The End is book the thirteen, and the last, in Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events. Ending in mystery A Series of Unfortunate Events ended with the Baudelaire heading in the great unknown, mentioned several times throughout the series, leaving the reader hanging, and open to interpret the ending for themselves. Like the first two books in the series, The End has it's own single formula to work to. The Bad Beginning had the Introduction, Crisis, get moved to a new guardian, Twist, Crisis, Solution kind of thing. As did every other book in the series, by book the fourth the repitition got kind of silly. So when I reached The End it was nice to see a change.

After destroying the Hotel Denouement in the Penultimate Peril, the Baudelaire orphans and Count Olaf have escaped to the seas, heading to an unknown destination. After an ubnexpected storm, they are swept to the shore of a mysterious, lone, island -- which has a community of white-robed people.
The Baudelaires successfully gain entry, Count Olaf however after announcing he is king of the island is denied to have anything to do with the island. The Baudelaires discover a rotten plot beneath the sands of the island, and of course an evil plot of Count Olaf's emerges too as he appears with the helmet of Medusoid Mycelium...

I'm tired of reviewing today so I'll see if I can be arsed to review it another time. Yeahh, good end to the series, still, doesn't tie up the loose ends... ( )

I think the plot was good, so it's a pity that it's ruined by the author's attempt at making the book 'educational'. It gives the books a very forced feel and sort of ruins it for me. For instance, often several pages are taken up just with a long and completely unnecessary explanation of a word, and how many times do you need to write the word 'never' in order to convey that it's not safe to mess around with electrical sockets? Surely not enough times to fill three pages.

People keep talking about the 'dark humour' in these books. I don't find it particularly dark at all, just irritating. The Grim Grotto was, I think, my favorite from the series. But just as I was starting to think the plot was getting nice and dark and actually captivating, along came the 'humerous overtone which takes the edge off the terrible things the children experience' (roughly quoted from another review). That's what I don't like about it - 'taking the edge off' disrupts the plot and stops me from really getting into the books.

so far I haven't found anyone else who has notice this aspect of the book, which I find strange because its so obvious, or if they have noticed they don't seem to be worried by it.

I probably sound pretty harsh, so don't get me wrong, I really enjoyed this series. It was entertaining, but I couldn't really get into it. ( )

Not quite the "whiz bang" ending you would expect, but it was satisfactory. Mainly because it's the end of one story, but not "THE END" of the Beaudelaires' story. There are still a few loose ends that don't get tied up and that's nice because life is like that.

I thoroughly enjoyed this series which I thought was petering out around Book the Fourth, but things turned around. ( )

I Loved This Series =D ( )

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! ( )

OK, this was the end of the Series of Unfortunate Events, obviously since the title is also "The End'. Truly, this book I felt, was vastly different than the preceding 12. Most of the books hid important social commentary behind a fun and cute miserable and tortuous story. Things like "the world is not Black & White" or "Take responsibility for your actions" or "Nobody is perfect" etc. In this book the symbolism was MUCH larger, with even darker questions that weren't actually asked in the book. As an example, there was an ancient 'Apple Tree' that was growing in a field of 'knowledge' on an island in the middle of 'paradise'. Not to mention that Violet was given an apple from this tree by a serpent. I suspect a large number of the target audience will miss these things but they are there just the same (including the reference to 'The Great Unknown") . There was quite a bit of stuff going on in the symbolism of this book and I don't want to post spoilers or write a dissertation (here meaning going on and on adnausium about what I think the author meant but didn't actually say). Many questions were answered about the series and many more were raised.

Overall I found this to be a satisfactory conclusion to the series but certainly not a great one. ( )

When Ulysses washed up on the shores of the Lotophagi, he probably felt very similar to how the Baudelaires felt when they washed up onto the shores of Olaf-Land.

It's not really called Olaf-Land, it's just that the island never had any better name, as far as I have been able to ascertain.

