A Series of Unfortunate Events, Book the Thirteenth: The End

by Lemony Snicket

illustrated by Brett Helquist

(New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2006)

Hardcover, 368 Pages, Fiction?

For Beatrice—

I cherished, you perished, the world’s been nightmarished.

From the Cover: Dear Reader,

You are presumably looking at the back of this book, or the end of The End. The end of The End is the best place to begin The End, because if you read The End from the beginning of the beginning of The End to the end of the end of The End, you will arrive at the end of the end of your rope. This book is the last in A Series of Unfortunate Events, and even if you braved the previous twelve volumes, you probably can’t stand such unpleasantries as a fearsome storm, a suspicious beverage, a herd of wild sheep, an enormous bird cage, and a truly haunting secret about the Baudelaire parents. It has been my solemn occupation to complete the history of the Baudelaire orphans, and at last I am finished. You likely have some other occupation, so if I were you I would drop this book at once, so The End does not finish you.

With all due respect,

LEMONY SNICKET

My Review: Alisa and I first got involved in the affairs of the Baudelaire orphans in December 2004 at the urging of a coworker. Since that time, we have encountered villainous arsonists, an Incredibly Deadly Viper, ravenous leeches, a shady optometrist, a disguised bag of flour, parsley soda, a harpoon gun, cans of alphabet soup, Chabo the Wolf-Baby, some very fresh dill, a dangerous fungus, the Dewey Decimal System and a herd of highly trained sheep. Our involvement with the lives of Violet, Klaus and Sunny Baudelaire has now spanned almost two years and I can’t say that it has been wasted time. Yes, we have been frustrated, and yes, we have been angry, and yes, we have been saddened, and I can’t say that I am entirely satisfied with how things ended up – there are still many more questions than answers, but… I can say that I was satisfied enough. I won’t lie to you though, I imagine that many readers will not be happy with the way things turned out and the way Lemony Snicket ended it, but I think that it was the only way that the series could have ended. I mean that is a very realistic ending. It is the way that things end in the “real world” might end. To have things end in a “happily-ever-after” manner would be contrary to the way that Lemony Snicket was setting things up from the very beginning. Now, having seen the overall picture (which spans fifteen books, 184 chapters and 3,754 pages) I think I can begin to see what Mr. Snicket is trying to achieve. So, my advice to you is to stick it out to The End and try to see the big picture of the lives of the Baudelaires and don’t be too hard on Lemony Snicket, he’s had a rough life as it is.