The Penultimate Peril (A Series of Unfortunate Events, Book 12)

The Penultimate Peril is one of the best in ASoUE. It's the next to last book in the series, and everything is starting to come together.

When we last left Violet, Klaus, and Sunny that had met up with Kit Snicket on Briny Beach, and that's exactly where out story picks up. She takes them to a hotel, where in just a few days, there will be a gathering of volunteers at the last safe place. However, we all know that nothing ends in sunshine & happiness for our favorite unfortunate orphans.

The book is very well paced, and a bit darker than some of the others in the series, but just as silly as well. We see lots of familiar faces, and will have you wanting to reread the entire series over just to see if you missed the slighest bit of a clue. We also meet some new characters, and discover some remarkable secrets. We also run into some new questions, and ponder the true meaning of noble. Right & wrong are not always black & white, especially for the Baudelaires. The Penultimate Peril is a very enjoyable read, and is a must buy for fans of ASoUE.

And make sure you have a mirror when you read.

I managed to get my hands on this one 3 days before the offical release date (a store in my hometown had it out early). Needless to say that I tore through it really quickly. While the mystery and story are (finally) coming together, I have to admit I am really looking forward to the final (post-pentultimate) book, so the mystery will finally be solved. However, judging by some of Mr. "Snicket's" comments in some interviews, I rather suspect that the series will end with more questions than answers. While the end of this episode took me a bit by surprise, I am looking forward to seeing what the author has up his sleeve for the orphans and their friends.

Book eleven in A Series of Unfortuante Events, THE GRIM GROTTO, didn't live up to my high expectations. Actually, it was one of my least favorite books I had ever read. I prayed to God that the twelth installment wouldn't be a stinker, and thank goodness, it wasn't. Infact, THE PENULTIMATE PERIL is now my number one favorite in Lemony Snicket's thirteen-book series. There was just so much to like about it, but there was one main reason that made me appreciate it over all the others. Every ASOUE book tends to be a little more mature than your average children's book, but this one is a hundred times more intense than each of the others. Like the Baudelaires realize midway through the story, they are no longer children (except for Sunny) proving that the events of their lives are no longer kid stuff. If you thought book six of Harry Potter was intense, wait till you try reading THE PENULTIMATE PERIL...

Right from the first chapter of this brilliantly-written novel, the Baudelaires know that the things they're about to face are like no other. A fellow V.F.D. member has them disguised as hotel conceirges at Hotel Denouement, where they will pretend to be your average "hotel helper" while secretly being on the look-out for any villains that might try to cause chaos to the upcoming V.F.D. meeting. I thought that making the setting a hotel was a great idea, as one of the most interesting places in the world is a hotel. This led up for some hilarious scenes involving some of ASOUE's best characters, although it also led for some extremely depressing scenes that may fill your eyes with tears. After all, there's a reason why Lemony Snicket warns you not to read this book and pick up something much more delightful.

Another detail about this book I really enjoyed was that so mo many characters from the previous installments in the series showed up. Best of all, none of them were underused or overused. They were placed perfectly in the story so you'll say to yourself "Wow, I can't believe they're back!" It's a huge disappointment when a series author forgets their series' past, but Lemony Snicket / Daniel Handler certainly doesn't. No important character in the series goes unforgotten in this book, and although having tons of characters return would be more fitting for the last book, I'm glad Snicket / Handler did it with this one--after all, he has a lot of plot to get out of the way and unsolved mysteries to answer with book thirteen. This leaves me to the only problem I had. There weren't enough questions answered, but I trust that book thirteen will answer everything, so it's not much of a disappointment.

