The Basic Eight

Flashes of The Secret History: this book is populated by improbably erudite children who drink ludicrously — also, murder! It doesn't rise to the spellbinding beauty of Tartt's, but it's fun and funny and worth a read.

Daniel Handler is a genius. I know this isn't going to be any sort of formal review but I have to say something. Or rather, do something.
This book is SO well written. It's witty even when it's serious, it has the perfect amount of everything. The characters were not one dimensional, I came to know them as separate people with individual personalities and could predict which person would do or say what in a certain situation. And the twist at the end. ...This review is spoiler-free. But I didn't figure it out until about a page before it was revealed and now I want to go back and read the whole thing again in light of my new knowledge.
I've just finished it and I already miss the characters, I want to read about them forever.
The Basic Eight is brilliant!

I do not have time to read mediocre books.

This is the book I always say when people ask me what my favorite book is. I read it and when I finished it, I immediately read it again. I love Daniel Handler's way with words as Lemony Snickett and he is just as fun here.

Bem contada e com final bom.

Dark, funny, intense, clever (sometimes overly clever, which is to say, typical Handler), kind of riveting in a gruesome way. I like a book I can have theories about after finishing it. But I'm not sure it's entirely internally-consistent (which may also be sort of the point, or at least A point, of a sort), which makes it feel a little sloppy. And yet, bits of the writing are actually quite brilliant and the structure will nicely mess with your head, plus it evoked a certain element of nostalgia for my high school days, and the characters are kind of unforgettable even if not totally believable, but any immaturity of the writing can also be fridge-logicked into the frame story because it's allegedly written/narrated by a high school girl, so yeah, I don't know, it's good... but as with much of Handler's work, the fourth-wall-breaking tongue-in-cheek post-modernist carefully-constructed edifice sometimes seems to exist for its own sake and thus to act, not in service of, but almost in opposition to the actual story, or at the very least as a distraction. Which might also be the point. Anyhow, certainly impressive for a first novel, and a thoroughly enjoyable read.