The Basic Eight

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The Basic Eight is a 1998 novel by Daniel Handler, better known as Lemony Snicket. It is told as the journal of one Flannery Culp, a highly intelligent and sarcastic teenage girl doing a life sentence in prison for murder. The premise is that she is editing her own journal from the months leading up to the murder, so that it can be published as a true-crime book.

The novel itself centres on Flannery and her group of friends, known collectively as "The Basic Eight". They are:

• Flannery herself, a Deadpan Snarker and our Unreliable Narrator.
• Kate Gordon, the semi-Lovable Alpha Bitch and the Queen Bee of the Basic Eight.
• Douglas Wilde, Flan's amicably ex-boyfriend, an opera lover in a Transparent Closet.
• Lily Chandly, a classical musician and Douglas' new girlfriend.
• Jennifer Rose Milton, a sweet, shy girl who is so beautiful that Flan must always write out her name in full.
• Gabriel Gallon, the kindest boy on earth, who is in love with Flan.
• V___, whose rich and influential parents had her name expunged from the story.
• Natasha Hyatt, Flan's wild, hilarious vampy best friend, who is actually a figment of Flan's imagination.

Flan's victim is the boy with whom she was madly in love, Adam State. The novel opens with her love letters to him, and it goes downhill from there.

Noted for being witty and insightful, this novel mocks teenage fiction while simultaneously being the very best of it.

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Tropes used in The Basic Eight include:

• Armor-Piercing Question: Combined with Wham! Line.

Flannery: Adam State, handsome senior, [...] was killed by our glamorous friend Natasha, and now we're all-- Douglas: Who?

• Asshole Victim: Adam may or may not be this, depending on how unreliable our narrator really is. Jim Carr plays this straight.
• Don't Explain the Joke:

Eleanor Tert: I was in deep denial, and I'm not talking about a river in Egypt. I said I'm not talking about a river in Egypt. Well, you probably haven't learned about it yet, but the Nile is a river in Egypt, and when I said "denial" it sounded like--well, never mind.

• Red Herring: Handler labels foreshadowing and reveals the ending early in the novel, distracting the reader from the hints about the real twist ending.
• Sadist Teacher: Jim Carr. Not only does he sleazily hit on his teaching assistants, but he also molests Flannery.
• Unreliable Narrator: Flannery.
• Wham! Line: See Armor-Piercing Question above.