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    Series of Unfortunate Events #12: The Penultimate Peril
    Series of Unfortunate Events #12: The Penultimate Peril
    Series of Unfortunate Events #12: The Penultimate Peril
    Audiobook6 hours

    Series of Unfortunate Events #12: The Penultimate Peril

    Written by Lemony Snicket

    Narrated by Tim Curry

    4/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    NOW A NETFLIX ORIGINAL SERIES

    Lemony Snicket returns with the last book before the last book of his bestselling A Series of Unfortunate Events. Scream and run away before the secrets of the series are revealed!

    Very little is known about Lemony Snicket and A Series of Unfortunate Events. What we do know is contained in the following brief list:

    • The books have inexplicably sold millions and millions of copies worldwide
    • People in more than 40 countries are consumed by consuming Snicket
    • The movie was as sad as the books, if not more so
    • Like unrefrigerated butter and fungus, the popularity of these books keeps spreading

    Even less is known about book the twelfth in this alarming phenomenon. What we do know is contained in the following brief list:

    • In this book, things only get worse
    • Count Olaf is still evil
    • The Baudelaire orphans do not win a contest
    • The title begins with the word ‘The’

    Sometimes, ignorance is bliss.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins
    Release dateOct 18, 2005
    ISBN9780060796853
    Series of Unfortunate Events #12: The Penultimate Peril
    Author

    Lemony Snicket

    Lemony Snicket was born in a small town where the inhabitants were suspicious and prone to riot. He now lives in the city. During his spare time he gathers evidence and is considered something of an expert by leading authorities.

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    Reviews for Series of Unfortunate Events #12

    4/5

    1,542 ratings49 reviews

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    • 3/5
      ?? it’s ok what’s ur opinion soo 2 words left
    • 5/5
      What makes this book so great is that it is awesome and also mistry which. I love and good music at the end
    • 4/5
      In this installment of the Baudelaire's saga, the three children obtain jobs at the curious Hotel Denouement. The plan is to use their position as hotel concierges to observe the comings and goings of the hotel's guests. Hopefully, their observations will teach them who are the criminals and who are the volunteers.
    • 4/5
      I enjoyed this, maybe even more than the final book. I live for big reveals, and The End really let me down in that regard, but here I was still hoping all these pieces of the puzzle come together and give us the whole picture.
    • 3/5
      We've gotten to the meat of the action now! All of the good guys, bad guys, and of course, the Baudelaire orphans descend upon the Hotel Denoument. A sugar bowl (containing what?) is expected to arrive there at any moment, and everyone wants to be ready to grab it for themselves. The Baudelaires are enlisted to help VFD get the bowl, but their attempts to help are complicated by every possible conundrum and coincidence.

      The complications and puzzles are perhaps a little *too* complicated and puzzling, and Snicket's repetitive style is particularly frustrating in this book, when so much action is going on and there are so few pages left to explain all the mysteries. Nevertheless, the book is a fun, slightly tense, read.
    • 5/5
      I admit, as this series has gone on, I’ve gotten increasingly nervous. I was burned badly by the XF, and I’ve wondered how on Earth Snicket plans to resolve all his conspiracy plots. I still don’t know, but I’m hopeful. In this volume – possibly the next to last, though it’s never smart to rely on what series writers tell you midseries; it’s the writerly equivalent of “I’ll pull out, I promiseâ€? – some mysteries are cleared up, while others merely accumulate more clues. The setting is a hotel whose rooms are labeled and organized according to the Dewey Decimal System (there is really a hotel like this, though it got sued for trademark infringement), which is both quirky and disconcerting. Sunny continues to develop, though her speech remains limited. All three Baudelaires confront the trouble with conspiracy – how do you know you’re on the right side? – and struggle with their complicity in evil deeds, even if only by accident. There’s a surprising amount of power lurking in the storytelling here, from the ways in which the Baudelaires are brought to question their own goodness to the ominous mention of fire early on in the volume. I can’t wait to see what happens next.
    • 5/5
      This is my third time reading this series and it gets better each time.
    • 3/5
      Book number 12 of A Series of Unfortunate Events is full of comedy, action, and more of the unfortunate events of the Baudelaires. Having not read the series since I was, the book still holds its intrigue with Snicket’s writing making it easy to transport the reader into the world of the Baudelaires and Count Olaf; while in this book showing how good and bad sometimes are one in the same and that intention is the biggest factor. All wrapped up with an ending that leaves that reader wanting to know what happens next as each book prior has.
    • 5/5
      This one is intense.
    • 4/5
      For a series that began so well, this book apparently didn't live up to expectations as I ranked it rather lower than previous titles. However, from this many years distance from my reading of the book, I can no longer recall what my particular quibbles with this title were.
    • 3/5
      Ohh the poor Baudelaires. I'm glad it is almost the end.
    • 4/5
      I liked this book, but it for sure wasn't my favorite in the series. Now I'm just wondering how the entire series ends! I would recommend this book though. 4 out of 5 stars. Good story line and character development.
    • 4/5
      As is fitting for the wrapping up of a story, all of the still living characters from the series show up at the Hotel Denouement. Despite the best intentions of the "good" adults, the children are still unprotected and furthermore are still struggling with the question of whether they have become as wicked as Count Olaf.
    • 4/5
      The closer I got t o the end of this series the more nervous I became. Especially with some of the revelations in this book. The gloom and doom factor is really high in the part of the series. It follows the same basic plot as the rest of the books, they find someone they can trust, that trust is broken through some devious means by Count Olaf and the orphans are in worse shape than before. Although this time is brings back characters from the other volumes and sort out the best of the best and worst of the worst.
    • 4/5
      The Baudelaire orphans have made their way to the Hotel Denouement, supposedly the 'last safe place.' However, the effects of the schism in VFD are apparent, and it's impossible to tell who might be on the orphans' side - and who's a villain (especially when identical twins are involved).
      As events play out in unexpected way, the orphans may not even be sure if they themselves are villains or not...

