Series of Unfortunate Events #3: The Wide Window
Written by Lemony Snicket
Narrated by Lemony Snicket
4/5
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About this audiobook
NOW A NETFLIX ORIGINAL SERIES
Dear Reader,
If you have not read anything about the Baudelaire orphans, then before you read even one more sentence, you should know this: Violet, Klaus, and Sunny are kindhearted and quick-witted, but their lives, I am sorry to say, are filled with bad luck and misery. All of the stories about these three children are unhappy and wretched, and this one may be the worst of them all.If you haven't got the stomach for a story that includes a hurricane, a signalling device, hungry leeches, cold cucumber soup, a horrible villain, and a doll named Pretty Penny, then this book will probably fill you with despair.I will continue to record these tragic tales, for that is what I do. You, however, should decide for yourself whether you can possibly endure this miserable story.
With all due respect,
Lemony Snicket
Lemony Snicket
Lemony Snicket had an unusual education, which may or may not explain his ability to evade capture. He is the author of the 13 volumes in A Series of Unfortunate Events, several picture books including The Dark, and the books collectively titled All The Wrong Questions.
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Titles in the series (13)
Series of Unfortunate Events #1 Multi-Voice, A: The Bad Beginning Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Series of Unfortunate Events #2: The Reptile Room Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Series of Unfortunate Events #4: The Miserable Mill Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Series of Unfortunate Events #3: The Wide Window Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Series of Unfortunate Events #6: The Ersatz Elevator Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Series of Unfortunate Events #7: The Vile VillageDA Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Series of Unfortunate Events #5: The Austere Academy Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Series of Unfortunate Events #8: The Hostile Hospital Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Series of Unfortunate Events #9: The Carnivorous Carnival Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Series of Unfortunate Events #11: The Grim Grotto Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Series of Unfortunate Events #10: The Slippery Slope Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Series of Unfortunate Events #12: The Penultimate Peril Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Series of Unfortunate Events #13: The End Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Related audiobooks
Series of Unfortunate Events #4: The Miserable Mill Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Series of Unfortunate Events #5: The Austere Academy Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Series of Unfortunate Events #2: The Reptile Room Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Series of Unfortunate Events #6: The Ersatz Elevator Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Series of Unfortunate Events #7: The Vile VillageDA Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Series of Unfortunate Events #13: The End Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Series of Unfortunate Events #12: The Penultimate Peril Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Series of Unfortunate Events #8: The Hostile Hospital Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Series of Unfortunate Events #9: The Carnivorous Carnival Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Series of Unfortunate Events #11: The Grim Grotto Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Series of Unfortunate Events #10: The Slippery Slope Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Series of Unfortunate Events #1 Multi-Voice, A: The Bad Beginning Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Poison for Breakfast Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Supernatural Society Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Ghost Girl, Banana: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Painted Faces Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Mill on the Floss Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Poisoned Pie Mystery Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5In Her Skin Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Mobile Library: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Question of Holmes Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Sapphire Blue Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Bunburry - A Cosy Mystery Compilation, Episode 1-3 (Unabridged) Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Turbulent Wake Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Butcher's Daughter Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Moonlight and Magic Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Antipodeans Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHot Milk Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Longest Journey Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Girl Who Soared Over Fairyland and Cut the Moon in Two Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
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Reviews for Series of Unfortunate Events #3
2,636 ratings74 reviews
What our readers think
Readers find this title to be a mix of positive and negative aspects. Some reviewers enjoyed the book, finding it addictive, fantastic, and amazing. They appreciated the well-written story, memorable characters, and the ability to evoke emotions. However, there were also negative comments about the lack of sound effects, the narrator's interruptions, and changes in voice actors. Despite these criticisms, many readers still recommend the book and find it worth reading.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5It was amazing everyone should definitely read it. Good book.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Every kid should read these stories. It's so fun and educational! Miss the full cast tho.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The audio was quiet and was hard to hear in some spots. The book itself is fantastic.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5so good more interesting than my life ;-; so yeah umm super interresting....
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Baudelaire orphans are sent to live with their Aunt Josephine, who lives in a house precariously built on the edge of the cliff. Aunt Josephine has a penchant for grammar and a fear of pretty much everything. Count Olaf appears in disguise and the children must convince all the grown-ups that he is after them once again. With this third book the repetitive plot is established and I'm fairly certain each future book will have the same scenario. However, there is something charming about the repetition and the children as characters have grown dear to our hearts. This book is indeed the weaker of the three we've read so far. The grammar jokes and puzzles went over the 7yo's head and it grew old fast for me but we chuckled over the old lady's fears and the action-packed climax was an exciting read. There were several parts that sent the 7yo into giggle fits and we both felt a little teary-eyed leaving the orphans in their unfortunate circumstances once again at the end.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5I loved the reader of this book he had great expression and I think that the book itself was absolutely amazing and I definitely recommend it.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Amazing above and beyond!!❤️ it’s just amazing how they made this.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5I loved this book! It's great for 8-13 year old's. (I'm 12)
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Every story in the "Series of Unfortunate Events" so far has been fun, but I especially loved the wordplay in this book and the fact that it throws out the window (ahem) some of the patterned elements of the previous two stories so that the series can grow and stay interesting to readers. The story also has a powerful message about facing your fears.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Finished on april 10 2020. I hate coronavirus. It was ok
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I am a little disappointed that this did not have the same voice actor variety like the 1st audio book did, but this was recorded with a higher quality microphone than the 1st two, and you can definitely tell!
