The Vile Village
by Lemony Snicket
★ Top 25 book of 2001 · #22 on Best Books of 2001
The Baudelaire siblings, Violet, Klaus, and Sunny, endure a gloomy stay in the village of V.F.D. The narrator cheekily warns readers away, listing crows, an angry mob, arrests, and peculiar hats.
Best for: Kids who enjoy darkly funny, gloomy adventures narrated with a teasing, mischievous voice
The Vile Village is #22 on BookWard's Best Books of 2001, out of 35 2001 books that cleared our data bar.
What The Vile Village is about
The Vile Village is the seventh book in A Series of Unfortunate Events, and it marks the halfway point. The Baudelaire orphans, Violet, Klaus and Sunny, are placed in the care of an entire village that believes in raising children communally. The village is called V.F.D., which the handyman Hector says stands for Village of Fowl Devotees. The children live with Hector, who is secretly building a hot air mobile home. The Council of Elders invents all manner of strange rules, including a new one banning villains to keep Count Olaf out.
The children come across couplets under the Nevermore Tree that sound a lot like Isadora Quagmire's poetry. Then Olaf turns up in disguise and the children are accused and jailed. Mr. Poe can no longer help, and the Baudelaires are now considered criminals who will get no more guardians. The tone is darkly comic and satirical, with a narrator who keeps warning you to look away.
The Vile Village on the Best Books of 2001
The Vile Village came out in 2001. Of the 35 books first published in 2001 that met BookWard's data bar, it ranks #22 on our Best Books of 2001 list.
Why it made the list: 171 readers have shelved it on Open Library; readers rate it 4.3 out of 5 (36 ratings). The list ranks each year’s books on how many readers have picked them up, how highly readers rate them, and how many are reading them right now.
It earns Reader favorite.
Nearby on the 2001 list
- The Ersatz Elevator Lemony Snicket, #20
- Name Jar Yangsook Choi, #21
See all Best Books of 2001 Best books by year
More years: Best Books of 2000 Best Books of 2002.
The numbers behind it
- Readers: 95 want to read it, 3 are reading it now and 73 have read it, according to Open Library.
- Ratings: 4.3 out of 5 from 36 Open Library ratings.
| Signal | This book (0 to 100) | Weight |
|---|---|---|
| Reach | 20 | 55% |
| Reader love | 91 | 25% |
| Being read right now | 14 | 20% |
Questions about The Vile Village
When was The Vile Village published?
The Vile Village by Lemony Snicket was first published in 2001.
Was The Vile Village one of the best books of 2001?
The Vile Village is #22 on BookWard's Best Books of 2001, out of 35 2001 books that cleared our data bar. 171 readers have shelved it on Open Library; readers rate it 4.3 out of 5 (36 ratings).
Why is The Vile Village on the Best Books of 2001 list?
171 readers have shelved it on Open Library; readers rate it 4.3 out of 5 (36 ratings).
More of the best books of 2001
- American Gods Neil Gaiman, #1
- Eat That Frog! 21 Great Ways to Stop Procrastinating and Get More Done in Less Time Brian Tracy, #2
- Crucial Conversations Kerry Patterson, #3
- Point Blanc Anthony Horowitz, #4
- Getting Things Done David Allen, #5
- Unbroken Laura Hillenbrand, #6
See the full Best Books of 2001, the Top 100, or new books on Rising.
How we know
This page uses public data: Open Library reader counts and ratings, and Wikipedia page views for recent years. The description is paraphrased from real source text. Rankings reflect reading interest, not quality or sales, and can be affected by data gaps. Lists update monthly.
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