The Penultimate Peril: Complete & Unabridged (Series of Unfortunate Events)

click here for more details, find new or used items	Lemony Snicket Our price £8.56 (£12.98) New from £5.50 Used from £6.80 Pages: (Audio Cassette) ISBN: 0007174632 Pub: Collins Audio Pub date: 2005-11-07 Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 210829

Reader Reviews:

As good as ever (0/3 people found this helpful)

Good book.I've read every single book that Lemony Snicket has ever written.This one was just as good as all the rest.He's one of my favourite authors.Is it true that his real name is Daniel Handler? My friend told me it is.But i don't know if i should believe her.Please tell me.Thanks!

Penultimate Peril (4/11 people found this helpful)

When I was little my sister read them and I really wanted to read them, but I didn't understand them. So, now I got the chance to read them all - except from the last one. I thought the first and the second one were a bit sad and from the fourth right up to the seventh book it was a bit boring, because Mr Poe kept on rescuing them at the end of the book. I especially liked the Hostile Hospital and the Penultimate Peril. The most thrilling part was in the Hostile Hospital, when Count Olaf wanted to saw off Violet's head!

Lovely lovely (5/11 people found this helpful)

I thought this book was a return to form - and have never skipped a page in my life! The beauty of these books isn't the story, it's the prose.

The Penultimate Peril (2/15 people found this helpful)

I found this book really disappointing as I was really looking forward to it. I've read all the other books in the series and I was bored and constantly skipping ahead. I read it in an hour because of all the pages I was forced to skip. The Ophans did things really out of character which I hated and I was disgusted by the dreadful ending.

A great book of non-fiction from Lemony Snicket (0/1 people found this helpful)

First, a brief, a word which here means "small and rushed", summary of the story. The enigmatic Kit Snicket has just picked the Baudelaires up from Briny Beach, sending memories through the three Baudelaires minds as they pass events from Books 1 and 16 (both of which take place in the city in which the Baudelaires used to live), and takes them to the Hotel Denouement, where she tells them to be concierges/flanneurs, over brunch. As the trio agree to do thus, Kit leaves them to work under both her husband Frank and his identical twin, Ernest. The three split up, and find many of the recurring characters (including two old faces who are two more JS's, possibly posing as the recently murdered Jacques Snicket), in their spy work.

The "Penultimate Peril" is a long story, indeed, and took me most of the afternoon to listen to, with breaks, but it was worth it. I have been reading the story of the Baudelaires for ages, and keep reading, even if the story does get repetitive (such as the Baudelaires constantly thinking "Are we no better than Olaf?" True, the story is in fact spun within the width of a couple of days, heading towards the meeting on Thursday, but after a while, hearing them ask themselves whether they're doing the right thing, and whether they're any better than their foe by doing villainous things gets monotonous, a word here meaning "Boring and tiresome"), so I may find out what happens in the end.

For instance, I keep reading, to find out the underlying story of Lemony, Kit, Beatrice, Esme Squallor, the city's sixth most important financial advisor, Count Olaf, the Baudelaire parents and the ever-growing-in-importance sugar bowl. The words "underlying story" here mean "a story that could have been told at many times now, but is obviously being kept until the last book".

Now, onto the proper review. I found the CD to have quite a few extra pieces, including the usual strings of music, linking the ends of the discs, and a rather disturbing piece at the end, of music played by someone who can only be Vice Principal Nero, himself. The tune of "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star" has never been perturbing before, but that was before the horrible Vice Principal got his violin strings on it.

However, there was one thing I noticed about the last few audiobooks of the Baudelaire children. The opening pieces of music are rarely fun to listen to any more (I long to hear songs like "The Bad Beginning"'s song about Count Olaf and his acting troupe, or "The Wide Window"'s list of everything that can be scary in the world, once again), and the "To Beatrice" part seems to be MIA, a term which means "Could be missing from the latest books too, but is unknown, since the listener has not read the books in a long time". Instead, there is horrible music that is interspersed with copyright details.

However, the audiobook isn't all that bad. The story is definitely good, and has a new angle to it (the idea of the story being split into three parts, to follow each of the Baudelaires on their concierge duties is very fun, and can even be used interactively, by skipping to each part whenever you want, a la tracking on a CD).

The tracks, originally around 3-4 minutes long, are now around a quarter of an hour, unless it is a stand alone piece (for instance, the explanation of the three part interlude).

I have been a big fan of Lemony Snicket for some time, and have been very pleased with his style of storytelling, where he involves himself into the story, by adding his siblings Kit and Jacques into the fray, but I am somewhat annoyed that a lot of secrets are just being added instead of explained. I mean, I am surely not the only one who has wanted Book 12 to have at least an explanation of the original VFD's initials (I'm sure it's Voluntary Fire Defence, or something, but I cannot be counted on with that one), and as I have said, I have wanted the Beatrice-Snicket-Olaf-Squallor-Baudelaire-Sugar-Bowl story to be shelled out some more. However, that doesn't stop the story from being good. It just means we have to wait further for Book 13 to come out.

Like I said, the CD has good bits to it, like the ending of the CD with a horrifying piece of music from Nero, but there are downsides to it. For instance, the lack of interesting title themes, like the old days, and a lack of the "To Beatrice". Also, the new "Lemony Snicket" is not a fond person to listen to. I prefer the voice of the original Lemony Snicket. He has the melancholy tone that can only be expressed by him. The new person sounds like he's being paid dearly to just read the "Dear Reader" and "To my kind editor" pieces. All in all, though, another good turn out from Snicket's bleak but enjoyable mind.

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