this author takes the reverse psychology tactics of lemony snicket in a slightly different direction. rather than telling the reader that they do not want to read the book because the events are so sad, this author informs the reader that they really shouldn’t read the information in the book because it is too dangerous to have the knowledge. it’s actually fairly well done. it doesn’t have quite the same charm as lemony snicket (but perhaps that’s because when l.s. did it, it was a new, fresh concept) but there were some amusing bits and fun author/reader inside chat gags that i enjoyed. for example, chapter 32 is titled “the do-it-yourself-ending” and gives you options of how to write the ending of the book yourself (because “only bad books have good endings. if a book is any good, it’s ending is always bad–because you don’t want the book to end. more importantly…endings are hard to write.”) he offers several options of how to wrap up some of the characters and then offers two pages of blank lines for you to write in your ending. but then, he does do a little wrap up of his own. there are evil adults and a large dose of synesthesia and a small dose of secret codes which all make for intriguing reading. my one issue with the book is that the character max-ernest is introduced as someone who is an aspiring stand-up comic and who enjoys secret codes, but really…. he only does those things once or twice in the book. and later in the book, his proficiency at codes is a plot point, so… it would have been nice if that had been reinforced a bit more frequently. i’m not sure if a sequel could come from this but if it does… i might read it.