But, Lotus-Eater or Cordial-Drinker, the Baudelaires had finally found the end.

It's just when you start asking "the end of what?" does it get a little complicated. In mathematics, there is a type of numerical representation known as a line. By definition, a line has no starting point and no end point, and is essentially defined by any two points that happen to exist within it. There are things called rays, which may be the names of people you know, but in the context of mathematics pertains to "half" of a line. Since a line goes on to infinity, it's really quite pointless to call a ray half a line, but to put "half" into quotes, it starts to be allowable. A ray is a "line segment" that has only a starting point and no end point, or only an end point and no starting point. Nevertheless, it is defined by the point at which it terminates and any other point that lies along it. Then, there is a true line segment (notice the lack of quotes) that is defined as a part of a line that has a beginning and and end, and is defined by these two points.

When dealing with environments that have more than one dimension, we find that there are many different ways in which lines can interact. In a two-dimensions, we can have lines that are parallel (that is, the second line resembles the first line, only it's higher or lower or righter or lefter), and we can have lines that are perpendicular (that is, the lines make a right angle (which is the same angle of the corner of a square), and finally, we can have intersecting lines at non-right angles, either acute (thinner than a right angle) and oblique (wider than a right angle). When we move to three dimensions, we get lines that interact like they do in one and two dimensions, but we also have what are called "skew" lines, or skew lines. These lines are not parallel (and thus, cannot fall on the same plane), but never intersect. In special geometries, we can have things like parallel lines that intersect, but this is too advanced for some readers.

The point of the lines is that the Baudelaire's story can be represented as a line segment, and the events can be represented as a series of unfortunate points along that line. Line segments have beginnings, but they are parts of larger lines, which have no beginnings and no ends, and if they do begin, they probably begin before the beginning of the Baudelaires' line segments. But then there's a beginning that begins before that beginning.

And your life too is a line segment. Maybe it's running parallel to the Baudelaires', maybe it's running perpendicular, maybe it's going to intersect once, and then you'll be on your merry way while they're still suffering through the life they've been given. Maybe, even, your lines are skew, and they will never meet each other. Or your lines appear to be about to intersect, but then, you come upon your terminator, and are only able to see four tiny figures on the horizon before you drift off into that final slumber.

Or maybe there's some special geometry going on. But that topic's just a bit too advanced for some readers. These readers, instead, should try to find the end of The End before they find THE END. ( )

I'm not reviewing the books individually since they are so similar. In fact, I was becoming fatigued (a word here which means about to give up reading the books) and frustrated since all the books had similar plots and many loose ends. But I took a break from the series for a couple of years and then finished off books 12 - "The Penultimate Peril" and 13 - "The End." Coming back to them was like visiting an old friend, and I'm glad that I eventually finished the series. ( )

A perfect ending to this series of books, lots of things are explained but other things are left open-ended. But we finally discover just who Beatrice was. I am pleased that I perserved with this series. ( )

I enjoyed the entire series. Lots of word plays. I supose I had other hopes for the end but despite initial resistance, it was satisfying. ( )

i thought it was a good book that finishes the unfortunate series of the boudelaires ( )

By now, I was just tired of the series, but I stuck with it and finished it. ( )

This was an interesting end to the series. There are a lot of unanswered questions, but I don't think it would fit in with the rest of the series if everything was explained. While I can't say it was a completely happy ending for the Baudelaires, I think they've reached a happy medium. As a whole, I adored this series. It was intelligent and creative and unique and gloriously dark for something meant for 9-12 year olds. I can't wait to some day read it to my children. ( )

Not quite what I had hoped for. I was a bit disapointed. But he warned us...it was a series of unfortunate events. ( )

I liked this series a lot, and this was a pretty good ending, but a bit of a let down in that it didn't reveal nearly as much as I'd hoped. There's still so much I'm curious about, especially the damn question mark. There is just so much about VFD that I want to know and it's frustrating... ( )

I’m not sure whether I’m satisfied with the end of this tale…The End doesn’t really end. The questions it raises, whether anyone is ever either a Noble person or a Villainous one is a good one and worth some thought. ( )

Hands down the greatest book I've ever read!

