This is the second of the Series of Unfortunate Events books. The Baudelaire orphans are shipped off to live with their "Uncle Monty". Montgomery Montgomery (not a typo) is a herpetologist living in the country with a large reptile room where the orphans can read and study and invent all they want -- in fact, they need to in order to help Uncle Monty prepare for their trip to Peru to study new species of snakes.

Of course, this is the Baudelaire orphans we're talking about, so the happiness can't last.

OK, so my review for the first book in this series ended by saying that I wasn't interested in reading any more of the series, but then I came across this volume at a garage sale, and bought it as part of a stack of books for a dollar. My opinion is pretty much the same; it's a fun black comedy for an eight- or ten-year-old and will probably teach them some new words, but for an adult it's only slightly amusing -- an hour or two of reading, but not really funny enough to be worth the time.

Released on Friday, October 31, 2003 at Cyrandall Valley in Vienna, Virginia USA.

Left out for trick-or-treaters as part of SSM7.