It's hard to review The Unauthorized Autobiography in anything approaching a normal way - but that's somewhat appropriate, given just how untraditional of a book it is. There's not much of a story here; instead, what you get is almost a scrapbook, one filled with newspaper articles, correspondence, pictures, drawings, coded messages, scratched out faces, and all sorts of other collected fragments that almost - but not quite - make up a story. Even the "chapters" in the book defy description, as their original titles, which were composed of some of the most common questions about the Snicket books, have been scratched out and replaced. All of this makes the book sound frustrating, and I guess it would be if I expected anything concrete or traditional from this series by this point. But given the gleefully mysterious nature of the Snicket books, and the elusive nature of truth in that series, this bizarre collection of ephemera seems like the best possible way to give people "answers" to the series. Because, let's be clear, there are answers of a sort here - you just have to work to find them, and connect the pieces yourself. Or, in my case, with my seven-year-old, who loved the book and the piecing together of the clues every bit as much as the silliness and anarchy on display. The Unauthorized Autobiography may not be the crystal ball or the FAQ that fans hoped for, but what it is instead is even better - something richer, more compelling, more entertaining, and just plain better, even if it does defy your expectations in the first place.
- Josh Mauthe
- Josh Mauthe