Book Review: The End by Lemony Snicket

Title: The End
Author: Lemony Snicket
Series/Standalone: A Series of Unfortunate Events (Book #13)
Genre: Fiction, Young Adult, Fantasy, Mystery
Pages: 368
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Year Published: 2006
Format: Hardback Cover (Library Edition)
First Line: "If you have ever peeled an onion, then you know that the first thing papery layer reveals another thin, papery layer, and that layer reveals another, and another, and before you know it you have hundreds of layers all over the kitchen table and thousands of tears in your eyes, sorry that you ever started peeling in the first place and wishing that you had left the onion alone to wither away on the shelf of the pantry while you went on with your life, even if that meant never again enjoying the complicated and overwhelming taste of this strange and bitter vegetable."


"Dear Reader,
You are presumably looking at the back of this book, or the end of THE END. The end of THE END is the best place to begin THE END, because if you read THE END from the beginning of the beginning of THE END to the end of the end of THE END, you will arrive at the end of the end of your rope.
This book is the last in A Series of Unfortunate Events, and even if you braved the previous twelve volumes, you probably can't stand such unpleasantries as a fearsome storm, a suspicious beverage, a herd of wild sheep, an enormous bird cage, and a truly haunting secret about the Baudelaire parents.
It has been my solemn occupation to complete the history of the Baudelaire orphans, and at last I am finished. You likely have some other occupation, so if I were you I would drop this book at once, so the end does not finish you.

With all due respect,

Lemony Snicket"


My Rating: 5/5

I've finally done it. I've finished the series! I mean it's only taken me a year, but I did it. And now I can start the Netflix series. But first, I want to write my thoughts on this last volume. This series, overall I would say is a middle-grade series that has the very interesting narrative from a character who you never encounter in the series but has a connection to our main characters over time. I would warn you not to read this spoiler if you haven't read the other 12 volumes in this series, but then I would sound so much like our dear friend, Lemony Snicket. I think that this book does an interesting job of speaking about being morally grey and how it feels to be unsure if you are good or evil. It also holds a great mystery right until the end for readers of all ages. That being said, you must be able to keep up with some of the authors "rambling" some of which proves to be important to the story and other pieces which are written at length for no apparent reason. I, as a reviewer, can relate. 
This story was by far my favourite in the series so many things come to a conclusion while leaving a vague enough ending to leave a reader wonder about other things in the series. The characters in this series go through such a complex character growth that is realistic in the time given by the 13 volumes of the series.
 It is a series that I think a reread would give you a different insight into the story after completing the series totally. I hope to reread these in coming years (not anytime soon as 13 volumes are no small task when your TBR is hundreds of books long).

Thanks for reading,
Sidny