This book is really good and has a lot of mystery and humor. It's what makes this book interesting and the author is really hilarious.

- Edgar R.

A Series of Unfortunate Events comes to an end not with a bang, but with a whimper. And that whimper is from me because this is a sad book, not in a manipulative way, or even due to suffering of the characters, but just all that is lost along the way in childhood and innocence. Daniel Handler manages to create a real emotional resonance in place of the expected and possibly easier revelation of the mysteries built up in the other books (which prove just to be a Macguffin). This series really changed a lot along the way and I think became something bigger and more beautiful and more sad than even the author expected. ( )

A very satisfactory ending to the series. I feel Mr. Snicket did a fine job addressing all of the questions he was raising with the series without actually answering most of them. ( )

In the fifth book of A Series of Unfortunate Events – (The Austere Academy) – Lemony Snicket began a mystery which, so far, has remained almost completely unexplained. In every single subsequent book, readers have been wildly hoping for some answers, only to be met with still more unanswered questions. By the time Snicket reached the thirteenth and final book in his series, so many loose ends remained that people with no interest in The End’s plot whatsoever were likely to buy the book just to get some answers. A note to those people: the answers are not here. Perhaps they are in The Beatrice Letters, (the parallel book that was released to accompany The End.)

Snicket has answered one or two questions about the Baudelaire parents, and their relation to V.F.D., but for the majority of the mysteries, at the conclusion of the saga, readers are left wondering. There will undoubtedly be thousands of disappointed and furious fans around the world . . . and yet, others will find the end of The End strangely satisfying. It seems to say that there are some mysteries in life that are best left alone, and some questions that will never be answered, but as long as the Baudelaires have each other, and are free from misfortune, then nothing else matters too much.

It is incredible that Lemony Snicket’s books are so readable and high-selling – he is a terrible narrator! Infuriatingly slow, he wanders off topic, begs readers to stop reading, and spoils nearly all the surprises. The distinctiveness of this approach to writing makes A Series of Unfortunate Events a unique opportunity to step outside the box that imprisons a lot of novels – and Snicket’s humour is well worth any inconvenience!

In addition to the usual morals about taking simple principles to stupid extremes, (such as fashion in The Ersatz Elevator,) readers can draw parallels between The End and the story of Adam and Eve. In the same way that Ishmael shields the simple inhabitants of his island from knowledge of the outside world, and is the sole person to eat from a very special apple tree in the middle of a vast arboretum, Adam and Eve were shielded from the knowledge of good and evil. These parallels are interesting to explore, especially as Snicket has brought back the Incredibly Deadly Viper to play the role of the serpent.

Intriguing and meaningful, The End is a well-balanced ending to a bestselling series, (once you get past the complete lack of answers!) An obvious must-read for Snicket fans. ( )

This has to be the MOST irritating book I have ever read. It starts off well, but the ending is so vague!
The Baudelaire triplets have been washed onto an island after a boat with them and Count Olaf on, got caught in a sea storm. They find out that the island's leader, Ischmael, has been lying to the people, and so find out even more, using a secret room. That is all I can bear to tell you, because it is that irritating. I tell you, if you would like to read this book, you will need the patience of a donkey, and more.
Good luck!
Date Reviewed: 11/04/08 ( )

I thought it was a perfect ending book for the A Series of Unfortunate Events series. It left a bit of mystery but didn't leave me feeling unfulfilled at the end. ( )

The last part of the unfortunate Baudelaire story. The End is an end whilst also being a beginning, satisfying in some aspects and frustratingly open-ended in others. Good enough for me not be be able to put down when I read it. ( )

Just like the rest of the series, no happy ending in sight. ( )