The Host

Rated 4 ⭐️ based on what my 14 year old self would’ve rated this when I read it and loved it. Cannot say how it holds up 15 years later ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

In 1955 The Body Snatchers by Jack Finney was published. A year later Invasion of the Body Snatchers hit movie theaters. In 1978 Finney rewrote the novel and fleshed it out from novella length to a full length novel. There have been a number of film versions and homages. The most recent take on the story is The Host by Stephanie Meyer. Finney's novel was set in the North Bay, in The Host the story is set in Arizona (except for a few scenes in Chicago and San Diego, though how they relate to each other is never adequately explained). Finney was writing about his home town and Meyer who lives in Arizona is doing the same thing. So far, no surprises. Science fiction often starts with the familiar and then tweaks it. Where Finney's novel ends with the humans in the North Bay beating back the invaders and preventing a full scale invasion, The Host begins with the assumption that the heroes of Finney's novel failed. Melanie, a rebel human trying to fight the aliens, has been implanted with Wanderer (later known as Wanda) to discover where the human resistance cell is hiding and what their plans are. In a bit of religious squickery, the invaders call themselves souls. To save humanity, the resistance wants to remain soulless. Where Finney's book was social commentary on the xenophobia of the 1950s, Meyer's seems to be trying to tackle atheism. The resistance believes life is better without the Souls and of course Wanda tries to argue just the opposite; senseless crimes have stopped, there is no more money because everyone shares, everyone is always together and happy, there is eternal life through the living in many different Hosts. Wanda / Melanie (who refuses to give up her will to Wanda) manage to find the human outpost in the caves near Tucson. While all other infected humans who have found this remote location have been vivisected on the spot, for some reason they decide to keep Wanda alive because she was "belongs" to one of the men in the group. That's Meyer's way of being romantic. Personally, if my husband ever said I "belonged" to him, he'd be out the door and the locks would be changed. Anyway, lucky for Wanda, she's property and gets to live long enough to prove her good intentions. There are some interesting pieces to the novel. Despite the weird happy-joy-joy Soul Society collective, there are glimpses at life on different planets and the structure of the Soul culture. There is a hierarchy to it but these are mere glimpses in between some very long and tedious scenes in the resistance caves. There are three hundred pages of Wanda being a prisoner in the caves and learning how the uninfected humans live. It's basically three hundred mind numbing pages of playing house: cooking, eating, doing chores, walking around the caves and sleeping. No sex, no violence, no swearing, no danger except for a few small fist fights. Seriously, I wanted to claw my eyes out at the end of this section. Basically there is a decent three hundred page Body Snatchers inspired novel hidden in a novel that has bloated to 650 pages. It has a pretty good start, an incredibly boring middle and a clever ending. The ending though isn't good enough to inspire me into wanting to re-read the novel or to read her better known Twilight series. If in the future she writes another stand-alone novel, I might give it a try.

