2006: #73 – The Penultimate Peril (Lemony Snicket)

Dear Reader,

If this is the first book you found while searching for a book to read next, then the first thing you should know is that this next-to-last book is what you should put down first. Sadly, this book presents the penultimate chronicle of the lives of the Baudelaire orphans, and the first thing you should know about this next-to-last book is that it is next-to-first in its supply of misery, despair, and unpleasantness.

Probably the next-to-last things you would like to read about are the first things you would encounter in this next-to-last book, including a harpoon gun, a rooftop sunbathing salon, two mysterious initials, three unidentified triplets, a notorious villain, an unsavory curry, and several people you might find distressingly familiar and familiarly distressing.

Next-to-last things are the first thing to be avoided, and so allow me to recommend that you put this next-to-last book down first, and find something else to read next at last, such as the next-to-last book in another chronicle, or a chronicle containing other next-to-last things, so that this next-to-last book does not become the next-to-last book you will read.

With all due respect,
Lemony Snicket