I've always been intimidated by big books, you know like those huge books that look like the Bible? Well after reading just one page of the sci-fi romance The Host I was totally sucked into the future of this whole new world.
Meyer simply amazed me with the imagination that she had brought into this book. As Meyer had described it, “Our world has been invaded by an unseen enemy that takes over the minds of human hosts while leaving their bodies intact.” Now that gets one thinking “But why would these aliens invade us?” Well the reason was simple, these ”aliens” simply figured we were too violent. Right there, that reason was simply mind blowing, the reason wasn’t because these parasites thought we were weak or because they wanted to take over the world, they just wanted us to be less violent, see the irony here?
Melanie Stryder a girl who’s part of a group with only a handful of people called the Resistance try their best to keep alive and not fade away as the parasites take over their own soul and body. This story is in the point of view of Wanderer, one of the invading aliens who is apparently an expert at hosting bodies, rumored to have been on seven planets and had been practically everything from a flower to a bear. Wanderer takes over Melanie’s body however once she wakes up she realises that she hadn’t taken over all of Melanie. Having too much pride Wanderer sucks it up and tells the Healer, the one that had gave Wanderer the host and the Seeker, the one who tracks down humans, that the surgery was successful and she had fully taken over Melanie’s body.
Wanderer then starts to have dreams about these two boys from Melanie’s old memories, a boy named Jamie Stryder and a boy named Jared. This dream starts off with Melanie and her little brother Jamie, and they are both starving and so Melanie ventured off and left her little brother for food. Melanie is soon attacked by Jared who has her by the neck, he threatens her and calls her a “peace-loving body snatcher”. Melanie yells at him and he turns her around and feels around her neck and realizes shes a human and immediately lets her go, now what he does next really shocked me, he grabs her by the neck and kisses her. Obviously shocked Melanie tries to run away and in a hurried frenzy they somehow worked things out. Jared explains to her that he had been hiding with the “parasites” in order to stay alive, Jared proves his point by taking out a flashlight and shining it in his face and Melanie realises that he too is human when she sees there is no silver lining in his eyes.
Once the dream ends Wanderer goes straight down to inform the Seeker, about Jamie and Jared, and in the back of her mind Melanie tries to stop her but before Melanie could make her do anything Wanderer shuts off the computer. I was in awe at this point I could feel the anger and resentment Melanie had had towards Wanderer yet at the same time I could feel the anxiety and regret Wanderer felt.
The book goes on and the Wanderer is getting more and more dreams of Jared and she is soon realising that she too is falling for Jared. It seems like Meyer has a thing for forbidden love, first it was the vampire and the human in her book Twilight now she decided to put in this unusual love triangle between Melanie, Jared and Wanderer. At this point I spent hours of reading trying to figure out how this book was going to end.
I loved all the emotion Meyer had put into this big chunk of a book it was what kept me going, the story seemed to be a never ending story of action and a forbidden love. I also liked how this book got me predicting and thinking, “What’s going to happen next?” I felt like I was going to have an anxiety attack from all the curiousity. I loved how this novel was in the view of Wanderer, it made me feel like a little kid again with all the curiosity she had and how clueless she was with emotions and feelings, Meyer had given me a whole new view on this world, family, friendship and love.