The Reptile Room by Daniel Handler - Book Review

The second book in the series again follows the orphans, Violet, Klaus, and Sunny on their journey to find another guardian to take care of them after Count Olaf has proven his unworthiness.

The Bad Beginning introduced many dark themes and they are still present and will be so in the upcoming books. Handler also utilizes a new element, which is the usage of disguises to contribute to the dark humor of the story.

Because Count Olaf is an actor, he uses costumes a lot and he makes sure to use them in his daily life to achieve his goals. While his latest goal is to take over the orphans’ fortune, he uses a faulty disguise to trick people around that he is not the renowned criminal Count Olaf.

However, the orphans find out that it’s him, contrary to the people around them.

Mr. Poe takes the orphans to their new guardian, a herpetologist named Dr. Montgomery. The man is pretty smart, but he doesn’t realize soon enough that there’s something fishy about his new assistant Stephano.

The plot becomes darker and bleaker as a murder takes place and the orphans try to find out how it happened because the adults won’t listen to their conclusions.

In addition to that, Count Olaf disguised as Stephano threatens the kids with a knife when their new guardian isn’t looking and he continues plotting to take the orphans away from Montgomery to steal their fortune.

This is probably one of the scariest books in the series. There are few happy moments in this book and despite its shortness, it still manages to instill deep fear for the safety of the orphans and Montgomery.

The disguise that Olaf uses is also one of the creepiest he ever used and the way he nearly succeeds in his endeavors will make readers both hate and love him for his intellect. Yet he doesn’t succeed and the orphans live another day trying to escape his scheming.