A Series of Unfortunate Events: The Hostile Hosptial

Book the eighth in Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events, The Hostile Hospital is the book where the previous structure of the series ends and the books begin to really properly lead on to the next, with each ending on a cliffhanger. 

The Baudelaire orphans are now on their own. Thanks to Count Olaf’s recent act of treachery, the world believes the children to be murderers and they begin the next chapter in their unfortunate adventure by running through a vast and empty landscape, with no shelter in sight. Managing to hitch a ride with a group of Volunteers Fighting Disease, the children soon find themselves working in a hospital, filing away paperwork. Whilst there, the children make a great discovery: there is a file about them that also holds the answer to the mystery of V.F.D and the fire that destroyed their home. Unfortunately, the file is incomplete, with most of it being taken by authorities for investigation and, to add insult to injury, Olaf appears at the hospital after the same said file and armed with a new and incredibly nasty plan to steal the Baudelaire fortune. 

The books are getting bigger, longer, and much more exciting now. The series is really heating up. The Hostile Hospital sees the basic structure of the previous books: the children going to a new guardian and Olaf appearing with a nasty plan to steal the fortune and cause general grief, completely thrown to the winds and now the series becomes a race: the Baudelaires must get their hands on the Snicket File before Count Olaf does. 

It has to be said with this book, that the stories are ceasing to be young adult easy-reads and becoming a little more mature and macabre. Olaf’s treacherous plans are getting grimmer and more violent and a real sense of danger is now very apparent in the books so they are really ceasing to be “children’s fare”. 

Filled with action, disguises, trickery, arson, alphabet soup, and suspense, The Hostile Hospital is the eighth instalment in the series and it’s the book where, although they are getting bigger, you’ll just start powering through.