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Not as many sound effects as the previous books but over all it’s good
- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5NOOOOO!!! The narrator’s voice changed. What a shame. I think this one is being read by the author… I didn’t like it. He doesn’t have the same talent for voice changing from character to character as the narrator who read the first two books in the series.
I’m gutted - which here means: utterly devastated with a deep feeling of emptiness inside of me. - Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5awsome book no other book could make my day best book ever
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5It was great do more books like this yay ?
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Not bad…I don't terribly like how the narrator stops every five seconds to tell you what a word means and how it is used. That would
Not be much of a problem if you didn't understand most of the words, but for a sixth grader, come on! Other than that the story is good, the characters memorable, and it always makes my friends laugh when I'm seething with rage at Count Olaf.Over all I think it's a book worth reading! - Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The book is bout these three kids that keep on getting sent to different houses because there parnets died and left them with all there money and a man wants there money so he trying to kill all the kids so he can have the money for himself. Does he kill them? I gave the book a 10 becauseit jeep you wondering what is going to happen next. the book also has a loook of suspense in it. Hayley
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Book three finds the children living with an eccentric aunt in a rickety house overlooking the sea. While their aunt is kind, she is still scarred from the loss of her husband; a wound which manifests in her obsessive paranoia about safety. But when Count Olaf arrives disguised as a sailor and a hurricane threatens their home, the Baudelaires will have to think fast to avoid a tragic fate.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Fab! So scary and gripping! My daughter really loves it.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Brilliantly written. With each misadventure of the Baudelaire orphans passing, the series is becoming more and more addictive.
- Rating: 1 out of 5 stars1/5The tone of these books actually really starts to get on your nerves, after a while, at least if you're an adult and the condescending tone really starts to wear on you. The quirkiness of some of it -- like Auntie Josephine's neuroses and her love of grammar -- is ladled on, and the 'dark' aspect of it just gets repetitive and irritating. As a single book, it's okay, but more than that gets tiresome. To me, anyway.
Consequently, I'm going to remove all of these books from my to read list. - Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5In the third book in the "Series of Unfortunate Events" series, the Baudelaire Orphans find themselves living with their neurotic aunt Josephine overlooking Lake Lachrymose, and though Josephine is afraid of, well, EVERYTHING, Count Olaf manages to penetrate her defenses. The Orphans must once again struggle to save themselves from the onerous actor and the stupidity of adults.Charming, witty, and wonderful as all of the Snicket books are.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I wanted to read this after gleefully enjoying the first two books of the series a while back. To my delight, I found there was much more substance than I remembered. The explanations of vocabulary in context, the translations of baby Sunny's one-word utterances and the plays on words are fun. The chatty tone of Lemony Snicket, the narrator, urging readers not to go on produces (of course!) the opposite effect and a sense of immediacy.
Then there are the whimsical characters: the courageous Baudelaire siblings, their ultra-timid Aunt Josephine and their well-meaning but impotent custodian, Mr Banks. In this third installment, the evil Count Olaf isn't very evil at all. He menaces from a distance. It's only then that you realise the genius of the writing. Olaf doesn't do anything particularly evil (at least not until the climax) but we fear him because the children do and we are, as they are, frustrated because of the adults falling for his disguise "hook, line and sinker".
