The Carnivorous Carnival - Lemony Snicket - 4 stars

This is book 9 in A series of Unfortunate Events. I think that these books get a bit more adventurous the further you go through the series. This one seems a lot darker than the other books and I really do not see it being appropriate for middle grade readers. I found it to be somewhat violent as well. Reading through Adult eyes is much different. I feel like for a middle grader it could be somewhat disturbing and a little scary as well. I must say though that I did enjoy the carnival setting in this one, although there is really not much about the carnival in it. Regardless it did give the story some flair.

The unfortunate events seem to have escalated a bit more in this book. Yes it is still annoying too, but now readers come to expect it so it is not quite as overwhelming I don't think. I have been seeing some good things happen in previous books, but in this one it all seems to be doom and gloom which could maybe turn readers off. I don't actually mind the dark and disturbing aspects of the story because I am holding on to the hope that maybe something good will come about in the last book simply titled 'The End'. Because of that, I just keep plowing through these so I can reach this possible happy ending.

Not much more to say about our characters that I have not already mentioned. We of course have some great protagonists which of course are the Baudelaire children. There are of course some pretty villainous bad guys as well, like Olaf and Esme. I find that Sunny is beginning to speak better so that is a nice addition too.