209 of 220 people found the following review helpful:
Not just for people who loved Twilight...
OK, I admit it. I am a 33 year old who really should know better than to read books about teenagers falling for vampires. The fact that I read all four of the Twilight series back to back over 3 days is, I'm sure, nothing to be proud of. Quite simply I have been hooked on them, even though they are not the best written novels and at times I could quite happily have...
33 of 39 people found the following review helpful:
Dull long read. Not even entertainingly bad like Breaking Dawn
As a Twilight fan, I had a lot of goodwill towards S. Meyer and I really wanted to like this book, I really did. The premise is an interesting one; an alien parasite inserted into a human host trying to lead a normal life on Earth which has been invaded by the parasitic alien species.
It starts out promisingly with `Wanda' the alien battling the human voice...
OK, I admit it. I am a 33 year old who really should know better than to read books about teenagers falling for vampires. The fact that I read all four of the Twilight series back to back over 3 days is, I'm sure, nothing to be proud of. Quite simply I have been hooked on them, even though they are not the best written novels and at times I could quite happily have bitten Bella myself just to stop her indecisiveness.
I bought The Host afterwards but was delighted it was a completely different novel to the previous 4. Although I found it a little slow going for probably the first third of the book, I was then completely lost in it. A clever idea, protracted at times but still compelling. I must admit being slightly disappointed with the ending though and found myself disliking the main character just because of her final appearance.
So, if you loved Twilight - read it. If you feel too grown up for teenage vampires, read this first then secretly treat yourself to the Twilight quadrilogy (it will be our secret)...
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There really aren't enough good comments or adjectives in the dictionary to describe this book. I bought it on a whim, if I'm being honest, not really being a sci-fi fan, and found myself totally and completely loving it only a few pages in.
While the storyline might not be the most obscure, original thing in the world, (imagine Invasion of the Body Snatchers, except this time we lost), Meyer does succeed in giving it a new, surprisingly fresh, twist. The storyline is basically centred around a very experienced 'Soul' (Wanderer) who finds sympathy and friendship with her host (Melanie) who refuses to fade away. And also a strong love for someone she has never met. The two team up and track down the man and Melanie's kid brother, but not all goes to plan, as you could imagine...
Although, on that note, I'd like to say that the characters are the main driving force behind this novel. I always love Meyer's characters - I've read the Twilight series, of course - but these new set really impressed me. Wanderer, as I said before, is the main protagonist, who is likeable in herself just for being kind in nature, but Melanie is also likeable for her strength and stubborn attitude. They completely parallel and contrast each other, which I personally loved. And then there's the boys... Jared, who is the main guy character, in a sense (not for me though, thank you very much) and is who Meyer described as the 'tough' one. And then, of course, there is Ian. I love his character too much for words, and I think he's the real reason as to why I love the story so much...
Anyway, overall, it's obviously a 5/5 for me, and I'd recommend it to anyone - sci-fi fan or not.
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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.
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Ok, from the title, you may not need to read further.
I enjoyed the Twilight series and as a bit of a vamp obsessive, I didn't think I'd enjoy this more than those books.
I was SO wrong.
You know when you read a book, desperately want to see what happens but, dread actually getting to the end.......
well, this was one of those.
I was so upset when I finished it, I felt quite bereft!
I won't go into the details of the plot itself as I hate reading reviews where you may as well not bother reading the book afterwards!!!!!
I will say that the character descriptions, especially as one of the main characters is 2 people in one............ and one not even a person......... well, you are never in doubt that there are 2 distinct personalities - each of which you root for in completely different ways!
I can't stress enough how much I enjoyed this book and am trying to wait for a suitable length of time before I start to read it again.
BUY IT, READ IT, you won't regret it!
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I bought this purely because it was by Stephenie Meyer, and i'm a huge fan of the Twilight series. I'm not at all a sci fi fan, but i still ended up loving The Host. It has the same developed characterization and informal writing style as the Twilight Saga, but with an all new plot that's almost as interesting. Definitely a must read!
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As a Twilight fan, I had a lot of goodwill towards S. Meyer and I really wanted to like this book, I really did. The premise is an interesting one; an alien parasite inserted into a human host trying to lead a normal life on Earth which has been invaded by the parasitic alien species.