If you think A Series of Unfortunate Events is a lame kiddie series that definitely don't show true angst, you better take a look at this one. From beginning to end, THE PENULTIMATE PERIL is filled with more drama than you can even imagine. The ending is the most dramatic the whole book (and it's the most intense ending in the series) and will most likely leave you with your jaw dropping. Many other ASOUE fans and I were amazed at how much has changed from book one to this amazing piece of literature that is book twelve. But I have a warning for you--even if you're anxious to read this book, and you haven't read the rest, you really have to or you'll be completely lost. Although there's quite a few books you're going to have to get through, just keep your hopes up that eventually you'll be reading THE PENULTIMATE PERIL, the best ASOUE book so far, and one of the best children's novels the world has ever seen.

If you've come this far along in the series hoping to get some answers at long last to all the burning questions raised by these books and their supplementary materials, and you think you'll be getting at least SOME of these answers in Book the Twelfth, then you've come to the wrong place. All you get here is pages and pages of more pointless hints, more pointless conversations, more pointless literary references, more pointless space-filling definitions & descriptions and MANY more raised questions. The charm of the series is definitely worn thin -- anorexic, actually -- at this point. Usually these books have me chuckling for pages but this time the only laugh I got was when Handler took advantage of Sunny's system of baby-talk to throw in a left-wing joke about Scalia and the Supreme Court. It'll fly completely over the heads of the kiddie readers and might annoy some of the more right-wing older readers, but apparently it's impossible to escape politics these days, even in children's literature.

Handler has at this point dug himself into a deep, deep hole and there's NO POSSIBLE WAY he can satisfy everyone and answer every question in just one more book -- which doesn't make me at all eager to read it! He is losing people (or maybe just me) with the continued twists and turns this late in the series, and this book was really nothing more than an excuse to reintroduce characters from all the other books and set up more questions that likely won't be answered in the next book either. It's like turning on your favorite show to watch the series finale and getting a season-recap instead. In other words, it's almost a total waste of time.

Handler likes using literary references in his books but this book might as well be one gigantic reference to a play written by a man you may have heard of: William Shakespeare. It's truly much ado about absolutely NOTHING.

I just finished this book 5 minutes ago after 2 and a half hours of steady reading. I really enjoyed it, and would recommend this book to anyone who loves the first 11 books in this series.

In this latest installment of the Series of Unfortunate Events, the Baudelaires arrive at the Hotel Denouement for the meeting of the Volunteers. But first, the Baudelaires must first check out the hotel to make sure that the last safe place is indeed safe. While disguised as concierges, the Baudelaires encounter a number of charecters from previous books. They must figure out if these people are volunteers or villans before the meeting on thursday. If they find that the hotel is not safe, they must signal to the volunteers not to come.

I thought this installation lacked a few things. For one, Violet doesn't have to invent anything, and this is one of my personal favorite things to read about. Klaus does do some research at the end, but his wealth of knowledge is not called opon as frequently as in the other books. Also, there is little refrence to Sunny's cooking or biting skills. Overall, however, I found that this book was thoroughly enjoyable because of discovering many new questions to be answered. This book was more of a mystery than the other ones, and I can't wait to see what happens in book 13!

Dear reader, Bystander, Civilian, Pedestrian, Alien, and or sea creature I, not related in any way to Mr. Snicket, will write my review for A Series of Unfortunate Events on this one page, for you see I am quite lazy and writing 12 different reviews for the same series would only put you dear readers in harms way of being offended by my grammmar, pronunciation, and spelling(although I highly doubt anybody will even bother to read this, escpecially after my boring introduction). So as to make things simple I shall say all I have to say right here.

A Series of Unfortunate Events is a series about, well a group of Unfortunate Children called the Baudilaures. Unfortunate in this case means, for every person that wins the lottery or finds a penny on the street you can bet that the Baudilaures will have just been tricked by some fellow who tried to steal their inheritence or had their house burn to the ground. This series has gone up to 12 books and will end with Book 13 cleverly entitled: Ahem, The End.

