~The Host~

The Host
Meyer, Stephenie
Science Fiction
8 out of 10
no disclaimers

The Host is set in the future, when our world has been taken over by aliens.  The aliens take over by inserting themselves into the human's brains.  Since they are worm-like creatures and cannot do much for themselves, they use the bodies of the humans to function.  By the time people begin to figure out what is happening to them, most of man kind has already been infected with these aliens.  But a small group of people have hidden in a large cavern in the desserts of Arizona.  When Melanie, a girl from Arizona who has been hiding in the desserts of Arizona for many years, is caught, she refuses to just be taken over.  Wanderer is the alien that is placed inside Melanie, and because Melanie refuses to disappear, they(Wanderer and Melanie) set off on a journey to find the people who are still hiding.

In this book people are fighting to save themselves from being trapped in their own body, it is awful what the aliens are doing.  But it turns out that not all of the aliens are bad, they are not trying to hurt the humans, they are just trying to survive.  Sometimes we can only see our side of the story, and how situations look in our perspective, but The Host shows us that sometimes in order to understand everything, you have to look at other  perspectives, and try to understand other people and where they are coming from.

The Host is written in first person, the narrator is Wanderer, the alien that was implanted into Melanie's body.  In this book you are thrown into a world where aliens have taken over peoples bodies, and a small group of people  who refuse to die are fighting to stay alive.  You get to see how Melanie and Wanderer work together, despite their differences, to find the people they love, and somehow find happiness.  While reading this book you are faced with the question, "Who deserves to live, and who deserves to die, the girl who's body was taken from her, or the girl who was thrown into a strange body, on a strange planet?".

This book is intended for high school age and up.  Although I think the author mostly intended for adults to read it, I think that many teenagers, would enjoy this book.  I think that girls would mostly like this book, because it is a romance, but I think that there is enough action and alien invasions that some boys might enjoy reading this book too.  Also, this is a VERY long book, it is 619 pages to be exact, and at times it can be a little slow, so if you don't really like reading and get bored with reading long books you might not like this one.

I personally enjoyed this book, I thought it was really well written, and it made me think a lot.  It is such a unique book and story line, and I never could guess where the next page would take me, it is unpredictable in some ways, but I wasn't disappointed with the ending, like I thought I would be.  It also has romance, and I love romance!!

"A fantastic,inventive, thoughtful, and powerful, novel.  The Host will keep you reading into the wee hours of the night, and keep you thinking, deeply, hauntingly, well after the final word."
                                                                         ~Ridley Pearson, author of Killer Weekend


"A fascinating, passionate, and unique psychological thriller."
                                                         ~Katherine Neville, author of  The Eight