The miserable mill

 Series: A series of unfortunate events #4

Author: Lemony Snicket

Genre: Children's Fantasy

Original publication date: April 15, 2000

Book description (from the back of the book, the characteristic letter to the reader):

Dear Reader,

I hope, for your sake, that you have not chosen to read this book because you are in the mood for a pleasant experience. If this is the case, I advise you to put this book down instantaneously, because of all the books describing the unhappy lives of the Baudelaire orphans, The Miserable Mill might be the unhappiest yet. Violet, Klaus, and Sunny Baudelaire are sent to Paltryville to work in a lumber mill, and they find disaster and misfortune lurking behind every log.
The pages of this book, I'm sorry to inform you, contain such unpleasantries as a giant pincher machine, a bad casserole, a man with a cloud of smoke where his head should be, a hypnotist, a terrible accident resulting in injury, and coupons.
I have promised to write down the entire history of these three poor children, but you haven't, so if you prefer stories that are more heartwarming, please feel free to make another selection.
With all due respect,
Lemony Snicket

Thoughts:

This book is my least favorite of them all. In all of them, we see the adults be very mean, and useless but in this one, the abusive behavior and the spinelessness reach a new level. 

The children are sent to a Mill to work there alongside the people employed there. The owner is their new guardian. This alone is angering, exploiting children is something no one should be allowed to get away with. The siblings will not get an education and are expected to work to earn their keep. The job is described, no idea how a mill operates in real life, but the presence of children in such places is not even allowed I'm sure. They do not even get training on how to work and their work tools clearly indicate that children should not be the ones operating them. 

The miserable mill is a very appropriate title. I was reading only about miserable people. Instead of being a workplace, it felt more like a prison and they were serving a sentence of forced labor like in old times. 

The owner did not feed the workers, they got paid in coupons, not in money. The working conditions were awful. I mean the fact that children were expected to work long hours doing manual labor that was made even more difficult by their small stature and lack of strength. It is meant to be nonsensical, but that type of storytelling annoys me greatly so this did not work for me. 

There are several people who "want" to help the children but they are so afraid of others that even knowing it is wrong they allow the treatment to continue. 

We see Count Olaf once more come into the picture and he easily escapes because no one ever believes the children when they alert the adults he has been spotted again. 

I had a hard time getting through this book simply because I was very angry at everyone in this story. 

The coworkers were all very pliable, doing what they were told. allowing the owner to withhold their payments, taking the abuse without ever standing up for themselves. Even when they resulted injured while at work, no one did anything about it. so of course they did not lend a hand or try to defend 3 orphans when they found out they were expected to work in the mill with them. 

The partner of the owner was spineless, he was so scared that he agreed with anything the owner said and behaved more like a servant than a business partner. He supposedly wanted to help the children but his help was really nonexistent. 

My least favorite character in the series is Mr. Poe. No need to explain the reasons, I'm sure you can guess. 

So that's it, I am still very angry at this book. I do not want to dwell on it anymore. 

We follow the same formula, new place, very bad conditions, no one knows how to care for children, Count Olaf shows up and the only ones who know are the children. 

I really hope to enjoy the rest of the books a bit more.

Until next time, stay safe!