      The book features the same witty wordplay and arch humor as the previous installments, but introduces a bit of complexity and ambiguity which really adds to the book (very welcome, since there was beginning to be a bit of repetitiveness to the formula...)
    • 4/5
      A good book. The Baudelaires get a lot of their questions answered, but now they have more. The story is becoming more about them and their personalities and internal struggles, which I really like. It does so without become pretentious, perhaps because the rest of the world is so ridiculous.It's a very good almost-last book. Everything comes together. Sort of.
    • 4/5
      The series of unfortunate events is nearly at its end. As the title clearly indicates, this is the penultimate book in the records covering the lives of the Baudelaire children. After narrowly surviving their underwater ordeal in the last book, they were whisked away by Kit Snicket, the mysterious person awaiting them after they decoded the message with a secret meeting spot. This book picks up right at the moment the last one left off, as Kit drives the Baudelaires to an impromptu picnic outside the fashionable Hotel Denouement, a delicious spread set out by an anonymous volunteer that appears as if by magic in front of the tired and hungry children. Kit informs the Baudelaires that they must infiltrate the hotel before them, in the disguise of concierges, to determine whether it is still a safe place. The next meeting of the VFD is scheduled to occur in just three days, in this last safe place, but they suspect it is safe no longer. The Baudelaire's mission is to spy on the volunteers and villains, determine if the hotel is still safe, and send up a signal if they deem the hotel too big a risk.Kit speaks in riddles and mysteries, as do all the adults connected with the VFD, and the children are still bewildered by the variety of strange occurrences surrounding them. One answer is always obtained at the expense of several more mysteries. However, of one thing they are certain, and that is that they must help the noble VFD to stop villainous persons like Count Olaf. They agree to their task. Their new adventure is replete with outrageous and hilarious characters, verbal sparring, ludicrous analogies and metaphors, mistaken identity and an abundance of disguises; all trademarks of the series. Violet, Klaus, and Sunny are dispatched to different floors of the hotel on their first day of work, where they observe nefarious plots all underway. Violet is unfortunate enough to meet Esme Squalor and Carmelita Spats, who don't recognize her in the concierge uniform, and request a harpoon. Klaus meets Sir and Charles from the Lucky Smells Lumbermill, and Sunny overhears a conversation with criminal overtones shared by their old principal and teachers from the Prufrock Prepatory School. Much is stirring at the hotel, but the siblings can't fit all the clues together. When they meet the third Denoument, a secret triplet that knows where the real secret of Hotel Denouement is kept, they are reunited with two people from their past, Justice Strauss and Jerome Squalor, and
    • 4/5
      The next-to-last book in the series: A Series of Unfortunate Events!! Almost there... In this book the Baudelaires are taken to the Hotel Denouement in which many characters, both good and evil, from the previous 11 books make an appearance. Something is going to happen at this hotel, which is actually a kind of library (based on the Dewey Decimal system) of everything and everyone involved with the VFD and the Baudelaires. The children ponder whether or not they have acted for good or for evil. Whether their parents have been entirely good? What makes an action good or bad? Could Count Olaf actually be related to them? What is going on?! Just one more book left. Please let it be resolved!!!
    • 4/5
      I love how it revisits all the old characters (the ones who survived) and gives us some real VFD information, its finally coming together a little.
    • 3/5
      My feelings about this second-to-last book in A Series of Unfortunate Events are divided. On one hand, it is an impressive tying together of the series, a wonderful penultimate journey through the previous eleven books. On the other, it is unsettling, a fatalistic blow that buries the most redeeming aspects of the series beneath a darkness with implications I shudder to think about.First, the good. The Penultimate Peril brings together many familiar characters and places them in a situation that is entertaining and appropriate. Those reading the story aloud will have to strain to remember the voices of so many characters throughout the series and keep them straight (not an easy task, but I was up for the challenge). The drama, action, and humor are all turned to full for this chapter in the Baudelaire story. It's a good mix, and certainly a wonderful addition.But the decisions made by our “heroes,” well, they seem out of character, though there was some indication