I'm going to review all four of the last books in this series in one review, since I read them all at one go due to the quick plot pacing, and now they've mushed together in my brain. These are wonderful! When I first started, this series, I was underwhelmed, but Snickett grows up his books like he grows up the Baudelaires. Unlike many coming-of-age stories, this one manages to avoid the trite and the untrue. Despite Snickett's fantastical style and plot twists, there is deep reality at the core of these books, which manage to show the world in all its nastiness and how difficult it is to be a "volunteer instead of a villain," and yet it conveys the desperate need for each of us to try. It also teaches voculary, is subtley hilarious if you already have a big one, and imparts a love of science, literature, poetry, and even good cooking. Highly recommended for all the young, and old, people in your life! ( )

In this, the next to last book in Lemony Snicket's "Series of Unfortunate Events" books, Violet, Klaus and Sunny Baudelaire are taken by Kit Snicket to the Hotel Denouement where they are to work as concierges and spy on the guests to find out who is a volunteer for the mysterious VFD and who is a villain. While there, they run into many friends and enemies they have encountered in the previous 11 books in the series. They are all there in anticipation of a meeting of all VFD volunteers which is to take place in the next few days. But, as always, things do not go smoothly for the Baudelaire orphans and they end up accidentally murdering someone, purposely setting the hotel on fire, and in the crutches of the evil Count Olaf.

Lemony Snicket fills this book with his trademark sense of humor, there are always 13 chapters, plenty of alliterative names, explanations of meanings of words, warnings that the reader shouldn't finish the book, and absurd situations (the roof top tanning scene is hilarious). The young Baudelaires are still far more intelligent than the adults are who never seem to recognize the children in their various disguises. Snicket gives a sly nod to critics who hated Olaf's laugh in "The Grim Grotto". While it's inevitable that the children grow up during the course of the books, the fact that Sunny speaks coherent sentences is a bit disappointing and takes away the fun of trying to decipher what she is saying.

I appreciate the humor of having 13 books in the series, but I can't help wonder if that was ultimately too ambitious for Snicket. "The Penultimate Peril" feels like filler at times, with two many questions left unanswered. Why is the sugar bowl so important? Where are the Quagmire triplets? What do the initials "VFD" stand for? Are the Baudelaire's truly orphans or is one of their parents still alive? Where the Baudelaire parents involved in wrongdoing? Can Snicket answer all these questions in the last book?

Finally, parents should be aware that there is a rather violent death toward the end of the book that is accidentally caused by the Baudelaire children. While this may open up an interesting discussion of what makes a person good or evil and can a person be both, the death may frighten young children. ( )

The Penultimate Peril lireP etamitluneP ehT
This is the next to last book chronicling the misadventures of the Baudelaire children. This time they spend their time hiding out in the tnemecnuoneD letoH as concierge. They are given the opportunity to spy on all manor of guests to try to piece together the clues to many mysteries.

This book I found to be a little irritating in really slamming the reader over the head with "No one is all good, nor is anyone all bad". It was pushing, pushing, pushing and I started to find it getting in the way of the rest of the story. For all that in wasn't bad and I still enjoyed the book and I can't wait to read the last installment, to see if any of the troubling questions are finally answered, such as "Why are Sunny's teeth so sharp?" or "Do the Quagmire Triplets ever eat peppermints?" and ?derorrim txet siht fo emos si yhW. ( )

If you're anything like me, you're terrified of elevators. You never know if somebody may have snipped the line, or replaced the counterweight with a large block of ice, or forgot to renew the certificate. A world of things could go wrong once you enter an elevator.

In case of fire, most elevators say, use stairs. Well, elevator's don't actually say this, as I would imagine it would require the elevator to open and closes its doors as if it were talking. Instead, such a sign is placed by the elevator call button, and below that text is a series of bumps, both used to communicate to the blind, and also to pass messages to other members of certain organizations.

There was an elevator, once, in the Hotel Denouement. I never used it. But the poor Baudelaire orphans did, as at one time, they were disguised as concierges for this hotel, and had to travel up and down in the elevator to meet the beck and calls of the hotel patrons.

The hotel was run by the Denouement brothers, Frank and Ernest, and if I may be frank and earnest, there was na noitidda erugif dedulla ot in the text. The hotel itself was designed to mimic a very large library, and, as such, used the Dewey Decimal system.

For example, if a guest were to know about secret MI-6 technology, he would be put in room 007. If he was a famous person with triscadecaphobia, he would go to 013. If he were Jean-Paul Satre, he may be put into room 104. For guests having statistics on Pangea, they'd be put in room 311. A guest being a performer of post-modern music would be put in room 789.

Something like that, in which it helps to know the Dewey Decimal system, and at times, it might even save your life, or at least give you a quick laugh

Things were not all fine and dandy in the hotel, however, as the Baudelaires encountered two thirds of their least favorite tribe. Namely, Esme and Carmelita. This lead them to realize that the hotel itself was filled with both volunteers and villains, and it would be hard to distinguish the two (as some villains would be posing as volunteers, and quite possibly vice versa), unless you paid good enough attention (villains tend not to use coasters, something I've discovered in my own travels as well).

The Baudelaires also discovered, at long last, who J.S. was, and J.S. intended fully well to help them escape the injustice of Olaf.

But it's a series of unfortunate events, and it's the penultimate book, so I leave the rest to your imagination, or, if your imagination isn't what it used to be, there's always the book, but it doesn't end well.

But what does, these days? ( )

Delightfully dark. Some of the questions raised in the series are answered and new questions posed. Something terrible happens and the Baudelaires end the story in the company of Count Olaf. ( )