Review of The Penultimate Peril (A Series of Unfortunate Events, Book 12),9780064410151

10 Second Interview: A Few Words with Daniel Handler

Q: Your Wikipedia (online encyclopedia) entry defines you as author, screenwriter, and accordionist. Is that how you would describe yourself?
A: I find that nothing makes people back away faster at a social gathering than "accordionist." Except perhaps "screenwriter." And, even "author" always makes people nervous, so I usually say "writer."

Q: How long have you been writing?
A: All my life really, since I was able to write all I wanted to do was write. I think largely I ended up becoming a writer because I could think of nothing else that I was good at--at all. As a kid, I always wanted to be a writer, and I had no backup plan whatsoever as an adult.

Q: Are the Baudelaire children ever going to be happy?
A: Well, they are happy on a regular basis, just not for very long. Um, are they ever going to be happy permanently? I don't know any permanently happy people, thank goodness.

Q: Okay, then is the series going to end on a happy note?
A: Well, I always remind readers of the Snicket books that happy is a comparative term, so the end will be happier than some people would think, but less happy than others.

Q: When can fans expect the final book?
A: I believe the thirteenth volume will be released in the fall of 2006, although something terrible could happen to the author at any moment and then the books would not be released at all.

Looking for more from Daniel Handler? Check out his answers to Amazon.com's The Significant Seven.

Amazon.com Exclusive: The Horrendous Heap

Experience Snicket in the worst way possible: from the very beginning. Here are twelve books contained in four boxes in one terrible shipment. The Horrendous Heap also contains four unfortunate gifts, more upsetting than an itchy sweater in an unflattering color, including:

*A full-color print of one of Brett Helquist's most worrying illustrations, suitable for framing or burying in the backyard.
*A door-hanger, designed to keep unfortunate events out of any room with a door.
*A full page of black-and-white stickers, fit for sticking wherever unfortunate events arise.
*An iron-on, which can render any piece of clothing a part of the uniform of a secret organization.

Please be warned. This offering is a great deal of misfortune. Lemony Snicket advises against the reading, framing, hanging, sticking, or wearing of unfortunate events. In fact, you might be better off ordering a less horrendous heap, if you prefer that sort of thing.

Make Your Own Misfortune Teller

Fans of the Lemony Snicket books can download and fold their own Misfortune Teller, by following these simple instructions. Once the Misfortune Teller is complete, all that is necesary is a willing victim, er, subject, and let the games begin!

An Interview with Lemony Snicket

Lemony Snicket has captured the hearts of childen and adults alike with the hilariously gloomy series that began, of course, with The Bad Beginning. Amazon.com had a chance to question the author of this marvelously morbid and delightfully depressing series, and the communication was grim indeed. Read the cumbersome communique and see for yourself.

Customer Reviews

Average Customer Rating:

Twists are coming together	Customer Rating:
Ah, now nice! Our favorite little orphans-of-tragedy get to hang out with some rich relatives in a snobby apartment building! Snicket introduces a nice new landscape, more mystery, and some developments that are very nice shockers. Not the best of the series, but nice-enough pacing and a [not-so]-pleasant story to keep up the action and plot.

Complete fluff

Customer Rating:

Tons of filler in this book.

Snicket brings back most of the characters for a courtroom showdown which means he takes every opportunity to use the following format:

"It's a bird!"
"It's a plane!"
"It's a hook!"
"It's a book!"
"It's a rail!"
"It's a tail!"
and on and on.

And also to spend whole paragraphs hashing over what everyone is doing, e.g.:

X was stumbling around and ran into Y who was hanging onto Z and they bumped into A who was still wearing the necklace she stole from B who was in the next room with C trying to blah blah blah...

Snicket can get more than an entire page worth of that stuff.

No good descriptions or plot developments, just list after list after list.

He does try to inject a subtext commenting on moral ambiguity but all that gets buried under the Snicket cliches of melodramatic crying kids (stop already!), wimpy adults who are too poorly written to be witty satires, idiotic evil villains and plot holes.

The kids are clever one moment and complete dolts the next.

Yup, by this point, I detest the characters and Snicket and this wretched story that never goes anywhere. The lit and linguistic winks don't even begin to compensate for the crappily crafted story.

I find it insulting how Snicket manipulates his readers. It seems like the kids tearing up and crying is directly proportional to the increasing crappiness of the stories. Since we're less sympathetic towards the kids because they a.) fail to learn from previous mistakes, b.) fail to seize opportunities, c.) repeatedly fail to use the brains they are reputed to have (for all the inventing skills, reading and life experience, you'd think they'd have a lick of common sense), Snicket makes them turn on the waterworks.

Disgusting.

I haven't had to skip this many paragraphs and pages since The Notebook.

Lemony Snicket's Penultimate Peril	Customer Rating:
My daughter loves the whole series. Hard to find book in our local community. Thanks~

The Penultimate Peril Review

Customer Rating:

The Penultimate Peril is one of the best books written by Lemony Snicket in the Series of Unfortunate Events. It is the second to last book in the Series of Unfortunate Events. The book starts up right where the last book left off. This book is the darkest of all, but it is still very funny and entertaining.

The book is very well written with great vocabulary. You see a lot of familiar faces that make you think of all the past incidents that the Baudelaires have faced. Three new characters are introduced, Frank, Ernest, and Dewey who are triplets. The Baudelaires can't tell which one is which. The Baudelaires have to decide who is evil and good, but that is their hardest task of all.

Although it is very long, 353 pages, you stay in the same place for the whole book. Lemony Snicket rambled on and on throughout the book that made me want to just skip to the next page and get on with the book.
The book kept me at the edge of my seat, which made me want to keep on reading. I can't wait to read the last book, and overall I would rate this book a 7 out of 10.

Exactly as described	Customer Rating:
This book came brand new, exactly as described. Well packaged and very quickly shipped.