Tuesday, July 8, 2008

The Host

A ah, Stephenie Meyer. I admit the cover of this book gives me the willies but off goes the dust jacket and viola! so that worked out well for me.

Melanie's body has been abducted by aliens...in the most literal sense. The Wanderer, a "soul" which apparently looks like a large silver centipede, had been inserted into melanie, her host. Melanie is supposed to fade away but she refuses to let the wanderer, who becomes known as wanda, to force her out of existance.

Melanie is obsessed with finding her brother Jamie and her boyfriend Jared who have managed to remain human through the aliens have subdued nearly the entire human race. As the Wanderer sees Melanie's memories and intereacts with her in their shared head, they decide to try to find Jamie and Jared.

I was rather intrigued with the story from the first chapter...I don't read a lot of alien-y science fiction but the characteristics that the aliens have make them an interesting species - they are, on the whole, non-violent. They seem to geniuinely care for each other. They also have no sense that they are doing anything wrong - most of the other planets they lived on had hosts that put up very little resistance to being used as hosts. They have incredibly advanced medicine. They don't seem like bad...people. But at the same time, they robbed humans of their bodies and their minds.

Iwas not as satisfied with the romance in the story as I had hoped, but resolving the love "square" that develops was very interesting. Ihave to admit,I couldn't put it down.

1 comment:

K said...

I agree that it was interesting and the love 'square' =) wasn't as good as we'd hoped. I really thought the ending was too weird and a wee bit disturbing, though, for me. Cool reviews. Keep em comin!