The End (A Series of Unfortunate Events, Book 13) (Library Binding)

by Lemony Snicket (Author), Brett Helquist (Illustrator), Michael Kupperman (Illustrator)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review
Picking up from the final pages of the Pentultimate Peril, this farewell installment to the ridiculously (and deservedly!) popular A Series of Unfortunate Events places our protagonists right where we last left them: on a large, wooden boat in the middle of the ocean, trapped with their nemesis Count Olaf, who has armed himself with a helmet-full of deadly Medusoid Mycelium.

The situation quickly and--this being the Baudelaires--predictably deteriorates. Violet, Klaus, and Sunny find themselves tossed in a storm so terrible that our beloved narrator spends four pages describing how he cannot describe it. From this point on, fans of the series' smarty-pants wordplay and acrobatic narrative can rest assured that they're in for more of the same (and how) in this 368-page finale, and Daniel Handler's deadpan Snicket continues to tutor a generation in self-referential humor (including one particularly funny bit regarding three very short men carrying a large, flat piece of wood, painted to look like a living room). Snicket notes, of course, that if you read the entire series, "your only reward will be 170 chapters of misery in your library and countless tears in your eyes."

There's one big question, though, for anyone who's made it through "the thirteenth chapter of the thirteenth volume in this sad history": is the final book a fitting end? That question is probably best-answered by one of The End's most oft-repeated phrases: It depends on how you look at it. Those looking for conclusive resolution to the series' many, many mysteries may be disappointed, although some big questions do get explicit answers. Not surprisingly for a work so deliberately labyrinthine, though, even the absence of an answer can be sort of an answer--and reaction to The End can be something of a Rorschach test for readers. Or, as Lemony Snicket says, "Perhaps you don’t know yet what the end really means." --Paul Hughes --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Booklist
After a singularly bad beginning, the Baudelaire orphans, Violet, Klaus, and Sunny, have finally reached the end.The question is, will Book the Thirteenth in A Series of Unfortunate Events meet the expectations of the series' myriad fans? Snicket might put it a somewhat different way: if end simply means to cease, the answer is yes. If, however, end means to complete, the answer is most assuredly no--because though Snicket neatly clips numerous threads in the tragic saga, he leaves others literally fluttering in the breeze. As with the previous books, this one begins where its predecessor left off, with the orphans and the villainous Count Olaf afloat on dangerous open seas. When a storm blows their craft ashore, kindly islanders welcome the orphans, but Olaf is an outcast. Have the children finally found the longed-for "last safe place on earth?" Not so fast . . . before long, they are once again scrambling to avert disaster and death ("Kikbucit," as Sunny puts it when a couple of characters are terminated). If possible, this title is even more preposterous than others in the series (the children help an old friend give birth), as well as considerably longer than some. But frequent references to the other adventures will send Snicket fans back to previous books to delight once again in the idiosyncratic characters, the wry humor, and the wordplay, which has surely increased their vocabulary tenfold. Stephanie Zvirin
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 9-12
  
• Library Binding: 368 pages
• Publisher: HarperCollins (October 13, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060296445
• ISBN-13: 978-0060296445
• Product Dimensions: 7.1 x 4.8 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (316 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,219,616 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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• This is item 13 in The Series of Unfortunate Events Series.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

61 of 73 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Great series, Terrible ending. , March 18, 2007

By	David Johnson - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: The End (A Series of Unfortunate Events, Book 13) (Hardcover)

Are you kidding me Mr. Snickett? I've followed these kids through 13 books of misery only to NOT get answers to the majority of the questions? I still don't know why there was a tunnel between the kid's house and Dark St.? I still don't know what was in the sugar bowl? I still don't know what happened to the other triplets? I still don't know (really) what the deal is with you and Beatrice?
Dear sir, I have the sneaking suspicion that these books started as a great original idea, but as of about book 8 you realized you had no way to resolve the myriad plot threads that you'd sent spinning off in a million directions. I feel taken advantage of - a phrase which here means "ripped off." I am ashamed of you, and your publisher for purposely stringing the reader along when you must have known you had no true ending to the series. How do you sleep at night?
Let's hope Mrs. Rowling does better than this in June. You Mr. Snickett, are a hack.

29 of 33 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars The Bad Ending - or - Call This Book Ish, November 16, 2006

By	E. Schmidt - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: The End (A Series of Unfortunate Events, Book 13) (Hardcover)

Bottom Line: Fans of A Series of Unfortunate Events will most likely be disappointed by this book. "The End" does for series what the movie did for the franchise; and that's not good.

Before I get into the negatives, first let me state the positives. While not as good as in earlier books, the writing in "The End" is clever and still has the trademark Snicket whit and wordplay, although the jokes seem forced and repetitive - but I guess it all depends on how you look at it. Also, the final revelation in Chapter 14 (yes, there is an additional chapter at the end of the book) gives careful readers a lot to ponder. As with all the other books in the series, this is a fun and fast read and, even though there are major problems, I must admit that I still had a good time reading this book. That's about it for the positives.

