The Host by Stephanie Meyer
Published by: Little, Brown and Company
First published: May 6, 2008
The summary
In The Host, Earth has been taken over by an alien species called "souls." These souls are a parasitic planet-hopping species, taking over civilizations in order to better them. On Earth, they have eradicated war, sickness, murder -- basically everything bad. The souls are kind, truthful and altruistic.
Though Earth may be a paradise, the humans want their planet back. Their kind is disappearing quickly, human bodies being taken over by souls. A small group of humans still remain, years after the souls have taken over the planet.
The books begins with Wanderer, a soul, waking up in her new host body. Wanderer finds though that her host refuses to fade away. Melanie Stryder, the human who Wanderer now occupies, is still very much alive and kicking in her mind. Melanie's thoughts and memories are strong, and though Wanderer tries to quiet her human host, she can't. Through Melanie's memories, Wanderer discovers two more surviving humans, Jared, Melanie's love, and Jamie, Melanie's younger brother. Wanderer alerts her Seeker, the one who captures humans to insert the souls, about this discovery. However, after doing so, Wanderer is sick to her stomach. Melanie's feelings are strong, and Wanderer feels the same love and longing for Jared and Jamie, just as Melanie does. With some persuasion from Melanie and their combined hatred of the Seeker, Wanderer leaves her soul community in order to go find Jared and Jamie and make sure they are safe.
The pair create a strong bond during their perilous journey through the Arizona desert. They help each other survive -- Melanie gives Wanderer mental strength in order to survive the desert, and thus, Melanie doesn't disappear. When they are near-death in the desert, they are found by Melanie's crazy uncle Jeb. Jeb has created a hidden rebel cell in the middle of the desert. Among the surviving humans are Jared and Jamie, safe and sound. At first, Wanderer is hated by the humans. They believe her to be an evil, conniving parasite. The only ones who trust Wanderer are crazy uncle Jeb and Jamie. Eventually the rebels come to accept Wanderer, or Wanda, as Jeb dubs her. Living in the caves with the humans completely changes Wanda's view on humanity. Souls believe humans to be an evil, violent, irrational, distrustful species. However, Wanda finds that humans are also capable of so much love and compassion, more than the souls could ever give. Wanda refuses to believe that people like her Jamie could ever be evil.
Wanderer also experiences the intricacies complications of human emotion, made even more complicated by the fact that Wanderer is also sharing the emotions of Melanie. Melanie's body and her mind loves Jared. However, another human, Ian, finds his way into Wanderer's heart. Wanderer finds herself trapped in a complicated triangle -- her body yearns for Jared, yet Wanderer herself is falling for Ian. How can Melanie and Wanderer be happy? How can Jared and Ian be happy?
Through her experiences in the caves, Wanderer realizes that the souls were wrong to take over Earth, but she has fallen in love with the planet. Life on other planets fall short of life on Earth.
Can there be a future where souls and humans can live together?
The verdict
I've read The Host before, and upon reading it again, I found the book to have so much more depth than I thought the first time. I have to say I enjoy The Host much more than Meyer's Twilight series. It features a strong, smart female character -- or two female characters, I should say. Both Wanderer and Melanie are fearless and won't back down from what they believe in. The books deals with important subjects, like tolerance and humanity. Wanderer could be a symbol for so many things -- religious intolerance, sexism, homophobia, a general intolerance for anyone who is different. (Okay, so I might be taking that a little far, but, well, that's I do when analyzing!) Altruism is another theme throughout the book; the souls with their misguided but altruistic ways, and Wanderer with her true selflessness. In one instance, Kyle, one of the human rebels who still harbors a hatred for her, tries to kill Wanderer. In his attempt, he almost falls into running lava under the cave, but Wanderer saves Kyle and refuses to admit that he was trying to kill her. Wanderer will do anything for those she loves, including saving her own love's murderous brother (Ian and Kyle are brothers).
I won't give away the end of the book, but it does show some hope for humans and souls to co-exist peacefully. (There's some statement there about the world we live in today.)
Meyers spent a lot of time developing her characters in The Host. The books is very well-written and thought-provoking with a solid storyline created by complex and complicated emotions. If you didn't care for Twilight, I would urge to to try out The Host. And, even if you do like Twilight, read The Host. It's very different and so much stronger, more compelling and just better, in my opinion, than Twilight. Though it is sci-fi, the story very much deals with humanity. It just sucks you in and you get so invested in the characters. If you haven't read it, I highly recommend it. It is truly a good read.
Grade: A
(Sidenote - I read that The Host is being made into a movie. Should be...interesting. I'm curious to see how they pull it off.)
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