It also has a sick, villain named Count Olaf who follows the children around and tries to get their inheritence.(STALKER!) Ahem, anyway these children face horrifictatioously danger at every turn, excuse my spelling as it will get worse and worse as I am banking on the fact that no one will read this and this small memento of time and devotion shall be utterly wasted. But I shall continue to write nontheless for I feel it is my sworn duty to advise you to read this book series and hopefully I shall not get sued by any legal associate of Mr. Snicket for copying his fine prose.

Overall these books are cleverly written with some wit and humor and suspense. They of course shall not rank up with the likes of The Hobbit, Lord of the Rings, War of the Worlds, Lord of the Flies, and the Dictionary(an engrossing read) BUT they are great fun to read for any age.

Excuse me I'm getting a call........What? Thats terrible! Who would copy Mr. Snicket's fine prose! No I've never even been to the Amazon.....

I recently downloaded a Fresh Air interview with author Daniel Handler (a.k.a. Lemony Snicket) from several years ago. In it, I learned that prior to writing "A Series of Unfortunate Events", Mr. Handler did not read a single solitary children's book. He didn't immerse himself in the dry narration of E. Nesbit or take in the mock-gothic nature of Joan Aiken or even submerge himself in the wry humor of Roald Dahl. Mr. Handler did none of this and yet he still managed to write what can best be described as the most original children's series of the new century. Some books in this series work better than others ("The Ersatz Elevator", for example is better by far than the slightly more forgettable, "Slippery Slope") but not a single one could be described as weak or poorly written. In this, the penultimate book in the series, we learn a heckuva lot more about VFD, the schism, the orphans' former guardians, and the nature of nobility and villainy. There isn't as much action in, "The Penultimate Peril". You won't find insidious henchmen trying to saw children in half or swordfights or kids rappelling down elevator shafts. What you will find is a whole book that lauds the beauty of libraries, a harpooning, letters written backwards, an enormous fire, bad Indian food, and what can best be called the final cliffhanger.

When we last saw our heroes, the Baudelaire orphans had climbed into a taxi with a woman they knew only to be Kit Snicket. Hoping that now, at last, they could get an answer all their questions, the Baudelaires are disappointed to find that Kit is just as mysterious and impossible to pin-down as every other adult they've met. She takes them to the Hotel Denouement where they are immediately set up as concierges. Their job? Well, a big meeting is going to take place on Thursday and both villains and volunteers are gathering at Denouement. The Baudelaires are charged to find out what they can about a guest known only as J.S. Along the way they must befriend the manager Frank, avoid his evil twin Ernest, and attend to the guests' needs. As the three do so they find that every incompetent and ill-equipped guardian they ever had is present (as well as the far rarer noble ones). Everything is steaming to a head and the Baudelaires must figure out the secrets behind the hotel, avoid villainy themselves, and create an adequate signal to other members of VFD to indicate whether or not it is safe for the meeting to take place in what is known as the "last safe place".

What we have here is a book that makes it bloody clear to children everywhere that in this world there is no ultimately "safe place". The choices we make in our lives can never be followed to their ultimate conclusions because it's impossible to predict the minutia of chance. The best we can hope for is to follow Kit Snicket's advice and "observe everyone you see, and make such judgements yourselves". The Baudelaires do a couple things in this book that seem sketchy or confusing to them. By the end they know they've tried to do their best but villainy has seemingly still won out (though certainly not completely). And to top it all off that most notorious of villains, Count Olaf, has shown a brief (very brief) moment of near-humanity. Because of this, I've little fear that the Baudelaires will escape the book's final predicament with their souls as well as their bodies intact. If someone doesn't write a book about the morality of "A Series of Unfortunate Events" shortly after the publication of the 13th book, I can tell you right here and now that heads are gonna roll!

