repetitive as they were, they were still written in an interesting style and "Snicket" had a way with words, an expression which means here that he can talk to kids without talking down to kids. But the old storyline was wearing thin and the new plotline didn't seem much better.