It starts out promisingly with `Wanda' the alien battling the human voice `Melanie' inside her head. There is potential for an exciting story but for inexplicable reasons the plot grinds to a very slow halt while Meyer drags out a very thin plot of a ridiculous love triangle over an obscene amount of chapters that could have easily been edited or cut altogether.
I assumed Meyer's strength of writing would be in her ability to create a memorable character and love story. However, the characters in this story grated; Wanda is self-sacrificing to a fault and her love interest, Jared, who physically assaults her on a number of occasions, has no personality except being really angry.
There's a whole host (harr harr!) of characters who are introduced but who remain on the periphery which makes it even more difficult distinguishing everyone apart. Melanie was the only person who had any kind of discernable personality but she gets shut down after about 30 (or could it be 40?) chapters in favour of bland Wanda - or Blanda as I shall now refer to her.
The writing style is repetitive and clichéd - I've never seen anyone's eyes burn without needing a fire extinguisher and medical help - which doesn't nothing to help a laborious plot which is lacking in authentic, realistic emotion. Who would rather have an alien parasite inside their loved one's body when the human host has a chance to be free? Especially an alien as preachy and spineless as Blanda who has traces of Bella's worst traits.
I was really disappointed with this book. I seriously doubt it would have been published without Meyer's Twilight success. The romance angle which has been pushed for this book has been oversold in my opinion. I've been moved to tears by love stories that are a quarter the size of this weighty tome. There's not even a compelling 'Edward Cullen' type to fall in love with and save the book, which I expect a number of Meyer fans will be anticipating. Any curious readers should check this out from the library before making a purchase.
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I fall under the category of 'haven't read twilight, and don't plan to', to be honest I wasn't expecting to read any of Stephenie Meyer's novels until I saw The Host avaliable for half price and find myself liking the story!
The Host takes place on Earth, in an uncertain time period where the human race has been taken over by an alien race called "Souls" - a parasite type race who embed themselves into human's necks and take over their consciousness and physical actions. As a result; the human living inside dies and the Souls exist in their stead. The Souls have pretty much taken over the whole world, but several pockets of humans who have managed to escape are struggling to survive, with no way to combat them. We follow Wanderer, a newly implanted soul on Earth who takes the body of Melanie - a girl who was one of the few remaining rebels and knows the whereabouts of the last surviving humans. In hopes of finding them, Wanderer is implanted to find out, but is shocked to find that Melanie's consciousness has not died. She remains in her head, refusing to fade away or share information the soul has set out to achieve. Instead, Wanderer begins to feel sympathy for Melanie and her human friends, and even starts to fall for Jared, the man Melanie loves and has sworn to protect. As Melanie's memories begin to overwhelm her, Wanderer feels she has no choice but to leave her world of Souls behind and set out to find Jared in hope he's still alive.
Despite the main drive of the story and the blurb at the back of the book mostly being about the love between Jared and Melanie/Wanderer; it's not the only focus of the story. In fact there are plenty of times where the romance part of the novel take a back seat, therefore it never gets too overwhelming or soppy for those who aren't found of those kind of books. Stephenie herself has called this book a "sci-fi novel for those who don't like sci-fi" which is an accurate description as the sci-fi side of this story is not gone into deeply. You're given enough detail to picture the world taken over by aliens, what the race is like and a feel for other world outside of Earth; but most of it is left to the imagination (to allow sci-fi nuts to create their own worlds) and kept light (for non sci-fi fans to push past it easily). Plus unlike other `aliens take over Earth' stories where the humans are often seen carrying guns and raging war with them eventually win against the invaders or the aliens look like something from `Alien and Predator' - this book is the opposite. The aliens are subtle, the world is completely taken over and the humans are in hiding with no hope of survival. It's nice to see a new spin on an old story.
The book can be divided into 3 parts; the first part (covering about the first 5 chapters of the book) covers Wanderer's and Melanie's struggle to live within the same body and Wanderer eventual acceptance of leaving her world behind. I think I enjoyed this part the most as I found the interaction between the characters and Wanderer descent into accepting mankind fascinating. I also like how the Souls view humans as violent creatures, incapable of running a world properly. I wish it had continued for longer to allow more time to see Wanderer mind continue to fight Melanie and to see more of the Soul world she lives in, but it's not a deal breaker.
