The Host: A Novel by Stephenie Meyer
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Book Reviews of The Host: A Novel
Book Review: Stephenie Meyer has taken her writing up a few levels with this book
Summary: 5 Stars
I highly recommend this book! No matter how you feel about the Twilight-saga - read The Host! I might add that this book has nothing to do with the Twilight vampires. Okay, I'm going to say this out loud: I personally think this book is much better than the Twilight-saga.
The Host is a book in the science-fiction genre, the first sci-fi book I have ever read or to be more precise listened to(the audiobook is read by Kate Reading). I didn't think that sci-fi was a book genre I would enjoy but I was badly mistaken in my presumption. If you don't enjoy the genre don't let that stop you, if you do then you're going to miss a great book.
The Host is an adventure of a story as well as a story about important things like learning to accept others for who they are, compassion, love and the feeling of being alone and finding you're place in the universe.
The "souls" in The Host isn't like small green men, no they are tiny beautiful silver creatures. The "souls" are parasites and they are living inside other creatures. They have taken over the earth, the humans didn't desreve a great planet like the eart. Humans only ruined it and were violent and evil towards each other.
When the human, Melanie, is being captured she is in Chicago looking for her cousin, Sharon, who she thinks might still be human. When Melanie understands that the "souls" have found her she throws herself into an elevator shaft hoping to die instead of having her body taken over by a "soul". If her body is taken she fears that her mind will reveal the place where her little brother, Jamie, and her boyfriend, Jared, are hiding. Melanie dosen't die and one of the "souls" heals her body and places a female "soul" named Wanderer inside Melanie's body.
Melanie refuses to give up her own mind and body and through memories and feelings she somehow manges to effect the "soul" a little. Wanderer knows she shouldn't let herself be effected by this and that she ought to swap to a new body, but after awhile she to longs for Melanie's family. Is Jared and Jamie still alive? Can Wanderer the "soul" be trusted?
Melanie and Wanderer starts a search and they find what they are looking for, what they haven't considered is the hate humans nurture for the "souls".
The main character in this book, Wanderer, is hard not to fall in love with. Wanderer is a peace loving "soul" and she shares the body with Melanie a really tough girl who doesn't mind using violence to protect herself. It goes without saying that there's going to be some conflicts inside their head.
I feel that the characters in The Host has got more depth(more multi layered) than the characters in Twilight. It seems to me that Stephenie Meyer has taken her writing up a few levels with this book. I loved the book and the way the characters in it were described.
Book Review: Surprising sci-fi love story
Summary: 5 Stars
Reviewed by Olivera Baumgartner-Jackson for Reader Views (4/08)
When Stephenie Meyer's "The Host" landed on my desk, it made quite a thump -- since the book weighs in at well over 600 pages, it wasn't surprising. My first reaction was far from positive. It seems to me that in today's fast paced-world people's attention spans keep getting shorter and shorter, and I am no exception. Anything over 350 pages or so tends to be too long, and the only contemporary author that I can think of who can hold my attention for 600+ pages consistently would be Diana Gabaldon. So seeing this quite substantial tome in front of me did not exactly make me jump for joy. Then I read the notes on the back cover, or rather skimmed through them... "Earth has been invaded by a species that takes over the minds of human hosts while leaving their bodies intact, and most of the humanity has succumbed." It sounded very much like the "Invasion of the Body Snatchers," a movie that I never saw and had no desire of ever seeing. So I opened "The Host" with reluctance, expecting little or less. Three-hundred pages later I grudgingly came up for air, or rather a refill for my coffee. At four-o-clock in the morning I was finally done, but so wired I could not go to sleep. Stephenie Meyer's "The Host" was pure magic; totally unexpected, filled with incredible characters and great character development, hard questions, even harder decisions and unexpected touches of tenderness and sweetness throughout.
