A Series of Unfortunate Events #13: The End audiobook

Cordial SADNESS. After leaving Hotel Denouement and every single character from the past behind, the morally gray Baudelaires travel to Olaf-Land; a remote isolated island in the middle of the oceans; during their stay they meet Ishmael, the unquestionable leader of the place, and many other passive villagers stranded on the island. Away from everyone and everything, the orphans start living a peaceful life for once in their miserable lives, and they befriend Friday, a lovely young islander. A brief respite of uneventfulness takes place; until King Olaf breaks free from his prison cage and...End of the line. No more questions, except for all the ones that were left unanswered. VFD means Volunteers Fire Department, period. Yet it may also mean Vaporetto of Favorite Detritus, among many other things. And the sugar bowl; well, what sugar bowl? Life doesn't have all the answers, and we have to live with it. LOVED Friday, a tender soul bent on protecting the orphans and helping them adjust to their new life on the island. I have MIXED feeling regarding Ishmael, a deceitful facilitator that hides many secrets and never *forces* anyone to do anything, specially about rocking the boat. HATED Olaf, a totally convincing pregnant villain (view spoiler)[ that finally met his ultimate end. Kind of sad really. Gonna miss the old bastard. (hide spoiler)] The flawed Baudelaire orphans still noble enough, always with the best intentions in their hearts; although not always making the right decisions, especially regarding taking sides in schisms, and many other things.This sequel was sometimes dull, yet also quite entertaining and full packed in several occasions, especially during the middle and end. I thought I was going to read a Hitchhikers ending here, so I’m sincerely happy being gravely mistaken. The ending was not the best, yet not the worst either. Disappointed with never getting my long awaited answers, sure, but I’ll learn to live with it. We don’t always get all the answers we want, but we can always imagine them. It was marvelous reaching a final conclusion to this extensive series of unfortunate events. The orphans ever strong and reaching some kind of *closure* to all their misfortune, especially with Beatrice. An open ending for sure, but all things considered. a fairly welcomed one.Godspeed people. And like Lemony warns ever so often, if you want a happy ending, better pick another book!Still remaining, the movie (2004) and the series (2017).Oh btw, calamity strikes again.----------------------------------------------- PERSONAL NOTE : [2006] [357p] [Children’s] [Recommendable] [Baudelaire Castaways] [Life has no answers] [I'm strangely proud of never having mentioned Mr. Poe in any previous review, not even once] [You would think after thirteen reviews I would've run out of ways of saying 'calamity strikes again', but you would be wrong] (view spoiler)[[Rip Olaf RIP!] [The Quagmires never showed up

Endings are truly the worst part of human existence.This is saying a lot, because "human existence" is a category that contains things like "stepping in water when you have socks on" and "bad haircuts" and other excruciatingly painful experiences.But endings are the worst ones of all. And endings of long, unique series of books that happen to be your very favorites are especially heinous. (Dun-dun.)I know a lot of people hate this book, and thus I am currently living out my curse of having unpopular opinions but on the more positive side, because I love it very much.It doesn't contain many answers. The end of the end of The End is ambiguous and melancholy. People die and people cry and people are cruel and unjust.But isn't that LIFE?Bottom line: This, like everything else in this series, is painful and funny and wonderfully, truthfully real.The end.-------------well, now i am sad.send thoughts & prayers.review to come / 5 stars who am i kidding-------------please tell lemony snicket that i would prefer if this series went on forever and i never had to finish it, even in reread. endings are sad and i've decided to never be sad. thanks

Well. Snicket himself told me that no book can truly contain the end of a story, although it may describe the end of a person. I finished this book on October 13, 2007, exactly one year after it was released. It was not as funny or exciting as the last few books in the series, but it might be more allegorical than all the rest. It had heaps of literary allusions, only a few of which I managed to catch-- Robinson Crusoe, Moby Dick, the Bible... To sum it all up, the biggest "problem" with this book is that it leaves many things unresolved. It's not that surprising, I guess, but it's still not fully satisfying.Even though I didn't laugh as much, I did say "Oh!" more times than in any of the previous volumes. I don't know if there's an actual O!Scale, but this would rate highly on it. One part I need to share with you is what LS says about happiness that has really stuck with me ever since I read it. He writes that happiness is probably an acquired taste, like coconut cordial or ceviche (or a root beer float), in that the more happiness you have, the less you enjoy it, where as suffering is the opposite: the more you have, the stronger it gets. This is one of the most profound things I've read recently. It even explains things like divorce and taxes.I cannot say that "The End" is not a fitting end to the series--it bookends a sense of mystery and mysfortune--but it does not end our desire to know what happens in the lives of Violet, Klaus and Sunny Baudelaire.

"...letting their tears run down their faces and into the sea, which some have said is nothing but a library of all tears in history."The. End. I have so many more questions than I have answers, but I think it's actually not going to drive me crazy. I love this series and it's vague, eerie, surreal tone. There's so much beautiful character development throughout the series that I didn't pick up as a child and I'm so, so glad I did this reread. The struggle with their moral compass is so real and relevant for a children's book, and I plan to pass this book series down to all the quirky, precocious kids I know.

Rather than review all the Series of Unfortunate Events books individually, I'll just say this here: I loved this whole series, it's blackly funny and engaging and filled with so many little tricks and gags that could only possibly work in print fiction (which is why the movie was such a disaster), that they remind you why you love reading in the first place.For the record, around the third book I was worried that things were starting to get too formulaic and that I might be getting bored with them, but stick with it! There's some repetition, but it's all building to something bigger!I'm putting this review on the last book of the series in order to say this: this is, seriously, one of the most brilliant and satisfying endings to a long-running series this side of The Kindly Ones. Forget Harry Potter, sooner or later some crazy christian parent with a vague grasp of metaphor is going to pick up this book and realize that this here is some hardcore questioning of Chrisian dogma—there's a garden, an apple, and a choice to be made between blissful ignorance and knowledge of good and evil in the complex world outside, and the snake is definitely the good guy—and I for one think its fantastic.

