Alex Dombrowski

Alex Dombrowski

A Series of Unfortunate Events #2: The Reptile Room

Lemony Snicket

Fantasy

Holiday

51

 

                                                                                                   

1.      The Baudelaire children have finally gotten away from Count Olaf and are now moving into a new home. When the three, Violet, Klaus and Sunny, arrive they noticed a that the bushes where carved into snakes. Also they notice what a nice house their new care-taker has. When they finally meet him, he introduces himself to them as Uncle Monty. Montgomery offers them some cake as soon as they arrive and welcomes them. The Baudelaire’s find out he is a herpetologist (someone who studies snakes and other reptiles.) This explains why there are pictures of snakes all around his house. Uncle Monty tells them how he is going to take them to Peru to look for new species of reptiles. The kids get excited because their “father” is really looking forward to having them live with him. Also he gives them each their own room to sleep in unlike Olaf who gave them one room and only one bed. As they are preparing to go to Peru, Uncle Monty’s new assistant arrives at the house. The kids welcome him uneasily and soon realize the sketchy figure is Count Olaf. He threatens them not to say anything to Uncle Monty about him.

2.      I have really enjoyed the book so far. it is entertaining and Snicket has an interesting style of writing. He sometimes defines words in the paragraph after they are used and cuts away from the story to say something that will spoil part of the book. For example, he says Uncle Monty is going to be killed before you have any thought of him being killed. I also think the characters are interesting he makes. The bad guy (Count Olaf) a gross man who is stick like and has shiny eyes. This makes everything thing he does creepy you imagine him actually doing it. I also found it great how Snicket brings Olaf back. It makes the book much more exciting because you can almost know what to expect from him. Overall, this book is quite enjoyable to read.

3.      I think the theme is desire to escape, I think it’s this because the Baudelaire’s are always trying to get away from Olaf. In the first book the finally did get away from him and know he has returned to try to steal their fortune again. The children even say they are happy with Uncle Monty and are starting to feel happy again after their parents’ deaths. Count Olaf arriving has made them scared and now they want to get away from him. Since Snicket says Uncle Monty is going to get killed I know the theme will carry out more throughout the whole book. As long as Olaf is there the Baudelaire’s will want to get away from him.

4.      I really like Uncle Monty. He is really nice to the orphans and wants them to be involved in his life. He takes much better care of them then Olaf did, he does this by not making them work extremely hard, giving them their own rooms and taking them with him when he travels. Montgomery wants the children to experience all the things he does when he is tracking reptiles and I like that about him. In addition, he has a very cool job. He gets to travel around the world and catch different types of reptiles, and then he brings them back and puts them in the “reptile room,” which is a place where he keeps all of his specimens. Uncle Monty’s traits make him my favorite character and I will be sad to see him die.

5.      Count Olaf is my least favorite character. He is a nasty, gross man. All he wants is to take the Baudelaire’s great fortune. He failed in the first book and he comes back pretending to be Uncle Monty’s assistant. Olaf has never tried to be nice to the kids. After being at the house for less than five minutes, he threatens to cut off Violets toe if she doesn’t call him Stephan. Even though he hasn’t had a large part in this book yet, I know he will because he was so evil to the children in the first book. Everything about Count Olaf makes him a horrible man.

6.      I think the Baudelaire’s will tell Uncle Monty that “Stephan” is actually Olaf but he won’t believe them. Then when all of them are in Peru Olaf will kill Uncle Monty but make it look like an accident. He will probably get him bit by a venomous snake that will kill him. This means the children won’t have someone to look over them, therefore they will have to live with Count Olaf again.