As promised, here are my thoughts on Stephenie Meyer's "The Host." I mentioned yesterday the beginning of the book was slow going and in fact I seriously skimmed pages trying to find a place where the storyline engaged me. The book became a better read the closer I got to the last third of the story.
Okay, Earth is invaded by a species of creatures, 'souls', who need host bodies in order to live off their native planet, the Origin. After several lifetimes on other planets, Wanderer, finds her way to Earth and is implanted into a young woman named Melanie Stryder. Melanie had been hiding from the 'parasites' and was only captured when she ventured into Chicago looking for her cousin.
Usually after an implantation the human consciousness winnows away as the 'soul' takes control. Melanie, however, fights to stay in her body and eventually a give and take relationship develops between Wanderer and Melanie. This relationship propels Wanderer to look for Mel's love interest as well as her younger brother.
And true to Meyer's style, there are multiple love interests going on at the same time once Wanderer reaches the group of free humans. She does love the whole love triangle, or in this case, square, as there are four characters involved.
The book improves when more action involving Wanderer, dubbed Wanda by the humans, is out doing raids on her own species. Then true to Meyer's themes in her vampire series, the whole self sacrifice/martyr for love character arcs kick into play.
The book was okay. Not great, not horrific, but I can't really recommend it. Your time will be better spent with another story.
2 comments:
by the way... how many books have you read this year????
Gosh, Kim...I need to count them up and see. I think the list on the blog is pretty accurate, but some of the entries represent more than one book. Like I read all 14 Evanovich books this year:)
Post a Comment