of it in the previous volume. This sudden change in approach, this resignation to despair and acceptance of fate is very fatalistic. I understand—and have liked—Snicket's growing maturity throughout the series, forcing bigger words and larger questions as the book number increased, but this may be going to far. Not only does it all seem forced, but the reactions themselves are rather insipid. Perhaps this is merely an indication of what is to come in the final book—maybe this change is purely a plot device for the final chapter—but in the meantime, the only heroes a child can have in this series have been dashed against the cliffs of a pessimistic philosophy. As the Baudelaires would say in this chapter of their lives, eventually they'd only have failed you anyway.Though a series of unfortunate events, A Series of Unfortunate Events has always shown some glimmer of hope, if in no other way than in the hearts of the Baudelaires. Now, looking out at the coming horizon, it looks quite bleak. I guess Snicket said all along it wouldn't be a happy ending, but I didn't expect the darkness to infect everything. Here's to hoping Snicket left a ray of light in The End.A Series of Unfortunate Events:The Bad Beginning – 3.1The Reptile Room – 3.2The Wide Window – 3.6The Miserable Mill – 3.3 The Austere Academy – 3.4The Ersatz Elevator – 3.3The Vile Village – 3.1The Hostile Hospital – 3.4The Carnivorous Carnival – 3.9The Slippery Slope – 3.6The Grim Grotto – 3.9The Penultimate Peril – 3.4
    • 3/5
      I started this book awhile ago - and then didn't get past the picnic. So I tried again, and was able to get through it pretty fast. It's definitely interesting how the author explores both sides of morality, and how someone (or some people) can dabble on both. But it does start getting a little rushed, there are some characters that just appear and then disappear without us knowing them.
    • 4/5
      As the title says, the 2nd to last book. This book does a good job of bringing in characters and events from the past 11 books, and the poor Baudelaire orphans are forced to do some things they dislike in their attempt to foil Count Olaf and survive.
    • 3/5
      It is getting hard for me to separate my feelings about the entire series from the individual books. I've found the series, which started out strong and fun, to be overlong and formulaic. "The Penultimate Peril" the 12th book, is at least original so it gains points for straying away from the formula. However, it kind of felt like a place filler. Other than gathering everyone together for a little nod at the characters and situations the Baudelaire children have encountered along the way, it didn't really feel like it moved the plot along. The good/bad angle really was overdone.
    • 4/5
      So confusing and fun. This entire book like was like a carnival funhouse where things keep going topsy-turvy and throwing you off.
    • 4/5
      This book is probably my favourite of the series; it is dark and very eerie. It would make a fantastic Tim Burton film. The ending is a bit disappointing and the good/bad moral question is rammed home a bit too vehemently, but on the whole, it is a very good book.
    • 5/5
      This book was absolutely amazing! How amazing is it? There are so many twist and turns, unexpected information, and tragedy that end up making the book simply unbelievable.
    • 4/5
      ** There are no spoilers of Book 12, but this review assumes you’ve read the first 11 books in the series.The word Penultimate is defined as “The second to last in a series or sequence.” What a fantastic word to use in the title of this, the second to last book in the Series of Unfortunate Events. Kit Snicket (fictional author, Lemony’s sister) takes the Baudelaire orphans, Sunny, Violet and Klaus, to the Hotel Denouement, where the mysterious VFD will be meeting in a few days. The siblings must disguise themselves as concierges to find out more information about the society. Along the way they run into almost every villain or friend they have met along the way in the first 11 books, though the Quagmire triplets were no where to be seen. The hotel is cleverly organized by using the Dewey Decimal system, which I loved. The series is finally coming together and we are able to see what role the characters have played in the wider saga. Everyone has to pick their final side, good or evil, and a few decisions are surprising.I am desperately hoping that Snicket can pull off an ending that makes the whole series worth while. I’m sure my expectations are pretty high at this point, but when you leave so many questions unanswered for 12 books, your readers are going to expect you to explain everything I the final book. I know that I’ll be really disappointed if things are left open-ended. Fingers crossed.
    • 4/5
      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!
    • 4/5
      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.
    • 4/5
      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.