The story itself is quite simple - Wanderer, the "soul," took over the body of a young woman, Melanie. Wanderer is an experienced soul, who has been hosted by many different bodies of different species already, and she thinks herself well prepared for the new challenge. But then the trouble starts. Melanie refuses to fade away, filling Wanderer's head and heart with images from her former life and the love for another yet unconquered human, Jared. Wanderer and Melanie set out on a quest, attempting to find Jared. After they found him - and more! - the really interesting story begins. The interactions between Wanderer/Melanie and the "non-invaded" humans are utterly fascinating and the challenges all of them are facing seem to be insurmountable. Is there a solution that will work for all of the involved participants? Is there a solution at all?
Stephenie Meyer's "The Host" is a proof that one should never judge the book by its cover, especially not by its back cover. If I would have let myself be turned away by the outline of the story as it appeared there, I would have missed an incredibly entertaining, thought-provoking and fascinating read. As for the 600+ pages, all I have to say at this moment is that I hope the sequel - and I sure hope there is one! - will be at least this long.
Book Review: The Host
Summary: 5 Stars
Dear Stephenie Meyer,
When I was first considering reading The Host I was reluctant. I was a pessimist thinking about how it wasn't emotionally possible to be as good as your Twilight series. That the writing that made me love the impossible romance where vampires and werewolves exist (and Edward!) was surely a fluke.
I was wrong. I'm sorry I doubted you. I didn't think it was possible but I may just love this novel more than Twilight (etc.) although I am quiet about it. I don't want my fellow Twilighters to string me up for my heresy. Also the summary on the jacket flap does not do justice to the complicated love and morality inherent to the story.
When I first got the book I let it sit in my room for several days - a week at least. I would eye it warily, not really certain that I wanted to get emotionally bound to another book but reassuring myself with my pessimism. I started slow (or so I thought). The first day I began the book I only took in the first nine chapters; just enough to lay the groundwork. The second day I read a little more but not much. I think I knew (somewhere underneath the surface) that if I got too much farther in I would be lost. The third day I could not put the book down. I still had to go to work and about my normal routines but I was a shell of a human - most of my consciousness with the book and the characters. I worried with Wanderer/Melanie about whether Jamie was okay and if he was getting enough to eat. I agonized over whether the Seeker would drag Mel and Wanda back to "civilization." The fourth night I stayed up until four a.m. finishing the story: crying when things seemed hopeless, smiling when Wanda really got the hang of sarcasm.
The story was truly beautifully written. With such a complicated plot it would have been all too easy to stray from the main point and go off on a tangent or develop the characters too fast. I was constantly impressed with the depth of emotion the writing wrought within me. When I cried it was not for me or any related memories I might identify with but for the characters themselves: their hurts, their sorrows, their hopelessness.
The long and the short of it is that I can't remember ever being so moved by one single book (or movie or song) and I am a voracious reader (watcher, listener). So thank you. I look forward to whatever else you may write (Twilight related or otherwise, although I do wish you'd continue on with Midnight Sun - I still haven't read it out of respect for the process. I don't think I'll read it until you actually publish it. Please don't let me down!).
Thank you for bringing to life Melanie and Wanda and all the rest. It has been an experience I won't soon forget.
Maria
Book Review: Very Good, Especially for Sci-Fi
Summary: 5 Stars
As a note, I really want to give 4.5 stars...
Anyway, great book! I love the Twilight Saga (I'm seeing a pattern here...), with my one complaint being that Bella is a shrinking violet, but I didn't originally think The Host looked all that great; I finally decided to just buy it (what can $17 hurt anyway, right?), and even though the first chapter was a little slow, I got hooked and turned out to really, really love the novel.
Complaints first:
Though at first The Host felt very different from any of the Twilight books, and Wanderer/Wanda felt very different from Bella, as the story progressed and Wanderer humanized, it felt very similar, but with a radically different setting. Wanderer was just as self-sacrificing and only a bit more backboned than Bella; it almost felt like Stephenie was writing The Host at the same time as Breaking Dawn and got her worlds confused. However, I love Twilight, so I don't care!