Now for the downside. First off, you will not find resolution to many of the series' mysteries in "The End": No information on the contents or location of the sugar bowl, nothing more about the purpose of VFD or its schism, nothing about the fates of the villains and volunteers from the fire at the Hotel Denouement (or the hidden library), not a word about the "man with a beard but no hair" and the "woman with hair but no beard," not a peep about the possible survival of one of the Baudelaire parents, etc, etc, etc. The problem isn't that "The End" doesn't explicitly resolve these issues for us (did anyone actually expect that it would?), it's that the layers and layers of intrigue that have been building up for years are largely ignored. The true unfortunate event would be if the series were to end like this, with nothing more to bring closure to these outstanding mysteries.

This volume does add an extensive cast of new characters, however they are all as flat as a pancake (read the book, then try telling one of your associates or enemies anything about the characters Marlow, Larsen, or almost any of the other islanders for that matter - bet you can't). This time around even the series' mainstay, Count Olaf, seem utterly lifeless and even out of character.

The plot of this book is rather dull, which is perplexing considering that this is the longest book in the series. What you will find within the pages of this book are 12 chapters of fairly slow paced and repetitive "story," followed by a long Chapter 13 that is so utterly ridiculous that the writers of Scooby-Doo would feel guilty ending their story (let alone a beloved series) in such a way. It is as if the author got to the end of the book and noticed he hadn't moved the ongoing story forward, so decided to have certain characters monologue about the fates of others. For example, we have all been wondering what happened to the Quagmires and expecting some type of glorious reunion, but I'm quite sure that nobody wanted to hear Kit Snicket say "yeah, they captured some birds and then crashed into the ocean, where the 'question mark' shaped vessel swallowed them up. I don't know if they're alive or not. P.S. - Fiona and the Hook-Handed Man got swallowed too." Lol! As terrible as that sounds, the actual text in the book isn't much better than what I just wrote. Not to spoil anything, but the bit about Count Olaf's fate isn't much better either. The pacing is all wrong: why spend chapters going on about the tedium of island life, and then cram the important contents into a few scant sentences?

Judging by the response to this book, it looks like old Lemony has really dug himself a hole. The fans are mad, and justly so. Even if the series continues in spin-off books for years to come, many fans have been turned of by "The End" and just don't care anymore. The prevailing attitude is that readers would be better off stopping with Book 12; in many ways it is better to use your imagination and think of the millions of possible ways that the series could have ended, rather than reading the thoroughly unfulfilling way that it did end. All I can say is that if there are future books coming, they had better be something 'really' special, or "The End" may be the beginning of the end.

16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars A Cop-Out in More Ways Than One., February 4, 2007

By	J. Whelan (New York, NY USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: The End (A Series of Unfortunate Events, Book 13) (Hardcover)

I enjoyed all the early books in this series through Book 11. After reading Book 12 ("The Penultimate Peril") I had reserved judgment. Though less enjoyable in its own right, it might possibly justify itself if it became apparent, in retrospect, that it was building up to something worth while.

Not so. "The End" fails so badly, that not only does it drag "The Penultimate Peril" into the abyss along with it, but it also detracts from most of the other entries. Many of the late entries in the series varied intriguingly from formula in a manner that seemed to promise that they were part of something more than a somewhat repetitive series of stand-alone adventures. This promise has been exposed as a lie. It is here revealed that there was no real build-up, no over-arching story line, and no real plan. The "clues" thrown out to create an aura of mystery were never really clues -- just a sort of increasingly-unfunny comic schtick. None of those little mysteries he builds up in the early volumes will be resolved here. Some of the early stories perhaps still hold up well enough as stand-alone adventures, but they were never ever more than that.

Perhaps it was only to be expected that, since Book 12 offered us a "denouement" that was not really a denouement (even according to his careful explanations of the meaning of the word), this final book would give us an "End" that was not really an End.

The series just fizzles out in a miasma of despair that no longer seems to be a joke (and which, in any event, has certainly ceased to be funny). This, unfortunately, includes moral despair. Over the course of the last few volumes, the author has torn down the distinction between hero and villain (in a preachy and heavy handed manner) while still clearly expecting us to retain full sympathy for the heroes. The unmistakeable message is that growing up necessarily involves abandonment of one's moral principles, as one prepares to survive in a hostile world. So, essentially, not only does he himself cop out on resolving the plot, but he is also advocating moral cowardice to his child readers.

Do not mistake Snicket's moral despair for moral sophistication. The series never beomes "morally complex" -- it never begins to approach even the moral complexity of the Harry Potter books. Snicket does not advocate a complex moral code; he merely suggests that, since a simple one does not work, we should join him in wringing our hands (presumably as a prelude to washing them of responsibility). Snicket's outlook is so morally unsophisticated that, in his zeal to equate heros and villains, he at one point ignores the distinction between intentional murder and an accident.

The Baudelaire children are left, finally, with only their elitism to console themselves. Even if they, too, have become "villains" like Count Olaf, at least they are still special in the sense that they are still smarter, prettier, and generally superior to the surging masses of stupid ugly humanity.

Meanwhile, as plot and morality slide into the abyss, we begin to detect the ugly stench of Allegory amidst the chaos. My suspicions of allegorical intent were horribly confirmed when Sunny uttered a certain word beginning with "D". I will say no more of this, if you dislike allegory as much as I usually do, such revelations are bound to spoil any enjoyment of even the earlier books.

I did get a couple of chuckles from Snicket's usual word-play. Though few and far between, these moments of amusement have nonetheless inspired me to give this book 2 stars rather than the minimum of 1.