I'm still mad

I'm still mad.

Why? That's the only possible way the book could have ended while still maintaining the spirit of the series and without resorting to asspulls. One of the most haunting and memorable endings in all of children's literature imo.

Refresh my memory. How does it end again?

With The Penultimate Peril. Almost every character from the books was in that hotel and fire could kill them all. When I read it in first time I was sure it will be the finale book, because premise sounded really... final.

Olaf and Kit die. The siblings stay on the island raising Kit's daughter and building a boat. We find out that they named Kit's daughter Beatrice after their own mother (thus finally revealing her identity). On the last page they sail away, and their fates are unknown.

It would be absolutely retarded to kill the Baudelaires off like that after a 12-book series focusing on their endless struggle to survive.

>read a book, part of a series mind you, with "penultimate" in the title
>expects it to be the final book
monolingualism kills

But what about on your dying day? Surely you won't be mad then.

Are you kidding? The ending was perfect: the state of the Baudelaires was unknown but slightly more optimistic than before; the book is still hilarious; and almost all loose plot threads were resolved.

>tfw instead of Olaf, the Baudelaires will now have to battle the ennui of white-collar work, worthless relationships that will never measure up to their first loves, and the pain of finding out that Mr. Poe was right all along

He literally begins the book explaining what penultimate means you moron

>and their fates are unknown.
Apparently there are some riddles that, when you solve them, reveal that the ship sunk and they all died.

What's it like being this stupid?

Yeah they either died or are stranded in a cave in the middle of the ocean if I remember from reading Beatrice Letters back in 5th grade

What? If this is true then fuck the author. The last book was such an excellent story about entering adulthood, it even did what Pullman tried to do with the biblical imagery and likening growing up to the expulsion from Eden, but did it so much better than Pullman. Killing them would make all of that pointless.

You're insane. The ending was perfect. I think these books are the only ones from childhood that hold the fuck up as an adult. I reread them about two years ago and I enjoyed them just as much as I did when I was a kid, which I can't really say about any other books from childhood.

>>read a book, part of a series mind you, with "penultimate" in the title
>>expects it to be the final book
I mean, yeah, but events of the book happen at the hotel Denouement. One might say it would be a perfect place to end the series.
Instead Boudlers go to some weird island with has almost none of the characters from previous books.

That's a retarded complaint. None of the books had characters from previous installments except for the main recurring ones. Penultimate Peril was the only one that did so, as a way of tying up minor loose ends to clear the stage for the conclusion to the Baudelaire/Olaf narrative.

I'm pretty sure that the book never says they died. Like, there are people who have gotten that by putting together clues but people put together clues incorrectly about ASOUE all the time

And this ending was incredible. I didn't like it when I first read it, but I was 9 so I didn't understand it. I reread the series when the netflix series got announced and was blown away by the ending and the last book as a whole. It ties up the themes of the series perfectly and the last chapter is perfect

>tfw daughter doesn't like ASOUE and says it's silly and boring
>tfw was looking forward so much to re-reading the books so I can discuss them with her

Didn't lemony finally get to meet his niece?

Not in ASOUE, no. Maybe in another book.

Speaking of which, anyone know if the other Lemony Snicket universe books are any good to get into as an adult? I'm curious about the lore.

none of them. ATWQ is targetted for basically the same demographic as ASOUE, maybe younger. The other books were meant to be read as the series was being published and are kind of boring now.

Daniel Handler's other books, or the ones I've read, are all good though.

>The book contains a notable continuity error, as the author states that he was unable to find any trace of the Baudelaires and therefore knows nothing of their fates. However, other earlier books by Lemony Snicket indicated that the Baudelaires did in fact reach the mainland, that Snicket is writing about them from some future date, and that all three orphans survived and are now adults.

There are also multiple references throughout the books to the children as adults, including a reference to Violet returning to Briny Beach a third time. Basically the Beatrice Letters riddle was just the author 'avin a bit of a giggle m8. The Beatrice Letters was released before The End, and it would be true to his overall style for the author to troll his readers by making them think the characters die in the next book.

The series was pretty cool too