*re-read 2021 It’s so refreshing to know that this book still holds up. It’s always amazing. I always get something out of it. The best wait to start this reading year. *re-read 2019: I didn't plan on re-reading this again so soon, but one of my friends decided to read it for the first time, so me and my OTHER friend said we'd read it with her! It's like our own little book club! And I can't pass up any opportunity to read this book, my most favorite book of all time, again. And we get to talk about it and discuss it? How cool! However, I have now severely messed up because we were only supposed to read to chapter 20 this week but I went and read the WHOLE DAMN BOOK. Because this book just....gets me. It gets TO me in every possible way. I keep trying to think about why this book is it for me and I just can't figure it out. Because it's EVERYTHING. It's the characters mixed with the setting and the words and the LOVE that just pours from the pages. I constantly find more to love about it and it just digs itself deeper into me. I don't know how to explain the love and joy I have for this story but I'm so excited to talk about it with my friends. I'm so excited to see if certain things grab them like they grabbed me and CONTINUE to grab me. Still cried the entire ending. This book will forever be a part of me. *re-read 2018: I really wish there were enough words to fully describe how much this book means to me. I've been in a weird reading place lately, not quite sure what to pick up. So I thought, "why not pick up an old favorite?" And oh, wow. This book is not just a favorite, it's THE favorite. This is officially my favorite book of all time. It always was and I don't think that will ever change. This book is just...revolutionary to me. I was worried going into this re-read: what if I don't like it as much as before? I just tried (and failed) to re-read the twilight series and I was so nervous the same outcome would come of this. But I guess I just forgot exactly what this book means to me. The beginning is slow, more so than I remembered. But that's it. That's the ONLY critique I can even remotely think to say about this book because everything else about it is just breathtaking. These characters are unlike any I've ever read. Wanderer's capacity to love and FEEL is just so refreshing and so...real. She's incredible. And I love Ian so much. I love him more than any fictional boy character ever. His kindness and openness; his fierceness and protectiveness. Excuse the pun but everyone in this book feels so HUMAN. Jared and Jamie, Jeb and Mel. All the humans and all the souls. Everyone is so flawed and wonderful and broken and layered. The love in this book is almost overwhelming. It's messy and just so beautiful. Wanda is such an inspiring character. Her capacity to love and give is just unparalleled from anything I've read before. I feel like I learn from her. She's definitely TOO self-sacrificing but her fairness and ability for forgiveness is insane. I'm just so touched by her journey. I cried so much throughout the second half of the book. I just love everything so much, and I feel like I understand Wanda. I got the paperback so I could annotate it and keep the hardcover pristine but I got so wrapped up in the story I forgot! I already can't wait to read it again. original review: A little known fact about moi: this is actually my favorite book of all time. True story. And yes, I know what you're thinking...a Stephenie Meyer book is your FAVORITE book of all time? Why yes, yes it is. This book blew my mind when I first read it, back when I was 13. I had just finished ( and loved )the Twilight series and heard she had another book out. The back of the book didn't really intrigue me, considering I wasn't into sci-fi and aliens and whatnot. But then I picked it up, and HOLY CRAP. I just fell in love with it. I fell in love with Wanda and Melanie's relationship, with Jared, and definitely Ian. I just could not put it down. I actually went back and re-read it a few months ago and I STILL love it. It takes a while to get into the real meat of the story, but if you know Stephenie's writing, then you know to expect that. She likes description, and I don't mind that. I mean, she was setting up a completely different WORLD (Well, technically, a lot more than that)so she's probably going to need to describe some stuff, you know? So just expect some heavy description in the beginning, and then you'll be fine. It's a big book, but I flew through it and I hope you will too. It's amazing, and if you haven't read it yet, I highly suggest you give it a chance.

Rating at somewhere along 3.5 or 4 stars. I saw the movie adaptation first so I already knew what to expect. It was a great and thrilling story. It displays human behaviour under extreme circumstances in the most clear of voices. There was never a page where I was confused due to how unvague the storytelling was. I guess I never really commended the author for that. It has an interesting plot, too.

Slow but engaging, the last 40% is the best

5 stars for my nostalgic 13yo heart

4.5

I will give it to Stephenie Meyer, she knows how to write. When I actually gave in and sat down and read I did not want to stop. I was up till 3 reading because I was just so into the story. When I woke up, I picked the book back up again and kept reading.

** spoiler alert ** This review contains minor spoilers. I avoided this book a quite a while simply because it is by Stephanie Meyer. Even though it is labeled as "adult," I highly doubted her ability to turn out anything that wasn't cheesy and angst-filled. The words "Stephanie Meyer," "love triangle," and "aliens" in the same sentence were enough to make me steer clear. Even after this book was recommended by a couple of people, I still wasn't ready to commit to a 620 page Meyer book. So I decided to watch the movie. I don't have any trouble turning off a movie if it sucks. Surprisingly, I enjoyed the movie a lot. And although I been forewarned about certain differences between the book and the movie, I decided to give it a go. Again, I was surprised that I quite enjoyed this book. The concept was interesting. Much of the book focused on the relationship between Wanderer and Melanie which was a nice contrast. The love triangle was unique. Unlike the Twilight series where the action is confined to the last few chapters, The Host had a nice balance of character development and action. Even though parts of it could have been streamlined, I never got bored. A few chapters in however, there was a flashback of Melanie's to when she was seventeen and a conversation she had with her twenty-six year old boyfriend about whether or not they were going to have sex. It was painfully reminiscent of Twilight sappiness and made me very concerned about how the rest of the book was going to go. But it was a mostly isolated incident. Although the prologue got a little corny too. There were a few of the alien related things that I wish had been explained better. Meyer's standby excuse seemed to be, "Well, there's no way to describe it in your language." The other thing that annoyed me slightly were the one word chapter titles. "Betrayed." "Believed." "Safe." They were abrupt, but they also gave away the gist of what each chapter was going to be about. But I'm probably just nitpicking. Overall, I did like this book a lot. Definitely team Ian!

