Publisher: Little Brown
ISBN: 978-0-316-06804-8
My Rating: 3/5
Melanie Stryder refuses to fade away. Our world has been invaded by an unseen enemy. Humans become hosts for these invaders, their minds taken over while their bodies remain intact and continue their lives apparently unchanged. Most of humanity has succumbed. When Melanie, one of the few remaining "wild" humans, is captured, she is certain it is her end. Wanderer, the invading "soul" who has been given Melanie's body, was warned about the challenges of living inside a human: the overwhelming emotions, the glut of senses, the too-vivid memories. But there was one difficulty Wanderer didn't expect: the former tenant of her body refusing to relinquish possession of her mind.
I picked up 'The Host' from Barnes and Nobles off the clearance shelf for $5. I had tried to read it a long time ago and only read the first few chapters and couldn't get into it. I decided to pick it back up and give it another shot. I did enjoy the story even though it seems like not very much stuff happened in it. There was quite a few things that I didn't like in the book. I found they just kind of irked me the wrong way. I swear I'm going to make a list of the top 10 things that drive me crazy when reading them in a book haha. Anyways, the story was good, I liked most of the characters but it definitely had its flaws. One main one for me was that I thought this was supposed to be a book for adults. Maybe with the success of Twilight, Meyer just can't pull herself away from that but nothing in this book says adult to me. It might be more suited to an older YA group because of the complexity of some of the events that take place.
'The Host' is the story of Melanie, or the Wanderer, or Wanda, they are all the same person basically....Actually, I don't want to say what this book is about. The movie just came out yesterday and I don't want to spoil anything. I'll just talk about what I didn't like about the book which is why I gave it a 3 out of 5. First thing, the hissing. For anyone who has read this book I'm sure they know exactly what I'm talking about. Everyone in this book hisses any time they are angry, upset, scared or feeling any kind of negative emotion. There is a lot of hissing that happens. This only bugs me because never in my life have I encountered a human being that hissed when they were mad. I just don't get it. The only other thing I really hated was the fact that Meyer seems to feel that woman are the weaker sex as is eminent in ALL of her books. In Twilight, we got to read about Bella who was too weak emotionally and physically to do anything for herself and she was in an abusive relationship with Edward. In 'The Host' we get to read about Wanda (Wanderer, Melanie) who is unable to even speak up for herself at any point in this entire book. It drives me crazy. There is not one point where the lead in this book says, "You know what, bunk this!" and does anything to defend herself. She spends half the book cowering in a corner somewhere and the other half crying and being beat and/or someone trying to kill her. INSANE!
Anyways, with all that being said I will say I did like this book. It was engaging and I enjoyed reading it. I think if Meyer comes out with another book and is has a female lead and she doesn't stand up for herself I will boycott Stephenie Meyer forever haha. There is definitely no comparison to Twilight with this book but I will say that Meyer failed to make a transition from YA books to Adult books, this is definitely a YA book parading around as an adult book. Read it, or don't, it doesn't really matter but you won't be missing out on much.
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