A Series of Unfortunate Events: Book the Fourth, The Miserable Mill

By Lemony Snicket

The “Hook”.
“Violet and Sunny stared out into the gloom, and with another creak the wooden gate swung open and revealed the short figure of a person, walking slowly toward them.
‘Klaus!’ Sunny said … And to her relief, Violet saw that it was indeed Klaus who was walking toward them. He had on a new pair of glasses that looked just like his old ones, except they were so new that they shone in the moonlight. He gave his sisters a dazed and distant smile, as if they were people he did not know so well. ‘Klaus, we were so worried about you,’ Violet said, hugging her brother as he reached them. ‘You were gone so long. Whatever happened to you?’ ‘ I don’t know,’ Klaus said … ‘I can’t remember.’(p. 82-83)

“Klaus closed his eyes in thought. ‘I wish I could tell you. But it’s like that part of my brain has been wiped clean. It’s like I was asleep from the moment I walked into that building until right there at the lumbermill.’
‘But you weren’t asleep,’ Violet said. ‘You were walking around like a zombie. And then you caused that accident and hurt poor Phil.’
‘But I don’t remember those things,’ Klaus said. ‘It’s as if I…’ His voice trailed off and he stared into space for a moment. ‘Klaus?’ Violet asked worriedly.
‘…It’s as if I were hypnotized, Klaus finished.” (p.105)

Recommendation:

Has someone you love ever acted strange? Perhaps weirder than usual? In this book, the same thing happens to Violet, Sunny, and Klaus Baudelaire. Under the care of the owner of a large lumbermill, also their fourth legal guardian after their parents died, the Baudelaire orphans find themselves from a bad situation to a worse. Not only do they have to work in the lumbermill, but they also have to be bossed around by a mean foreman, sleep in bunk beds, eat gum for lunch and a bad casserole for dinner, and they never have time to do anything except work. Of course they’ve had terrible experiences under the care of their previous guardians, with a greedy fortune-seeking man, Count Olaf, but this time things even worsen. One day Klaus breaks his glasses and goes to see the optometrist. When he returns, not only he acts strange but he can’t remember much of what’s happened. Then he causes an accident in the lumbermill hurting an innocent worker named Phil. It doesn’t take a genius to find out that Count Olaf is behind all this. But how? Read this book to find out!

Recommendation by Juan Pablo Perez Zafra.