Not an end I would've preferred but I still very much enjoyed it. I like to think the Baudelaires are still out there somewhere, carrying on what their parents left behind and making life the best it could be. I'd love to read about what they are like as adults, I think that would be amazing. :) I did cry when I closed this book because I'm going to miss these characters greatly. I will need to purchase all 13 for my own shelves eventually because it has become one of my favorite series of all time.Also while reading the the ending I couldn't help but think of this song. For the Baudelaires!

First off, Ishmael is a jerk. Second; Olaf didn’t burn down the Baudelaire mansion?? Third; I thought the Quagmire triplets’ fate was more definite although things certainly didn’t sound good - which I’m not fond of. I like how Chapter Fourteen shows that even though the Baudelaire's childhood was cut short, they were able to provide a good one for Kit Snicket's child. With this reread I’ve come to the conclusion that...I like the Netflix series more. While the books are good, I prefer the lighter tone of the show. The books could get quite dark and repetitive while the show was able to alleviate that, especially with Barney Stin….I mean, Neil Patrick Harris. Plus I think the satirical nature of the story came across more easily in the show. Side note: The song at the end (of the audiobook) starts off sweet but then it gets like, really weird…

3.75* although I really enjoyed this, I'm definitely not entirely satisfied with the ending, I feel like I've finished it with more questions than I had she I started?! But I guess that very much suits this series, it's just a little (a lot) infuriating, I can't bare all this questions hanging over my head. :') I've really enjoyed reading this series, although I'm so happy to have finished it! I wish I had read it when I was younger, as I definitely think I would have enjoyed it a lot more had I read the books as they were released and at a younger age. Nevertheless, this was a bizarre, dark and incredibly unique series and I can definitely see why so many people when it love with it when it was first released! I'm so happy to finally say that I've read The Series of Unfortunate Events!!

I'm a mixed bag of emotions after reading The End. I'm terribly sad that my reread of this series is over yet I'm so glad that I revisited them and got to relive a big part of my childhood. It's such a dark and depressing series and this last book was no different. But that's why I loved this series as a kid and continue to do so as an adult. Real life isn't always sunshine and butterflies and I love how these books reflect that. I think the only happy moment for me was the demise of a certain character that I won't name so as not to spoil it for anyone. Other than that these books really are quite a series of unfortunate events and I've loved every minute of them!

it hurt to say goodbye to three of my favorite fictional characters when i first finished this series nearly 1.5 decades ago, and boy does it still hurt now!and because this is a children’s series i won’t write my true, unfiltered reaction to the ending and instead leave you with this: gosh fudging darn it

I'm so emotional.

~4.5 stars~ I had no idea what to expect from the end of The End lol :P And honestly, I am still a little confused about some things...I still have so many questions xD But I did just finish this book so I still need to let some things sink in before I can say much about it because right now my brain is like...xD xD

Not completely satisfied with the ending but it did leave me mindblown! So glad I've finally finished this series.

A really good end to the series, although I agree with others a lot of things were missed and unanswered!

A review of the whole seriesSooooo....wtf mate...what do I do with my time now? This is a series I never read as a child (for reasons I really can't fathom) and decided to visit now as a 27 year old adult. I guess reading is reading and I can fully, fully admit that I would have no problem reading The Berenstain Bears and the Messy Room a few more times (is this why people have kids?) Anywhoooo...this summer I randomly decided to check out the series at the library and became fixed on it. It is probably the most brilliantly written children's series I have ever read (besides those pesky Berenstain Bear books). Use of LanguageThe way "Lemony Snicket" uses language in these books is just utterly fantastic. One of my favorite scenes was in The Ersatz Elevator when he literally used a red herring as a red herring. As an adult reader it was cumbersome to have words constantly explained in the book but if I was a parent or a teacher reading this to a much younger audience I'm sure it would have been extremely useful. What is totally cool about this book is that I actually learned some new words and thought about literary devices in a whole new way. Everything he did was on purpose and made complete and total sense. Everything just works together in his novels like a perfectly formed puzzle. HonestyThere is just something about children's books that are so brutally honesty. Raise your hand if your parents ever dismissed you because they "lived it already and knew what they were talking about?" Oh my gosh...my dad ignored everything I said as a kid and lectured me about life because he knew better. I'm going to start calling my dad Mr. Poe. There are also these little nuggets of passages that you just go wow over because they are so incredibly true. In The Vile Village there is one line where the Police Chief says something along the lines of "I am the police, the law doesn't apply to me." Removing all political discourse from this...that is quite a statement and has some merit. Plus, the idea that there aren't always going to be happy endings in life. Sometimes bad things happen to good people and you have to make the most out of any situation. Very poignant lesson for kids to discover.HumorThe humor in this series is genius. It's like when you watch a Pixar movie and there are jokes in there that no possible child can find funny but you know the creators put it in there for the adults. That's how I felt reading these books. So many times I was giggling to myself or laughing and thought...no way would a child find this funny. The humor is brilliant though, one of my favorite funny parts was the ambidextrous "freak" in the freak show in The Carnivorous Carnival, because I'm ambidextrous! Which pretty much means I'm a freak because I have two useful hands instead of one....drats. Overall, this series is just too smart for it's own good. I have always looked forward to the day my children could read and discover Harry Potter for the first time and now I can't wait for them to read this series as well. (It means I can read them again!)

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