Author: Stephenie Meyer
Date of Publication: April 13, 2010 (Paperback)
Publisher: Back Bay Books; Reprint edition
Pages: 656
Genre: YA, Science Fiction
Paperback or Kindle: Both
Fiery Fantasy Thoughts
Having read, ‘The Twilight Saga’ I was obviously going to
compare it to this successful series.
However, I shouldn’t have done that as it is nothing like
them books!
Firstly, ‘The Host’ takes place on Earth, when it has been
taken over by an alien race called, ‘souls’. These ‘souls’ are a parasite
civilization who take over the conscious and physical actions of human beings
by embedding themselves into the necks of their host’s body.
As a result of this bodily invasion, the human’s soul dies,
whilst the alien race ‘souls’ take over.
The ‘souls’ take over most of earth, leaving a small group
of humans who have managed to escape with no idea of how to defeat them.
The book concentrates on Wanderer, a newly implanted ‘soul’
who has taken over the human body of Melanie. Wanderer is very important to the
‘souls’ as Melanie was one of the few remaining rebels who could tell the
‘souls’ where to find this rebel camp and turn them before they can retaliate.
However, the ‘souls’ did not realise how strong Melanie’s
memories were and find it more difficult than they thought to control her, so
(experiencing all these memories first hand) Wanderer begins to feel sympathy
for Melanie and the rebels (also feeling the love Melanie felt for Jared) and
feels she has to leave the world of the ‘souls’ behind to find out if Jared is
still alive.
Even though there is the love story between Wanderer (or
Melanie) and Jared, this is not the main storyline, which is a nice surprise as
it doesn’t get to soppy and boring.
I liked the fact that the reader was given enough detail to
get their imagination pulsating without being force-fed every image and scene.
I also liked that it wasn’t a heavy science fiction novel
(meaning you do not have to be a ‘die hard’ science fiction fan to enjoy it)
and although we got a chance to feel how it would feel for the humans being
taken over by these ‘souls’ and what earth could have been like if this happened,
it was still light and understated.
This book felt slightly like a mix between ‘Invasion of the Body Snatchers’ meets ‘War of the Worlds’ and although I did enjoy it and would recommend it as I think the characters are strong and I really liked the descriptive skills displayed throughout the novel, I do think the flow of the story was a little uneven throughout and I wasn’t fond of the repetition of words as I think my vocabulary couldn’t have taken more!
Overall, if you like you science fiction books that are not
heavy going and like good character development, then this is the novel for you.
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