The Host Review



The Host by Stephenie Meyer
Melanie Stryder refuses to fade away. Our world has been invaded by an unseen enemy that takes over the minds of human hosts. Most of humanity has succumbed. When Melanie -- one of the last remaining humans -- is captured, she is certain it is her end.

Wanderer, the invading "soul" who has been given Melanie's body, probes her thoughts to discover the whereabouts of the remaining human resistance. Instead, Melanie fills Wanderer's mind with visions of Jared, a human who still lives in hiding. Unable to separate herself from her body's desires, Wanderer begins to yearn for a man she is tasked with exposing. When outside forces make Wanderer and Melanie unwilling allies, they set off on a dangerous search for the man they both love.

Yes, I lost my mind and picked up Host. I've been waiting for it since I first read Twilight (I was a huge fan back then, still have Edward's poster on my wall) and when I saw it in the library I figured, "Why not?"

I'm not going to lie, I was disappointed.

The first quarter was very slow, it picked up a little at the middle, and then it slowed back down again. I almost stopped reading it several times through the first three-quarters of the book and even after I kept reading, I couldn't wait for it to be over. The ending was very anti-climatic. There's this huge jump in the tension and then it goes back down again and just ends. It's just a really long book that doesn't seem to have enough tension to pull the reader along.

There were a few things I liked though. I loved Melanie and Jamie's characters. Jamie was such a sweetheart. The love square was probably the coolest part of the entire book. Definitely the strangest love square I've ever read in my life, though I'm still not sure about how it ended up.

A lot of the things having to do with the souls felt like plot devices. For example, Wanderer can walk into any store she likes and just pick up as much stuff as she wants free of charge. This comes in handy a lot.

The blurb doesn't even really fit the book past the first quarter and that kind of annoyed me. I felt like I'd been mislead. That might be a personal thing though, but I like books to mostly fit the blurb. Catching Fire is the only book I know that I love and understand why the whole thing didn't fit the blurb.

Score: 5/10 Overall, The Host was just an awesome premise with a lot of potential that fell short.

Comments

bclement412 said…
Hmm. Interesting review. I'm not a Stephanie Meyer fan AT ALL but this makes me sort of curious about the Host.
May 17, 2010 at 4:16 PM
Cheyanne said…
I give you props because I absolutely could not finish this book past the first quarter.
May 17, 2010 at 5:24 PM
Ellen said…
Been a while since I read this one, but I do remember I appreciated that the characters actually developed and changed throughout it. Unlike other books *coughTwilightcough*.
May 17, 2010 at 11:53 PM
Glen Akin said…
When someone told me this book was a love triangle involving two bodies, or a something like that, I decided there and then never to touch it lol
May 18, 2010 at 8:21 AM
Unknown said…
I have to say that while I agree with you that the blurb didn't really match up with the ENTIRE book, I disagree with that is was slow. No, there wasn't a lot of action. But, it had a lot of emotional upheaval, and the character development was well done. I really liked the Host. *ducks as everyone throws tomatoes my way* :)
May 18, 2010 at 3:35 PM
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