copied from wikipediaa and its the plot summary Seventeen-year-old Melanie Stryder and her brother Jamie have been running for their lives since Earth was taken over by a parasitic alien race called the "Souls". The Souls are a very peaceful race, taking Earth because they deemed humans too violent. When a Soul is put into a human body, the human consciousness disappears, leaving only the memories or nothing at all. While scavenging for food, Melanie meets twenty-six-year-old Jared Howe, who takes Melanie and Jamie to an off the grid cabin. Melanie and Jared fall in love. Melanie, now 21, goes on her own to find her cousin Sharon and Aunt Maggie. She is spotted and cornered by Seekers in an abandoned building and tries to kill herself by jumping into an elevator shaft. The Seekers put a Soul named Wanderer in Melanie, a Soul who has lived on eight other planets. Melanie doesn't disappear and blocks the memories, to the chagrin of Wanderer and her Seeker. Wanderer starts to love Jared and Jamie the same way Melanie does and doesn't like Melanie's violent thoughts towards the Souls. Wanderer considers taking Melanie out but doesn't want the Seeker to be put in, due to her and Melanie's dislike towards her. While driving to a Healer to get Melanie taken out, Melanie convinces her to try to find Melanie's Uncle Jeb, in hopes that Jared and Jamie are with him. Using clues given by Melanie, they wander through the desert looking for the landmarks that match the images in Melanie's mind. Near death from dehydration, Uncle Jeb finds Wanderer and discovers that Wanderer is now inside Melanie. Uncle Jeb takes Wanderer inside a large circuit of caves with housing for over 30 humans. Jared and Jamie also made it to the caves. Before being taken to the "hospital" by Doc, Jared stops him and Wanderer collapses from dehydration. Wanderer wakes up and learns that Jeb is keeping her in a small cave, guarded by Jared, who acts hostile to Wanderer. This upsets Wanderer because she loves Jared. Melanie is jealous of Wanderer's feelings for him. The two brothers Kyle and Ian attempt to kill Wanderer, only failing when Jeb comes with his gun. Jared leaves for a raid, taking Kyle but leaving Ian, who feels guilty about almost strangling Wanderer. Wanderer stays in the cave Jared and Jamie stay in, bonding with Jamie and revealing to him, Jeb, and Doc, that Melanie is still inside her. As Wanderer (nicknamed Wanda) interacts with the humans, they accept her and ask her about the other worlds she's been on. Ian assigns himself as her bodyguard and figures out Melanie is still alive. The raid party comes back and tensions rise as Jared and Kyle still don't trust Wanda. Wanda is saddened when her friend Walter starts dying of cancer. She stays with him as he yells for his wife Gladys and learns that Jared and Doc plan to euthanize Walter. She leaves to clean up and Kyle corners Wanda in the bathroom. He tries to throw her into the volcano's boiling river but Wanda knocks him out. She saves his life instead of letting him fall and Ian comes in time to help her. He shows that he cares very much about her well being. She is there for Walter's death and realizes that the Souls were wrong about humans. At Kyle's tribunal for trying to kill Wanda, Ian and Jared want to punish Kyle for hurting Wanda but Wanda insists that it was all an accident, and gets Kyle let go. Kyle promises Wanda he won't try to kill her because she saved him, but believes he was right to try. Jared tells Wanda that he now believes her about Melanie. Wanting to keep Wanda safe, Ian lets her stay in his room with him, to the annoyance of Jared. Wanda learns that Ian has romantic feelings for her, and he kisses her, telling her that she is beautiful, not the body she is in. Melanie's anger over Ian kissing her and Wanda's feelings for Jared makes her feel confused about Ian. After telling him that, he agrees to let her think about it. She starts staying with Jamie and Jared again at Jamie's request. Jared goes out on another raid and takes Jamie with him. When they return, Wanda learns that Jamie hurt himself by falling with a knife in his hand. They do not let her near Doc's hospital, making Wanda suspicious, as they did the same thing the last time the raid party came back. She goes to the hospital and finds mutilated Souls and human corpses. Melanie tries to defend the humans but Wanda quiets her. She hides in one of the caves and mourns for the lost Souls. Ian finds her and sits with her for three days, trying to get her to eat and talk to him. Jeb explains to Wanda that they were kidnapping Souls to take the Souls out of the humans safely but each time has proven to be fatal for both parties. Wanda makes him promise to not try because they will never figure out how. Jeb tells her that Jamie's cut is infected. When Jamie asks Wanda if Melanie is worried about Jamie, she realizes Melanie has not spoken since the day she made her quiet. She kisses Ian, to see if she can get a reaction from Melanie but nothing happens. Ian brings Jared and Melanie comes back when Jared kisses her, gaining control of her body again momentarily to push him off Wanda. Wanda promises to never quiet her again. Wanda and Jared go to a Soul hospital to get the medicine for Jamie. The medicine works and Ian, Jared, and Kyle decide to take her on raids to get food from stores instead of stealing from homes. They return and discover that Wanda's Seeker found the caves and killed one of the humans. Wanda doesn't want the Seeker to be killed and decides to tell Doc how to get the Souls out of the humans safely, on the condition that they do not hurt the Souls and to take her out of Melanie to make Jared and Jamie happy. A condition she keeps secret from everyone but Doc is that she plans to stay, wanting to die and be buried on Earth than live on another planet and take another body. After taking the Seeker out of the human Lacey, they learn that she also didn't disappear to the Seekers chagrin. Kyle brings back his girlfriend Jodi, now inhabited by Sunlight Passing Through the Ice or Sunny, who has feelings for Kyle the same way Wanda loves Jared. Ian finds out that Wanda plans on being taken out of Melanie, but thinks that she is leaving the planet instead of dying and staying on Earth. Ian and Wanda express their love for each other and Ian tries to figure out a way to keep Wanda on Earth. Wanda sneaks away and is followed by Jared as she goes to Doc. She goes in and has a sad goodbye with Doc before going under. Wanda wakes up in the body of a human who was inhabited by a Soul called Petals Open To the Moon or Pet. Jared threatened Doc not kill her and he, Melanie, and Jamie went to find a body while Ian stayed behind to watch over Wanda. Wanda learns that Pet's host did not wake up, making Wanda not a parasite, as the body belongs to no one else. Jodi also didn't wake up, so Kyle decided to let Sunny stay inside and try to find Jodi. Wanda, content with the fact that she can now be with Ian and everyone is happy, stays in the caves. They come across more humans that also have a Soul with them, Burns Living Flowers

