I read "The Beatrice Letters" twice - I read it before "The End" the last book in Lemony Snicket's Unfortunate Series of Events and I read it again after reading "The End". I enjoyed the word play in the book the first time I read it, especially in the letter where Snicket tell Beatrice how long he will love her. Snicket also has great fun with the word "letter" as in letters of the alphabet and letters you write, often mixing the two until the reader is thoroughly confused. There are tons of anagrams (some obvious and some not) as well as codes. Even the front cover has some hidden clues. There are supposedly thirteen clues in the book, I'm not sure that I found them all.

But "The Beatrice Letters" was much more enjoyable the second time I read it because I could see how cleverly Snicket hinted at events to come in "The End". I was initially puzzled by the seeming differences between the letters Lemony Snicket was writing to Beatrice and the letters Beatrice was writing to Snicket - which was explained in "The End". Other things that are casually mentioned in "The Beatrice Letters", such as a ring, turn up in "The End". Finally, the back cover itself is a direct, humorous reference to the last book.

Fans of Lemony Snicket don't have to read "The Beatrice Letters" to enjoy the Unfortunate Series, but it's a nice addition. There are hints as to what happened to the Baudelaires later in life, but there are also plenty of mysteries created and unsolved; a Lettergram in the book is especially intriguing. I can't help wondering if we have indeed heard the last from Snicket about the Baudelaires.