As a librarian, I was much taken with the fact that the Hotel Denouement is organized like a library. Guests are organized into rooms according to the Dewey Decimal System. This isn't necessarily a new idea. The Library Hotel at 299 Madison Avenue in New York City already did it years ago. And while guests are not placed into rooms according to their occupations, each room is a different Dewey Decimal Number. Still, "The Penultimate Peril" does have a heroic librarian in its midst and (though I had not realized this before) in almost every book in the series the Baudelaires use a library to help them out of their predicaments. So from the librarians of the world, Mr. Handler, I salute you. Quietly.

When, "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz" was written, it could be read as a parable of Gilded Age populism (the Scarecrow = the wise, but naive western farmers, the Tin Woodman = the dehumanized, Eastern factory workers, etc.). So couldn't "A Series of Unfortunate Events" be read as a parable for our own contemporary politics? Think about it. The "good" adults in this book constantly disappoint the people who trust them because they aren't unified, allowing the villains to constantly seize control simply because bad guys are much stronger in the courage-of-their-convictions department. Note the jab at Scalia on page 268 and you've a fairly convincing interpretation of modern politics. Just a thought.

Faithful readers of Snicket know that on the last page of every book there's a note to Snicket's editor that offers some kind of clue as to the next book. Unlike every other clue offered before, this one is clear, sweet, and succinct. Readers will pore over it in vain for clues. Until the final chapter in this series we'll just have to wait and hope for the best. And that's a dangerous to thing to hope for where "A Series of Unfortunate Events" is concerned.

I have just finished reading *The Penultimate Peril*, Book the Twelfth in *A Series of Unfortunate Events* by the inestimable Lemony Snicket. This is a completely subversive book.

First of all, there is no way this can be considered children's literature. In tone, in style, and in philosophical underpinnings, this book is the equal of David Foster Wallace's *Infinite Jest* or David Mitchell's *Cloud Atlas*. I'm not joking. Snicket has extended his marvelously snarky Victorian narrator's voice into something that is meta-post-modern wonderful, a word that here means "full of wonders."

The basic "mirror" motif, the convoluted sentences, the convoluted plotting (which was always circular and inconclusive and in any case grinds to a halt-about which more in a moment), the moral uncertainty: by the time Snicket reaches the end of this, the longest of the books, it all has spiralled out of control and dissipates like the smoke of a building burning to the ground.

I was about to type "moral ambiguity," but it occurs to me that morality in this book is not ambiguous. The cartoon-character versions of good and evil which have sustained the series still operate, but they are reflected back and forth in Snicket's moral mirrors so often that we end up looking at multiple images, splintered and reassembled into scary chimeras of truth. The climactic sequence, absolutely thrilling in its breathless action, takes a while to register, but Violet, Klaus, and Sunny take action against the forces of evil in ways that are in themselves questionable, and there is one moment in the ultimate penultimate peril which is truly shocking. The children's acceptance of a kind of *Realpolitik* is disturbing, but then again, dear reader, have we not spent the previous eleven books wishing they would just kick butt? And now, finally, they have.

I say "finally" because it is my belief that this is the end. I know Mr. Daniel Handler, Snicket's spokesperson, has been quoted as saying the last book will come out in the fall of 2006, but I have reason to believe he's lying. He has always hinted there would be thirteen books in the series, and there are: twelve in the history of the Baudelaires, and the *Unauthorized Autobiography* which came between Books Eight and Nine. The location of this book, the Hotel Denouement, is an in-joke, of course; the denouement of a play always comes at the end. Technically, as Snicket points out, the denouement is not the very end, but also technically, the denouement is the untying of the knots of the plot, which signally does not occur in this book. "Unravelling" would be a more apt translation in this case. Snicket throws out enough hints and clues and observations to lead us to a gorgeously complex denouement-but he does not do it. I believe he has chosen to leave all the loose ends loose.

The title of the book, *Penultimate Peril*, suggests that there is one more volume to come, but this book reads like a finale. The ambiguity of the Beaudelaires' situation, of VFD, of Olaf and Snicket and all the rest, is reflected (!) in the ending, which at face value is just another cliffhanger, but which I believe is the final ending. Do we get answers? Do we get a happy ending? Do we get an *un*happy ending? No, no, and no. And that's Mr. Handler's joke.