It was actually nice to have it ~read to me! :)

Originally posted on The Book Unicorn I'll be honest. I wasn't actually planning to read this book. I know a lot of people loved Twilight, and that is absolutely great. But it wasn't for me. So when I saw that Stephanie Meyer had come out with a new series, I didn't pay much attention. But someone I really admire and respect, who has excellent taste in books, recommended I give The Host a shot. And I'm glad I did. I love alien stories. When I was little I used to hope that aliens would land in our backyard (friendly aliens, of course). And I'll be honest, that still sounds pretty dang cool. Anyway, the fact that the premise of The Host is that a group of aliens have taken over the planet immediately made me more interested. I think the plot of this book was actually pretty solid. There were a few parts that I felt were a little weird or unbelievable, but overall I was kind of impressed. The characters, for the most part, were enjoyable. There were a few that drove me nuts, like Melanie and Jared. But, there were also some pretty cool ones, like Wanderer and Jamie. One problem I had, though, was overall character development. Sometimes a character would change their mind about something or make a decision and I didn't have much of an idea of where that motivation came from. So, to sum it up, if you're on the fence about reading The Host, I'd say give it a shot. It isn't the most amazing book I've ever read, but it was actually a lot better than I expected. Although I'm not sure if I'll continue with the series, I am really glad I read this one.

Ok listen get through the first couple of chapters and you will understand it and completely love this book. I picked this up a couple of times and couldn't get past the beginning but when I finally did I absolutely loved it. Honestly my favorite Stephanie Meyers book. The story line is so unique and the love triangle is one of a kind.

The beginning is SLOW but once you get through the world building it’s INCREDIBLE!! The movie never did the vivid imagery any justice!

God this book was so boring

Nice idea, but characters are chattering away and nothing really happens.

I'll admit I was expecting something with a little more violence. In the end I was pleasantly surprised. I would recommend it for people who like happy endings.

