The Host: A Novel by Stephenie Meyer Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of The Host: A Novel
Book Review: Just as great as Twilight!
Summary: 5 Stars
I bought this after reading the Twilight series, I'd been told that it wasn't as good as the books, but wanted to read it anyway. And I'm glad that i did, it's just as great, i was captivated from the start. It had everything i needed in a good fiction novel. All written in the Stephenie Meyers perfect style.
I would definitely recommend this to anyone, never would i have imagined reading a book about aliens, but this book was Amazing!
Book Review: Brilliant Science Fantasy Tale
Summary: 5 Stars
The Host tells the story of Wanderer, following the invasion of Earth by a race of parasitic aliens - think Invasion of the Body Snatchers, or the Goa'uld from Stargate SG1. Melanie is one of the few remaining free humans not taken over by a parasite. But the story opens with Wanderer being inserted into the back of her head. Yep - this story is told from the perspective of the parasitic alien. What follows is a coming to terms story, as Wanderer evaluates what her brothers and sisters have done in taking over the world. Unusually Melanie hasn't 'gone away' and Wanderer has to contend not only with the memories of her host but also the consciousness of her host itself. Compelled by Melanie, Wanderer sets out to find Jamie (Melanie's brother), putting both herself and Melanie in grave danger.
Without doubt this is my favourite book of the year so far. It makes you cry, makes you laugh and makes you think. I don't think there's too much more you can ask from a book. I think it takes great skill to take a reader from sad, to happy, and back again and make it all feel real at the same time.
Very well written you understand both Melanie's perspective of violation and being taken away from her family too soon. But you also understand Wanderer's point of view and how the Souls must see us (humans) as disparate populations unable to get along with one another without violence, waste or misery. I also found it pretty easy to follow who was talking and when..
"Melanie was thinking sulfurous thoughts about the kind old man.
He was being nice. He's sincerely concerned about my welfare, I reminded her.
You're all very creepy, she told me acidly. Didn't anyone ever tell you not to talk to strangers?"
Wanderer is fascinating, and considering the aliens have taken over the world, she remains remarkably true to her pacifist nature.
Melanie on the other hand is much more kick-ass if a little naive. When she and Wanderer manage to join some free humans, she is somewhat shocked at their attitude to her. Of course they don't realize Melanie is there, they only see the silver in her eyes - indicative of possession by an alien.
Wanderer after a lot of hard work, manages to forge a place for herself among the humans, and become friends with Melanie. But even as she does so, she questions what she and her entire race have done and comes to realize she has some difficult sacrifices to make.
At the very end of the book we meet Burns Living Flowers, and I so want to know his story. I hope that The Host is the first in a new series, and I'll definitely be getting book 2 whether it's marketed as Adult, Young Adult or anything else. Highly recommended.
Book Review: Stephenie who?
Summary: 4 Stars
Unlike the other reviewers of this book, I'd never heard of the author until I read a review in SFX magazine which caused me to be interested enough to seek it out in the library where I work. Also unlike the other reviewers I'm a dyed-in-the-wool science fiction fan.
And I thought it was pretty good.
The plot is a variant on the old SF standby, the parasitical alien invader which is to be found in Jack Finney's original novel Invasion of the Body Snatchers and the countless (well, four) movies made from it. There's also Robert Heinlein's equally paranoid Puppet Masters (also filmed). But what Meyer does is to look at the world after the parasites have won and, and I don't think I'm being sexist here, this could only have been written by a woman. From a male point of view, the aliens have won, it's over, we're dead. Or in Heinlein's case, WE CAN'T LOSE! KILL! DESTROY! DEATH AND DESTRUCTION! (the last three words, memory tells me, is a precise quote from the end of his book).
Wanderer, our narrator and worm-like parasite, is reborn in a human body after years on a series of other worlds and in other forms. She expects the host's soul to be gone as they have always been in the past. Her host's mind, however, is still very active and, reaching an accomodation with it, they go in search of her younger brother and boyfriend. Quite early on they are captured by rogue humans.
And at this point I thought if the rest of the novel is about her experiences underground then I'm giving up. It was (in the main) and I didn't, though my synopsis ends here as I don't want to give too much away.
Meyer visits places most other SF writers don't go. She writes well and the character of Wanderer is absorbing. The parasites are not presented as monsters and, in many ways, they are better than humanity which is presented as far from angelic. Human in fact.
This is a warm and thoughtful novel. I'd like to see Meyer try adult SF again (she's better known for her teenage vampire romance series -which I've just started to read), though not, as I've heard she is doing, by writing a sequel to The Host. As far as I'm concerned she's said everything she needs to say on this topic and sequels are redundant.
Not that that will stop me reading it.
Book Review: Thoughtful and adult
Summary: 5 Stars
Like many people I came to this book after reading about the Meyer phenomenon. What I found in The Host was a serious, crisp and beautifully thought-out delineation of a possible future world in which human irrationality has been replaced with alien logic. The results, both comic and serious, are considered by Meyer with admirable balance. The future world is liberated from mania, from violence and fanaticism, but it is also bereft of romanticism, longing and art. Its two heroines, Melanie and Wanderer, are intelligent, resourceful and tough - alien and human souls learn from each other in this clever, philosophical take on the old Close Encounters idea. Highly recommended. Book Review: Hmmm...
Summary: 3 Stars
Although often exciting and eventful, The Host grated on me for a number of reasons. Told in the first person by the invading parasite Wanderer (later known as Wanda) the broad strokes of the story are fine. But underneath the quasi-sci-fi elements and the love quadrangle lies a low-grade sexism, some disturbing ideas about sexuality (along the lines of "this body didn't belong to me or to Melanie, but to Jared,") and an awful of lot crying, whimpering and cringing. The men are angry and violent, and the invading Souls are the only ones depicted with any compassion. Not to be too sarcastic, but "have a little humanity" is a phrase this author perhaps hasn't encountered. The Soul's compassion for one another is deeply ironic given their complete disregard for the original owners of the bodies they wear.
We also come across the pervasive, lazy sci-fi element of alien worlds having only a single eco-system (the ocean world, the ice world, the mist world, etc.) Having a planet with arctic, temperate and tropical climates is apparently as much of a stretch as having a single character with multiple motivations. Admittedly the sci-fi is kept to a minimum, presumably so as not to scare the genre-nervous, but the best fiction starts from fact.
This is obviously a pet peeve of mine.
I would not recommend this to any impressionalbe teenage girl as the Wanderer-Jared relationship is very close that of an abused spouse and her abuser. Any relationship that ever involves flinching is not one to base your forming romantic notions on. Other relationships in the book are controlling, and even Wanderer's final decision is disrespectfully reversed with neither her knowledge or consent.
And I almost tossed this out a window when a character expressed the opinion that virtue equals prettiness. My buck teeth and acne mean I torture puppies, obviously.
Having said that, I enjoyed the bulk of it, I wanted to find out what happened and it hasn't put me off the author. Wish me luck with Twilight.