The most beautiful thing in this book is the setup of the plot. Every odd detail introduced comes back to play a vital role in the denouement and produces some very unpredictable twists, for example, Aunt Josephine's fear of realtors and the grammatical error on Sham's business card. No thread is left untied except that of the fate of the three children, which means I can happily anticipate reading the next installment. - Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The third installment, The Wide Window, sees the Baudelaire siblings placed with a new distant relative - their Aunt Josephine - a second cousin's sister in law. Aunt Josephine is a grammar fiend and terrified of life. She won't touch the doorknobs in case they shatter, she doesn't cook hot meals because she could burn herself, she spends her time freezing because she's scared the radiator will explode, she won't pick up the phone for fear of being electrocuted, her lists are endless and lead you to wonder how she's managed to live so far. It sounds utterly depressing but then I guess that's the point. And yet for all her fear, one meeting with "Captain Sham" sees her smitten and unwilling to listen to any such nonsense that Captain Sham is really Count Olaf. Honestly Josephine is easily the worst relative so far and that includes Count Olaf because at least he was honest (to the Badelaire's anyway) about his intentions - - they might not have known what he was going to do but they were sure he was up to something. Aunt Josephine though is a horrible person. She is ready to sell them out for the sake of herself. Why agree to take the children in at all? She abandons them at the first sight of trouble. It's not like she didn't know they were being pursued by Count Olaf. She said Mr Poe warned her. So Count Olaf threatens her and she caves, fakes her death and wills the children to Captain Sham. The kids figure out that her note is really a code and track her down to a cave. Where they find she's planning to live in a cave and they can either live with her there or go live with Captain Sham. I mean really?! She could've just faked her death without leaving them in the care of Captain Sham. At least then she wouldn't have been such an utter bitch. Like usual, the children have to save themselves, unable and unwilling to trust the adults in their lives. This time, Sunny saves the day - biting through Captain Sham's fake leg and revealing the dreaded eye tattoo of Count Olaf. Like the first two books, the action is fast paced and riddled with the sad and depressing story that is the Baudelaire's life. The bit at the end about them at least having each other wasn't enough to cheer me up for all it was a nice sentiment. 3.5 stars.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5To recap the entire series thus far: Klaus, Violet, and Sunny Baudelaire are orphans. Their parents dying wish was for the children to be under the guardianship of a relative. Any relative. Throughout the series Mr. Poe, the family banker, has been responsible for placing the children with members of the family, no matter how distant. First came Count Olaf who tried to marry Violet in order to obtain rights to a substantial inheritance (due to the children when they came of age). Then came Uncle Monty who died of a bite from his own snake. Now, in The Wide Window, the children have been placed with Aunt Josephine who is a second cousin's sister-in-law and has a phobia of nearly everything. Aunt Josephine lives in a huge house precariously balanced on a mountain ledge above Lake Lachrymose. Of course there is a wide window overlooking the water. Of course, Count Olaf isn't far behind the children, having escaped every other time in the series. A master of disguises, this time he shows up with a peg leg and a patch over one eye, claiming to be Captain Sham.As with other Lemony Snicket books, there is a formula to The Wide Window: the adults are oblivious to what is directly in front of them, readers will hear the phrase, "a word which means" a lot, and Snicket will urge his audience to read another book if they want a happy ending, "If you are interested in reading a story filled with thrilling good times, I am sorry to inform you that you are most certainly reading the wrong book...this is your last chance" (p 5). This is really quite clever because nine times out of ten one will keep reading just to witness the next tragedy.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5So much more action in this one! Ah!
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5This series is a lovely little gem to binge, not only on Netflix, but also as audiobooks. This one was not narrated by Tim Curry, who does a fantastic storytelling job, but by Lemony Snicket himself. Just as the in the books, the story is rather quick with the Baudelaire’s meeting one misfortune after another at the hands of Count Olaf.Aunt Josephine is eccentric, to say the least, and the Netflix series just doesn’t do her justice. She is both hilarious and slightly embarrassing all while being completely paranoid about the most insignificant things. She is definitely a character you remember long after the story is over.I read these many years ago when I was in elementary school, I believe, but they are just as enjoyable as an adult. I usually plug my headphones in for audiobooks so that not only am I not distracted by outside noises, but that I’m also not interrupting my family around me. This one, however, I played on the speaker in my kitchen and my 7 year old would pop in and listen with me sometimes. I could see these as being a great road trip audiobook to listen to, instead of constantly flipping through the radio stations.Even though this is number 3 in the series, the story hasn’t stalled. I find that often in series when it gets to number 3, the story drags and becomes a little redundant, but not with Series of Unfortunate Events. A quick reminder of where the Baudelaire’s have been and onward with their current predicament. It is also only about 3 hours long, a great little chunk of story that can be finished in a day or two of constant listening. Even when I didn’t play the bookAt the end of the day, it was a quick book to listen to that both myself and my daughter enjoyed. It added to the story of one of our favorite Netflix shows and started off my 2019 reading with a punch. I would recommend it to anyone wanting to put a dent in their reading goal and looking for a quick book to listen to or read… but make sure to read the others in the series or you’ll be a little lost.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5I think this one was better than the first two
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5These books are quick and quirky! I enjoy all the underlying things in this series!
Sadly the children don't find a home and the count is still after them, of course Poe doesn't believe them and treats them as though they know nothing. Their "aunt" is so involved with her fears she doesn't take care of the children properly. It's a shame. Off to the next book to see how horrible things go - Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Out of the three books I have read in the series this was my least favorite of them. It isn't a bad story, but when you are reading them more quickly than they were originally published you get a little worn out of the fact no one is listening to these children and that people cannot see through rather simplistic disguises. Also this felt like it suffered a bit from middle-bookitis as I call it, which is an author of a series throwing anything and everything together for a plot that is somewhere in the middle of a series. Often this ends up with a plot that just doesn't feel like a truly interesting and well-thought out book. I am hoping that in the subsequent books we get less carting off to a family member and some engaging underlying plot of the entire series instead of one book off stories. This will provide a reason to continue on into the other ten books of the series, otherwise I may unfortunately end my time with this series of events.