The 2nd part (the longest of the story) take place after Wanderer has set forth to find Jared; this easily covers half of the book and it's pretty slow going from here. Without giving too much away, Wanderer spends the rest of the book in the same place and this part is mostly focused on character development and the human's interaction with our alien narrator. Whilst it's quite interesting and there are some very nicely written scenes and interactions; there's a fair amount that could've been cut or edited down, mostly the stuff describing the surrounds and such. Not much action occurs in this part of the story and some readers may grow bored quickly; but I felt that the character development was enough to keep me going as it was well done.
The last part of the book kicks the action back in again, I won't say what happens to avoid spoilers but it does take up about the last 10 chapters of the book. Whilst reading the more `action packed' parts, I didn't feel like it was rushed, but looking at the novel as a whole, it somewhat is. Stephenie seems to struggle to combine character and story development together; often stopping one to continue the other. Although the writing of them both are good (character development being better written and favoured of the two by the author) it doesn't always work as most of the novel is slow going with most of the action happens at the very beginning and end of the novel.
Overall the character development is the strongest point of the novel, and I especially enjoyed seeing the world from Wanderer's eyes. Since the story is from her point of view, she often compares the human race to her own - often leading the reader to think about themes of human nature and how we treat each other. Again, it's nothing that's going to completely drown readers who want light material but the story is deep enough to get the more thought provoking reader thinking. The cast is quite varied and seems to be equal men and women; all of them are likeable in their own ways and some even progress from villains to allies as the story progresses.
One of the reasons I like reading is to expand my vocabulary; this novel didn't achieve that for me. She tends to use the same vocabulary through the story; there's plenty of `he's snarled', `she scowled', etc in this book. By the 10th time I read it I was beginning to get bored of the same words, thankfully for the 2nd half she seems to get her hands on a Thesaurus.
I wasn't fond of her structures of chapters; normally, chapters are there to create `scenes' within the book. Usually, the end of the chapter ends with a dramatic event, something to shock the reader into quickly turning the page to find out what's next. Sometimes it just allows for an event or conversation to naturally end before moving onto the next stage of the story. For several chapters of this book I felt that they failed to do either. At times the chapter would just end in the middle of a conversation or Wanderer describing an event, only for the natural end of it to occur within the first paragraph of the next chapter, leading me to think that chapters are ending 1 paragraph too short. Not all chapters suffer from this however.
The Host was a pleasant surprise for me; I don't read books very often but when I do it's nice to read decent novels like this. Whether you hate Twilight or Stephenie Meyer or not, this book is written well with a much deep story. Not recommended for those who expect a jaw-dropping event on each page and those who read on a frequent basis may not find this novel to be any special, but for those who are patient and like a character-driven story - even if you're not a fan of science fiction - take a gander, you could do worse!
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When I found out that Stephenie Meyer had wrote a novel not related to the Twilight series I was eager to read it as I'm a big fan of the Twilight books. However when I found out what it was about I was a little put off as I'm not really a fan of science fiction, but I wasn't sure Twilight would be my kind of thing with it being about vampires either but I loved it, so I decided to be open minded and give it a go anyway. I had a real job getting through the first 100 pages but I carried on because I refuse to believe Stephenie could write a bad book and I'm so glad that I carried on reading. I thought it started off very slow, but once you're introduced to all the characters the story really takes off. However it is very different from Twilight. I'm not sure that all Twilight fans will like it especially her younger female audience. I think its one of them you either love or hate. So I'd recommend if you're not too sure about it then to borrow it from your library or a friend rather than spend money buying it. Over all I enjoyed this book and will not hesitate to read anything Stephenie writes from now on. If she can get me to like science fiction I'm sure she can get me to like pretty much anything!
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I read this book because I thought it would be like the twilight series ,was I wrong!This book is very different.I found the beggining was a little hard to get in to and kept putting it down to read other things,I nearly didnt finish it,THAT WOULD HAVE BEEN A BIG MISTAKE.the story really is amazing and you will see when you get to the end the rest of the story was necessary.I love the way Stephanie Meyer makes you believe you are in the cave dwelling with Wanda ,and the four way romance between Melanie Jared Ian and Wanda keeps you compelled to carry on with the book .Please dont do what I did and leave the book on a shelf for a few months because I didnt give it a chance, it really is a fantastically thought out and emotional story .
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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.
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