I liked this book very much. Very very much. Didn't expect to, frankly despite the glowing reviews because of the Twilight books which infuriated me so much. But this was really good reading. Raised a few interesting questions with regards to who we are a species, what we may look like to outsiders, extra terrestials if they do exist. Who are we with our ever changing emotions, the way we treat others. But if given a choice would we really want to be other than who we are? The thought of being taken over in the way described in the book was just...repulsive. The thought that they, the alien race felt they had the right to do because they did not approve of humans as a species was...infuriating and it took me a while to warm to the protagonist, Wanderer. Stroke of genius I thought, to make her tell the story, see humans through her eyes, her reactions to the individuals and not just the species. Frankly, I'm a sucker for a happy ending and clearly so is Meyers. I was prepared, at the end of the 'first' ending to curl up in a ball and weep at Wanderer's sacrfice, if the book had ended there, I would have understood, bawled like a fool, but understood. To give her a chance at happiness with the love of her choice, I thought was good ending too and meeting the other rebel cells...some hope? The message was yes, less than subtle, true love comes from the inside, you love the person and not the package, etc, etc, but...not bad. All in all an easy and enjyable read evidenced by the fact that I raced through it in a week. Highly recommend.

As someone who found it impossible to finish reading the Twilight books (halfway through Breaking Dawn, it felt as though the book was turning into fanfiction of itself and I just couldn’t read any further) I was very pleasantly surprised with The Host. I felt the plot itself was much stronger, with a narrative that was much more engaging and thought provoking, and the characterisation of the main characters, and the interaction between Mel/Wanda more believable and interesting, and although there was a great deal of angst and love triangles, these seemed to have their place in the story, rather than being there just for the sake of it. I DID think that there could have been more characterisation of Ian, because I felt that he changed his stance so quickly and completely, I would have liked to have his motivations made a bit clearer, and there were quite a few occasions where I felt like the standard of the writing itself let down the narrative. All in all, I was glad I decided to give this a go, and thoroughly enjoyed it!

I couldn't believe how many people refused to read this book because it was written by Stephenie Meyer, you know.. author of Twilight? Like damn people, harsh much? This was actually a total surprise, it was very well-written and the plot was developed and interesting. I first heard this story when I stumbled upon the movie adaptation on Netflix. After watching it about 3 times from loving it so much, I decided to try the book. Yes, the love story can be sappy like Twilight but this book should no way be compared to Meyer's other works. Melanie is one hell of a tough cookie, she does not give up easily and can, at some times, be pretty mean. The one thing I didn't quite understand was that Wanda (Wanderer) was this old experienced soul that had wondered, hence the name, to different lands and planets, yet was so new and confused at some parts of life and functions in the world. Little plot hole there but other than that it was pretty smooth sailing. There of course was a love triangle or square (?). Melanie, Wanda, Jared and Ian. But this wasn't any type of love triangle/square, it was unique and complex considering Melanie and Jared were together prior to having her body taken over. Then, Wanda came along and fell in love with Ian. This complicates things considering Wanda and Melanie are in the same body... What to do with THAT complicated situation lol. Jared was a bit of a jerk towards Wanda, ok fine, a huge jerk. Kind of understandable considering they've never dealt with a nice soul before. Ian actually saw through all of the misconceived perceptions about the souls and saw Wanda as a good being looking to help the humans. For all the little sappy things wrong with the book, the ending does make up for it. It's like Meyer knew she needed some leverage to keep us hanging and wanting a sequel. The ending for the book and the movie, again, definitely makes us want a sequel. WHICH has been said to happen, but no current news on it considering Meyer is known to just not go through with novels announced, *cough* *cough* Edward's P.O.V book *cough* *cough* Just saying... She wrapped this up pretty nicely and made us wanting more. IF You wanted more, check out more on my blog where I review YA and other genre books. http://keepcalmandloveboooks.blogspot.ca

I absolutely loved this book! Watching the characters develop is like magic. I was crying tears of joy and sadness all through this story. It brings us to the core of our humanity and I think that is necessary. I am still in love with the characters even after reading it, I want them to be real.

Better than the Twilight series, which I found pretty shallow. Here Stephenie Meyers opts out of recreating a classic in order to come up with an original story that illuminates what it means to be human and to sacrifice for those that you love; she does quite a great job of it.

Yes, it's a Stephanie Meyer book. Yes, it's first person. Will I always love this book? Absolutely. It's a thought-provoking reflection on what makes humans, well, human. I enjoy the depth of all of the characters, and can easily picture myself immersed in this world.

“Perhaps there could be no joy on this planet without an equal weight of pain to balance it out on some unknown scale.” #1: The Host ★★★★★ Did it take me 12 years to finally read this? Yes. Did I love every freaking second of it? Also, yes. Back when this book came out and I had it gifted to me I was too obsessed with Twilight to really pay any attention to it. Having read it, I wonder how it is that Stephenie Meyer wrote this, since it sounds nothing like her other books. Mark me down as surprised and happy. Now, since it has been 12 years and there is still no second book, I guess I’ll just stare into the void and shriek.