The Slippery Slope

Title: A Series of Unfortunate Events- The Slippery Slope
Author: Lemony Snicket
ISBN: 0-06-441013-7

The book starts out with Violet and Klaus speeding down the Mortmain Mountains with no way of controlling the caravan. Sunny has been taken by Count Olaf and is forced to cook and clean for him and his revolting troupes. After they save themselves by creating a drag chute out of a hammock and brakes out of sticky kitchen sauces, Violet and Klaus set out to look for Sunny. On the way they meet a group of Snow Scouts including Carmelita Spats, a nasty girl they had met at Prufrock Preparatory School and hoped to never see again. She had made life miserable for the Baudelaires at the academy, calling them names and getting them into trouble. After hearing her voice, Violet and Klaus began to consider leaving the cave and going back out to the swarm of terrifying snow gnats. They decided to stay and also discovered someone they had thought died in a fire. Who the Baudelaires thought were the Quagmire twins turned out to be the Quagmire triplets. Quigley Quagmire had been thought dead when he went missing after a fire. Together, the three friends discovered the remains of the VFD Headquarters, uncovered secrets about the Baudelaire's parents, and tried to decode what exactly the sugar bowl was. And of course they still have to save Sunny from Count Olaf and avoid his treacherous plots to steal their fortune.

I thought this was a pretty good book filled with suspense and all kinds of twists. Though it probably doesn't have as much action as some of the other books in the series, it is still very interesting. The Baudelaires discover many secrets and find out a lot about VFD and their parents in this book. Some of their questions have been answered but as they learn more, a whole new field of questions, riddles, and codes appear leaving them still confused. This book had more puzzles and putting information together than action, but still had some thrills.

--Nicole Eggerman