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The End (A Series of Unfortunate Events, Book 13) | 
 enlarge | Author: Lemony Snicket
Creators: Brett Helquist, Michael Kupperman
Publisher: HarperCollins
Category: Book
List Price: $12.99
Buy Used: $6.26
You Save: $6.73 (52%)
Rating:  295 reviews
Sales Rank: 334327
Format: Bargain Price
Media: Hardcover
Reading Level: Ages 9-12
Pages: 368
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.7
Dimensions (in): 7 x 5.3 x 1.5
ASIN: B0012F2OGU
Publication Date: October 13, 2006
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Editorial Reviews:
Amazon.com
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
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| Customer Reviews: Read 290 more reviews...
 A Fitting Ending August 27, 2008
Karolina Black
A lot of people complain that the final book didn't have enough answers... Heck! I just think we were silly for expecting them! With the weave of mysteries in the book, how could everything possibly be explained?
But a lot WAS explained. Everything necessary. And you find out the end of the tale of the Baudelaires.
I enjoyed this as much as I enjoyed the other books in the series. It was fun, unexpected, and yet... very tragic. I did cry at the end.
I recommend it to any fan of the series..
Strangely Satisfying August 9, 2008
Peach Tea
It's a funny thing really-I finished this book and thought 'That's it?' and was almost prepared to chunk it. Till I waited about two minutes and felt like jumping up and down with excitement-realizng that this was actually an incredible book. I cannot claim to know all of the answers-but I do realize that most (if not all) of them can be found by reading the books c-a-r-e-f-u-l-l-y. I believe it was C.S. Lewis who said 'All the bother about originality is from people who aren't very original. If they were, they'd be original without noticing.' Snicket makes no great claims to be original. Yet he is-so masterfully you almost don't realize it. He manages to be funny and serious and heartrending (yes it was) all at the same time. Somehow, though alot of things weren't answered in this book...I found myself glad I had read it. After all, in life, are things always answered? No. Of course, you often read to escape life-but Snicket manages to make you appreciate it more. It's almost as though he's telling you 'Now you've had a nice little break. Go live. Do something. Change the world.' Though he himself would likely deny it vehemently. In conclusion to this (lengthy) review:
If you're expecting an all-out 'happy happy ending, everybody gets a pony and lives happily ever after', forget it. But remember: Snicket warned us at the beginning of the series. He flat-out told us the whole way through that this was a series of unfortunate events. Did we believe him? Noooo. We assumed he would tie everything up neatly like a mystery. But he didn't. He just stood back, halfway smiling, conveying the idea that we can figure it out. But really...do we need to?
This doesn't make sense. But if you've understood the series...you'll probably understand this review. I think.
It was a good book and deserves five stars. There.
Rambler July 28, 2008
Not Miss Havisham
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
At age 18 I learnt the verb 'to ramble' from a dear friend who liked to do just that. A very popular addition to my at that time rapidly growing English vocabulary. This volume is the most rambling of all the 'Events' books I have now read, 5 in total, and possible the most rambling volume of anything I have ever read. All good then...
To be very honest, I took Snicket's advice to some extent (close this book while you can and read something happier) and skipped volumes 5-12, feeling I really wasn't up to 8 more volumes of misery before arriving at 'The End' and 'the end of the end after the end of the end.' Close quote, see what I mean about the book being a right old rambler? Not having read the in-between volumes meant that I did have to stop and ask for frequent fill-ins from my much more dedicated daughter, to understand and appreciate the full measure of the story, but having her on hand anyway, I didn't mind at all, and she felt quite the authority. Yes, I cheated and that's bad, I know!
The end of 'The End' (See? Now I'm doing it too, rambling), was not neatly wrapped up and completely tidy, but that was the whole point of our friend Snicket's observations and outlook on life for the Beaudelaires and in general.
Again a lovely, yet not so lovely, and wise story, with lots of fabulous ideas, and new life at the end, which always symbolises promise, hope and all things good and wonderful.
Handler's done a great job here, and the super Helquist illustrations really enhance the story.
If you can't face all 13 volumes, at leat read 'The End', and ask an expert for the rest, like I did.
 Disappointing end to a Great Series July 18, 2008
Guitar Guy 5,000,000,000 (Ont,Canada)
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
I was a huge Snicket fan ever scince I read "The Reptile Room" in 2001 when I was only in the third grade. I bought this final book last year as a teenager hoping to find out what the "sugar bowl" was, if one of the Baudelaires parents were still alive, and what VFD actually stands for. This book answered none of these questions. I loved the "Penultimate Peril" and judging by where it left off, I expected that in book 13, the Baudelaires would go in the sail boat to some big city, where the children would try to put Count Olaf in jail and they would meet some VFD members, have a big fight, have a trial in court. I wasn't necessarily expecting the Baudelaires to win in the end but I was expecting some sort of ANSWER. Some kind of RESOULUTION to the series. The last thing that should have happened was a new plot with new characters and a strange ending.
The Baudelaires arive in the boat with Count Olaf at an island in the middle of nowhere. Where they meet a tribe of people who wear bathrobes. When I got to that part in the book It was a huge let down. I still kept on reading, hoping that some of the mysteries of the series might be answered. They do meet people connected with VFD and that was kind of interesting but I wish some of the main mysteries would have been answered. Up to the very last page of the book, NOTHING about the sugar bowl got revealed. A HUGE let down.
*Here's where the spoilers come:*
The book ends with everybody on the island being poisened by fungus and they all travel out on a boat out to the rest of the world so they can poison the planet. Olaf Dies, Lemony Snicket's sister, Kit, Dies. and The Baudelaires take care of Kit's newborn baby and travel away on a boat themselves a year later, no telling what happened to them. Not a happy ending. But what's worse...It's a BAD ending. It solves nothing, it's kind of depressing,and this series just deserved so much more to it.
This book had it's suspensful moments, interesting topics, interesting characters, but it just had a lot of unfilled gaps if you know what I mean.
"Unfortunate" is in the title for a reason June 21, 2008
L. Smith (LA, USA)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
It is unfortunate that I never bothered to write a review for this book early on because I unfortunately assumed that there would be enough competent criticism to help people. Woefully, I discovered that most of the poor reviews seem to simply be people whining about the fact that it did not end like a Scooby Doo mystery in which the gang unveil the perpetrator and commence to explain various things about the plot they couldn't possibly have known. (But don't rate me unhelpful yet! Just read a little bit further!)
If you would prefer the above scenario and were never once bored by the fact that Scooby and the gang solved every single case in the same manner and in the same amount of time, this book IS (probably) NOT for you, plain and simple. There are answers, but they only lead to more questions. And every time you find a new answer, two more questions arise, making it a Hydra of a conundrum and unbelievably frustrating to some.
If you do not mind philosophical, thought-provoking endings that do not tie all the loose ends into pretty little bows, this book IS for you. "The End" is Snicket's most adult book of the series. All the children I know who've read it loved it, but they did not catch all of the darker tones to the story, as is true of the entire series. The final book is titled in an ironic sense, as it is not really the end at all but a new beginning, and it is meant to be a more serious reflection of life. There will NEVER be a neat little book with all the answers in it for you. It would not be a series of unfortunate events if that were the case.
"Now be honest, how do you really feel?" This really was my favorite book of the whole series because I continued to think about it weeks after I'd read it and still find myself jumping into conversations about it any time it's brought up.
If the lack of resolution to Stuart Little gnawed at you when you were 8 and continues to do so to this very day, I would not recommend picking up this book. If you enjoy an open ending that is left up to you to decide and mull over, then what are you still reading this for? Go get a copy of the book right away!
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