A brilliant book. I shall be very disappointed if there is another. Unless of course he does tie up all the loose ends. Bastard.

A word that means, "Not one of Lemony Snicket's best offerings." Book 12 begins with the Baudelaire orphans being picked up by Kit Snicket, and taken to the Hotel Denouement. They are to infiltrate the hotel under-cover to learn the identities and the intentions of their enemies. While there, they will encounter almost every villian and ally(?) they have previously met, including (of course) Count Olaf. After the build-up from books 10 and 11 I was all prepared for some big event to take place at the hotel, and with the hotel filled with villians and allies(?) I thought for sure something was going to happen. Then the book ended, and I realized that very little had happened.

Now, it's not so much that I mind frustration or not having my questions answered (if you do mind that, you are reading the wrong series). But Book 12 didn't really feel like it belonged in the series at all. In previous books, the adult helpers were limited in usefulness because of personality flaws or because they were too attached to their own agendas to see what was going on. Kit Snicket, by contrast, gives them almost no information (thought it is implied that she could), and sends them on a difficult mission with no real guidance. It's like she is being deliberately unhelpful to them.

As for the children themselves, they don't really act like Violet, Klaus and Sunny. We are almost 300 pages into the book (literally) before Violet invents anything, Klaus quotes anything or Sunny bites anything. Instead of using their respective talents, the orphans spend most of the book standing around and observing the other characters. Thus we get seemingly endless pages describing "Sir's" haze of cigar smoke, Esme's comments about what is "in" and Carmelita calling people, "cakesniffers." Frankly, we've seen all of that.

When action does take place in the book it tends to come and go very quickly. Afterwards, there is more talk, making for a book that is very slowly paced in comparison to the others in the series. The ending, while exicting, is just bizarre, with the children, particularly Sunny, acting in ways that defy reason and prior characterization.

To be fair, the book has several humorous asides (a Lemony Snicket trademark) which kept my interest. Despite that, Book 12 gets my vote for being the most puzzling and least rewarding of the series to date.

I've read every book in this series so far and I was dismally disappointed with The Penultimate Peril. The story started out promising with the orphans finally meeting Kit Snicket, but it's all Very Fast Downhill from there. The Baudelaires are assigned jobs as concierges/flaneurs at the Hotel Denoument which is serving as a meeting place for Villains and Volunteers. Violet, Klaus and Sunny are "reunited" with an amazing cast of characters from the previous books (Esme, Jerome, Mr. Remora, Justice Strauss, Mr. Poe, Carmelita Spats, Count Olaf of course, and so on) and we meet a few new characters, but nothing really *happens* in this book.

Three chapters relay almost the same information (sometimes word-for-word) as they describe the same block of time from different character viewpoints. One chapter is labelled, "Not a Chapter" and another is "Also Not a Chapter." These little embellishments are well loved and expected in this series, but Snicket really lays the repetition on too thickly here. Halfway through the novel, I was still waiting for it to begin. It felt like I spent 7 chapters reading about how Frank might be Ernest or maybe Ernest was Frank.

I wanted more of the Quagmires and more about Sunny's chef abilities (boy she can really talk a lot now, huh?) and Violet's clever inventions. I also would have less Esme and MORE Olaf! He gets many of the funniest lines in the books, and at least I wasn't disappointed when the trial came about and Olaf had to defend himself.

As others have mentioned, we learn nothing in this tome about VFD or the Snickets. Everyone's still looking for the sugar bowl but we still don't know why. There's a lot of set up for the final book in the series, as the Baudelaires muse on what might have been, what will be, what they've become, if they'll ever see their friends again, and what tomorrow will bring. But thinking about things happening doesn't equal action and it doesn't drive the plot. This book is a Vexing Fruitless Disappointmnet.