One of my best garage sale finds as a child was an almost complete set of the entire Series of Unfortunate Events. For fifty cents a book, it was a steal of a deal that I simply couldn’t resist—even though I had never even heard of the series before. All I knew was that each book had attention-grabbing illustrations on the front, the pages had uneven, distressed edges, and they were generally aesthetically appealing. So I bought them because I knew they’d look great on my bookshelf. I had no idea what I was getting myself into.
I quickly fell in love with the books for much more than just their aesthetic appeal. The humor, off-the-wall plot, colorful characters, engaging vocabulary, and overall writing style truly captured my heart.
Netflix released a TV version of the series in the beginning of 2017. Although I started watching the series as soon as they released the first season, life has since then gotten in the way and I haven’t had much time to spare for watching TV. Recently, the opportunity arose for me to watch another episode and I was able to pick up where I left off so many months before.
One episode in and I was completely re-reminded of why I fell in love with that series in the first place. The conversational, mysterious, and hilarious writing style of Daniel Handler (the real name behind the infamous Lemony Snicket) hooked me then and still does to this day.
After being momentously let down from the movie version (the horrendous one from 2004 with Jim Carrey), I did not have high hopes for the Netflix series. Thankfully, I’ve been pleasantly surprised at the quality of acting, production, and ability to truly capture and convey that feeling that the books originally evoked.
It’s rare to find a film version of a book that does even a somewhat-better-than-mediocre job of the page to screen transition, but I think that this is one such example. Please feel free to argue me on that if you disagree—there’s nothing I love more than nerding out with someone over a series of children’s books from 20 years ago.
Moral of the story, though, that I believe we can all agree on: Sometimes you really should judge a book by its cover.