A review by morningtide
The End by Lemony Snicket

adventurous dark mysterious tense medium-paced

4.0

The Baudelaire orphans looked at one another sadly, realizing it was time at last to tell Kit Snicket the whole story, as she had told them. “We’ll forgive your failures,” Violet said, “if you’ll forgive ours.”

Respectfully: Thanks, I hated it!

For every answer we finally receive, I think we come out with two more questions. And I completely get that - the world is too mysterious, we are never going to get all the answers. We are very clearly told, it is not the whole story, but it is enough. Under the circumstances, it is the best for which you can hope. The Baudelaires have survived this particular series of unfortunate events - it does not mean they live happily ever after or at all, necessarily. Sadly, surviving these events does not guarantee them a better life. Life's not fair, after all.

In the less obscure moments, the big themes are really hammered in. You cannot shelter someone completely without also causing them harm. Good people can do bad things, and bad people can do good things. Even if you love someone you can still hurt them, or fail them.

There were very many emotional moments and a lot of prose and imagery in this book that I loved, it would be obnoxious to include all my favorite quotes in this review, but the pretty moments did almost make up for the disappointment of never knowing all the answers.

... for a minute the four castaways did nothing but weep, letting their tears run down their faces and into the sea, which some have said is nothing but a library of all the tears in history.