Secondly, the planet names. The Flowers? The Bears? The *See Weeds*? Um. Wow. Lame. On the whole, a minor complaint, but every time I read them, I cringed. Also, when Wanderer tells her stories of the planets, she talks like nobody would actually speak in real life - it sounds like she's writing something down, not talking to actual people. Again, pretty minor.
Now for the positives:
I'm not a huge sci-fi fan, but I actually really liked this concept; alien invasion is not my style, but the novel doesn't focus on the battleships and the war, which worked for me but might not for hardcore sci-fi people. (I actually liked the souls better than the humans.) The characters, in my opinion, were well-developed, interesting, complex, and fun; some of them, like Sharon, the nasty woman, could have been better developed, but nonetheless, they were overall good. Melanie was a nice contrast to Wanderer, as she didn't feel overly goody-two-shoes.
I also loved the romance - there was lots of good jealousy and it was passionate without being gratuitous. (Is it just me, or did Ian seem to anyone like Jacob from Twilight? And - SPOILERS warning - did the part where she asks him to kiss her in order to make Melanie mad feel like the Bella/Jake kiss before the final battle in Eclipse?) (SPOILERS over now.)
I'm not finished with this book yet - about a hundred pages left - and I am still on tenterhooks about the ending. It doesn't feel predictable at all to me, and though I usually like sad endings, I am hoping for everybody to end up happy, which tends to mean that I REALLY like them. All in all, not as good as the Twilight books, but very excellent sci-fi and a very gripping, interesting, romantic, and thought-provoking read. Definitely try this book, Twilight die-hard or no!
Book Review: The Host Delivers
Summary: 5 Stars
Stephenie Meyer's The Host is set in an alternative Earth, one in which parasitic aliens have invaded and taken over humans' bodies and minds. The aliens, known as souls, actually feel that their coming to Earth is a good thing for both themselves (because they cannot survive without a host body) and for Earth itself since the humans have so misused the planet and one another. As the book opens, we meet Wanderer, a soul who has already lived eight lifetimes on other planets and has begun her ninth life inside a young female human named Melanie. Wanderer expects things to go as they always have on other planets: she will take over the host body and the host itself will "fade" as she takes over. Unfortunately for Wanderer, Melanie refuses to leave and the two conflicting personalities must learn to coexist.
With over 600 pages, The Host could have been rambling, yet it has a story that kept me turning the pages (and even, I confess, peeking ahead to see how things would be going!). As Melanie and Wanderer come to a sort of truce, Melanie brings the alien to a secret hideaway of underground caves where a few rebellious humans have managed to escape the invasion and are making a life for themselves. To say that Wanderer is unwelcome is an understatement; yet the fact that she inhabits Melanie's body provides the link to Melanie's younger brother and her boyfriend, Jared. Wanderer, eventually renamed Wanda, starts to become an integral part of the community, and through her relationships, she begins to understand that her species should not have taken over Earth, whatever their gentle reasons. But how can Melanie and Wanda continue to live in one body, and what will happen once the Seeker who is desperately looking for her finds her? Will Wanda ever be accepted into the community fully, or will her history as a soul interfere forever?
I absolutely loved this book. I loved that Wanda the alien was so sympathetic, and I loved the humans' determination to avoid assimilation. The relationships are so intricate and real; I could feel the emotions both for and against accepting an alien into the small underground community. The characters are very realistically written; it would have been much too trite to have everyone either hate or love Wanda, and the amount of time it takes for her be "accepted" felt genuine. I was on the edge of my seat frequently as I awaited outcomes of dangerous missions, and I found myself near tears at losses, and yes, even acceptances. Ms. Meyer has created an entirely believable world peopled with flawed characters who found their way into my soul (pun intended). Highly recommended for action, emotional punch, and plain ole good storytelling.