Customer Reviews

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

5 star:		(130)
4 star:		(41)
3 star:		(11)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

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!

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.

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.

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!

Whar else can come from the eight book of The A Series of Unfortunate Events then horrible situations for the Baudalaires? As we all know by now in the 7th book "The Vile Village the Baudalaires are accused falsely of the murder of Jacques Snicket. As their woeful lives continue the orphans join V.F.D(Voluteers Fighting Disease) at the Hemilich Hospital. There they are sent to the Library of Records to work. As we all know by now where the orphans go Count Olaf follows. This time however he can't be seen as the oprhans only know he is the head of the hospital. Just when they discover extrodainary evidence in the Library of Records on themselves Esme Squalor(now the girlfriend of Count Olaf) comes and captures Violet. It seems Count Olaf is going to do some very uneccessay surgery on poor helpless Voilet. Can Klaus and Sunny foil his plans once again?

Through this book Lemony Snickey worked his magic again with his dry humor! I was also excited because he is revealing more and more on the circumstances of Beatrice's death and it seems very related to Esme Squalor. So many question are lurking that I can't wait for #9 the Carnivourous Carnival!!

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!

Lemony Snicket, The Hostile Hospital (Scholastic, 2001)

The Baudelaire orphans continue their adventures, and Lemony Snicket finally abandons, for good, the episodic nature of the early part of the series, in The Hostile Hospital. There's not really much to say about the eighth book in a series, as far as talking about the plot, the characters, and all that other good stuff; if you've made it this far, you know all that (unless you're my daughter, who for some odd reason decided to start with book ten and work her way backward). In this case, however, what's worth talking about is the book itself. Mr. Snicket has taken a rather drear turn over the past couple of books in the series. The tone has gotten considerably darker, and while there are still a number of laugh-out-loud-funny scenes, and the inevitable definitions, things have gotten very grim indeed. The episodic nature of the books ha gone away, as I mentioned before, at the same time, and Sunny's learning to speak, while it's becoming obvious that Mr. Snicket and his beloved Beatrice play much more than an observer's role in things. Are all these facts related? You won't be able to tell by the end of The Hostile Hospital, but I guarantee you, if you're already a fan of the series, you'll be opening the cover of book nine (or putting it on hold) within minutes of finishing this one. Pity the poor souls who read it the second it came out, and found it necessary to wait for the publication of the ninth book. *** ½

Those poor children, nothing ever goes right for them. Expecting some fortuitous event (a word which here means lucky) to happen to them would be a miracle in itself, and you would be bound to be exceptionally disappointed.
This is because their lives are the perfect opposites of the perfect children we so often read about in literature (a word which here means books), other children may have happy endings, but not OUR children, oh no, the Baudelaire siblings are doomed to endless worry, woe and misery. Kids laugh at it, adults get the jokes and it's just an awful lot of fun to read about people whose problems are far worse than your own. Yeah, the bills are due, rent, etc, but at least I don't have Count Olaf after me.....

In the eighth book in the series "A Series of Unfortunate Events", we not only get to be miserable with the Baudelaire orphans, we also get to be afraid. "The Hostile Hospital" picks up where "The Vile Village" left off. The children are walking away from the village of V.F.D., trying to figure out what to do now that they are on the run from the law.

The children come to a general store in the middle of nowhere, which fortunately contains a telegraph. They try to contact Mr. Poe to tell him they did not commit the crime of which they are accused. Unfortunately, the children do not hear back from Mr. Poe before the person that delivers the newspaper arrives and shows the store owner a picture of the children in the newspaper. After a chase through the store the children escape from the store into a van containing the most bizarre collection of hospital volunteers that you have ever seen.

The children realize they need to do some research to see if they can find more information about their family, and a man who was murdered in the village of V.F.D. By a strange coincidence, the hospital has a huge records department in the basement containing hundreds of file cabinets of information from all over the county. By another strange coincidence the children are able to volunteer to work in this facility.

As you can imagine, the children have to live somewhere, and they would rather not have to drive back and forth in the van lest someone recognize them. Further, where would they go anyway? So the children live in the unfinished half of Heimlich Hospital, using a canvas cover for a blanket and to keep warm.

The children's search through the records is disturbed by the arrival of, yes, you guessed it, Count Olaf. This time we see very little of Count Olaf, and instead see another character the reader will know from a previous story (I'm not telling!). During a chase through the records room one of the Baudelaire orphans is captured, and Count Olaf and his gang of criminals plan to do an operation on the captured orphan that is planned to turn fatal.

As we reach the end of the story the Baudelaire orphans escape Count Olaf once again, as much as they ever escape. However, this time their escape is more precarious than any previous escape, and we are left to wait for "The Carnivorous Carnival" to see how it all turns out.

There is another strong educational message in this book, presented with only a little subtlety. In order to learn more about their parents and the Baudelaire family the children must try to find the information in the records room. Their author provides the details of the children's search as they fruitlessly look through file after file. As always the author explains some of the words he uses in the book.

This book has managed to top the previous books in this series. The excitement is much greater and the story is faster paced. While the ending of the story can be truly frightening for younger audiences, the children do escape. I recommend this book for at least a 9-year-old child. However, as always, you need to judge the ability of your child to read these books. I am in the process of reading "The Carnivorous Carnival," and can hardly wait to see how this series of books will end. Five stars for another excellent entry in this series.

Have a heart shaped balloon. I really enjoyed this book (especially the audio version read by Tim Curry) and it's portrayal of the empowered, though utterly unfortunate, Baudelaires. The search for the elusive VFD continues and though the Volunteers Fighting Disease don't seem to have the answer, there is a clue at the end that gives a bit of hope to the Baudelaires. This one is one of my favorites in the series.