The Hostile Hospital (A Series of Unfortunate Events #8)

by Lemony Snicket

Book Overview

NOW A NETFLIX ORIGINAL SERIESThe Baudelaires need a safe place to stay--somewhere far away from terrible villains and local police. A quiet refuge where misfortune never visits. Might Heimlich... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0064408663
• Release Date: January 2001
• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Length: 272 Pages
• Weight: 0.78 lbs.
• Dimensions: 7.0" x 1.0" x 5.0"

Customer Reviews

In this hospital, you could GET hurt!

A villain, three orphans, an evil plot and a hospital. Sounds like your everyday,happy-go-lucky,children-defeating-the-villain-and-live-happily-ever-after story, right? Wrong. In the lives of the Baudelaire orphans, it's the exact opposite. The main characters are: Violet,14, a marvelous inventor, Klaus,13, a reseacher and Sunny an infant who has just started walking and likes to bite. They have miserable exerience after miserable experience -- including being arrested and escaping from jail - and are now wanted as murderers. Wandering around, they find their way to Heimlich hospital. Somehow Count Olaf their former guardian and now tormentor finds them. Accompanied by his assistants and all of them in disguise. They're once again trying to get their hands on the Baudelaire fortune. Then the Baudelaires find a secret that might change their lives. They are about to grab the file on the fires wich killed their parents, destroyed their home and led them to this misfortune when Count Olaf's fashion-slave girlfriend and former guardian of the Baudelaires, Esme Squalor, captures Violet. Will Sunny and Klaus rescue Violet? The Hostile Hospital is a great book that leaves you hanging at the end of each chapter.The children are bold and adventurous characters.They allways think up solutions for thier problems. The book is extremely suspenseful and mysterious. You think that one character is good but she turns out evil; you think that the plan is one thing but you turn out wrong. The plot has all these twists and turns -- disguises,evil plots and all. It's a great book!

Lemony Snicket is a genius.

Okay I've read this series since the third book came out. Lemony Snicket's style has not once annoyed me, but the contrary. It may be the only reason I continue this series. Although the storyline a great and humor filling I believe this series would not have been as popular without Lemony's few quirks. He is still constantly explaining words (with outrageous definitions), and has the few odd add-on's (this time it was STOP, another 4 pages of black). But by far his most unique move has come now, in this book. If you read you will see that the characters are growing (Klaus had a birthday, Sunny can now speak fairly coherently). He is also pulling himself, as an author, into the story, a move I've never seen done before. This alone should catch people's attention, but the dark humor and exaggeration (on almost everything) makes these books into a classic series. The mysteries build, and the identity of Lemony Snicket (obviously that's not his real name) is ever coming closer to becoming revealed. Only if there could be more books like these.

The Hostile Hospital/ Series of Unfortunate Events.

In the eighth book of the Series of Unfortunate Events, what else can be expected but woe and mystery? Due to some extremely incorrect publishing in a newspaper, the whole world now believes that the Baudelaire orphans are dangerous murders. However, nothing could be further from the truth since Klaus, Violet and Sunny are no less murders than you or me. Taking refuge in a hospital, the orphans are forced to disguise them selves as V.F.D's (Volunteers Fighting Disease)! Of course, wherever the orphans go, Count Olaf follows and this time he has devised another disastrous scheme. As I thoroughly enjoyed all the other books in the Series of Unfortunate Events, I enjoyed this book just as much. All of Lemony Snicket's books seem to follow a certain format, orphans find a new home (and when Mr. Poe is there he hardly stays to say hello to the orphan's unfortunate guardian,) Count Olaf makes his stinking appearance, none of the adults can see through Count Olaf's stupid disguise and the Baudelaires are forced to get out of their dilemma on their own. I hear this book contains ' misleading newspaper headlines, unnecessary surgery, an intercom system, anaesthesia, heart-shaped balloons, and some very startling news about such things, ' as Mr. Snicket so kindly put it. As well as telling the woeful tale of the Baudelaire orphans, Lemony Snicket slowly is revealing his own life's tale. Such as how his dearly beloved Beatrice died, something horrible that still makes him cry at night about Count Olaf, and something I am dieing to know about, the mysterious Jacques Snicket who was killed in 'The Vile Village'. As well as the mysterious V.F.D, and whether the Baudelaire orphans will ever see the Quagmire triplets again! Perhaps the last book in the series will explain all these loose ends!I congratulate Lemony Snicket on producing such an intriguing tale when his when life is filled with misery. I recommend this book for all ages- anyone who would find it interesting!

Different, but in a good way

The Hostile Hospital was indeed very different from any other books in the series of unfortuate events. But that doesn't mean that it was bad. For example, Snicket's writing has dramatically changed and he shows it in this book. The beginning was great and really got you hooked. The Helmlich Hospital is very different, it is only half way finished! In this book, the Baudelaires work with Hal who is in charge of The Library of Records. In this book, the Baudelaires find out something very, very, VERY, exciting and important that is in one of the files that is about their parents! Another way this book is different from any other is that the reader really gets to know what the bad guys life is like. One more thing, Esme is back. The ending is what really blew me away. I would tell you what it is but I would really spoil it. Also, One of the Baudelaires is almost killed!! Who is it you will ask, but the only way to find out is to read the book. You never get a direct look at Count Olaf because he is not disguised as a person! Overall, this book will be a very good one to most of you that are reading my review but to me it didn't quite surpass my personal favorites which are The Reptile Room and The Vile Village. HAPPY READING!

The best Lemony Snicket book yet!

The Violet, Klaus, and Sunny Baudelaire saga continues in "The Hostile Hospital." After escaping from the town of V.F.D. in order to avoid being burnt at the stake, the siblings go to work at a hospital, where Count Olaf finds them almost immediately and plans to kill them. He is wrongfully believed dead by most, due to Olaf's horrid scheme involving Jacques Snicket and deception pointing to the Baudelaires. This eighth installment in the "Series of Unfortunate Events" is probably the very best of all. It reveals new, intriguing information about the fire at the Baudelaire mansion, and links to the siblings' past. Sunny, Violet, and Klaus encounter more danger in this book than in any other, and certainly the reader is gripped by the book. It is impossible to put it down until you have read the final page, which leaves the reader hanging, wanting nothing but to read Book 9, "The Carnivorous Carnival." This is a children's book, but I'm 17 and have read every single one of the Lemony Snicket books so far. I was into them even before they became so popular. They are wonderful books with a quality of "solve-it-yourself" combined with a sense of adventure and foreboding. It doesn't matter what your age is; you'll fall instantly in love with the three siblings and their friends, Isadora and Duncan Quagmire (lol at names!). One word of advice: if you haven't read any of the books yet, START AT THE BEGINNING. Otherwise, almost nothing will make sense, and the most interesting parts (like Beatrice) will be incomprehensible and impossible to piece together.