The Grim Grotto by Daniel Handler - Book Review

The Grim Grotto brings the orphans into a whole new locale: the deepest parts of the sea, where they meet with new characters, who are VFD members as well.

These people help them in their quest to escape Count Olaf and ensure that the Quagmires are safe. Captain Widdershins and his stepdaughter Fiona agree to shelter the orphans in their submarine, The Queequeg.

The story picks up again, with more deadly threats, like The Great Unknown, a creature that no one knows what it looks like until the very end, and the Medusoid Mycelium, a deadly fungus that will threaten the protagonists’ lives.

The eleventh book begins with the Baudelaires careening down The Mortmain Mountain to be saved just in time by the passing VFD submarine The Queequeg. Captain Widdershins along with his stepdaughter Fiona play central roles, as they help the Baudelaire discover truths about what happened to their parents.

The Baudelaires also try to contact the Quagmires but end up receiving an encoded message from Quigley Quagmire. Count Olaf does not make a grand appearance in this book, but his own submarine materializes then disappears after it sees the great creature—The Great Unknown—which horrifies all of them with its growls.

Later, the Baudelaires go into a submerged cave, or a grotto if you will, that is infected with the Medusoid Mycelium, a deadly fungus that can slip through any swimming suit and kill within an hour. The unfortunate Sunny gets infected, which leads to a series of decoding poems and problem solving to find the cure.

The quirky way with which Handler portrays T.S. Elliot’s poem, The Waste Land, makes the young readers more interested in reading this genre. Because the Baudelaires end up trying to decipher the words there, the readers will find themselves reading the poems as well, trying to find the solutions.

This was one of the most exciting and funniest books in the series. It didn’t focus on furthering the plot as much as the previous installment, but it is enjoyable to read. It also ends up delivering the orphans to the setting of the penultimate book, which holds one of the greatest elements at play in the series.