A nice companion novel with letters to do with Both Beatrice Baudelaires so it can be a bit confusing.
It's linked to the final book.
There's not really much else you can say about the 74-page book. ( )

Reading these strait after book 13 is recommended, unless you have a photographic memory. Letters are from Beatrice (Kit's Daughter) to lemony snicket. And from lemony snicket to Beatrice (Violet, Klaus, and Sunny's mother). The end. ( )

Top secret—only for readers deeply interested in the Baudelaire case. How I pity these readers.

With all due respect,
Lemony Snicket

Not super fun to read but its implications made me emotion ( )

I thought this book provided some interesting insight into both the older generations of characters and into what happened after The End. I have seen some people recommend this book to be read before the end, but I definitely wouldn't recommend that. It is written mysteriously enough that it probably wouldn't give away too much, but I still feel like any amount of spoilers is too many, so I am grateful that I saved it to read after.

This is silly, but I think my favorite thing about this book was that it confirmed in a straightforward way that Sir and Charles were a gay couple. I hadn't even considered that interpretation of their relationship when I was reading the Miserable Mill originally (which would be surprising if you knew me). I think because the book was set at the lumber mill rather than in a homier setting and because Sir acts the way he does, I just automatically assumed when they were described as partners that it meant business partners. It wasn't until the characters showed up together again at the Hotel Denouement that I started to realize that I may have misinterpreted their relationship, and with every new hint that they were romantic partners rather than business ones, I grew more excited. However, the reference to the couple in this book felt the most straightforward out of all of them, and I was happy that it was a definite.

My biggest complaint about this book, and the reason that I only gave it four stars, was the cut-out alphabetical letters placed in between the written letters. I could tell almost immediately upon starting the book that there would be an anagrammed message inside, but the cut-out letters threw me off. In reality, the anagrammed message is made from individual letters hidden throughout the various correspondence in the book. Each cut-out letter is just a copy of whatever letter was hidden clue-like in the accompanying piece of correspondence. However, because I'm too dumb to actually notice that the same letter was being provided in both locations, I thought that I was supposed to anagram the cut-out letters and the hidden clue letters both, meaning that I ended up with twice as many letters as I should have. Frustrated, I failed at doing the anagramming myself (for obvious reasons) and looked it up online to discover my mistake. This annoyed me because I would have felt much more accomplished if I would have had the opportunity to solve the mystery by myself, and because I really didn't see the purpose in including the cut-out letters at all. I think the book would have been much better off if readers had to find the letters hidden in the correspondence without the giant signs telling them what letters to choose (and thoroughly confusing me). ( )