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| The Host: A Novel | 
 enlarge | Author: Stephenie Meyer
Publisher: Little, Brown and Company
Category: Book
List Price: $25.99
Buy New: $16.29
You Save: $9.70 (37%)
New (26) Used (6) from $13.99
Avg. Customer Rating:  683 reviews
Sales Rank: 169574
Format: Large Print
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 1152
Shipping Weight (lbs): 2.9
Dimensions (in): 9.2 x 5.9 x 2.5
ISBN: 0316034118
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.6
EAN: 9780316034111
ASIN: 0316034118
Publication Date: May 6, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: Brand New, Perfect Condition, Please allow 4-14 business days for delivery. 100% Money Back Guarantee, Over 1,000,000 customers served.
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| Customer Reviews:
 The best novel I have read in years! May 28, 2008
17 out of 20 found this review helpful
I started reading The Host with excited trepidation. I love Meyer's Twilight series. I never seem to get enough vampires and werewolves, from books and movies. I have read her series, thus far, multiple times. I was thrilled to find out Meyers was writing another novel in addition to continuing her Twilight series. However, when I saw that it was about aliens, I was worried. I typically find alien fiction boring and repetitive. So, I was prepared to be disappointed with The Host. I was especially nervous after reading a few reviews that talked about the beginning and other sections being slow and losing their interest. I am not sure what book they were reading. The Host sucked me in from the first page and never slowed down. Literally. As I haven't read much alien fiction maybe that is why some of the ideas in The Host caught me as so original and fascinating. The Host quickly became one of my favorite, most enjoyable books I have ever read. Even more than the Twilight series. The areas that I find lacking in that series are strengths in The Host. While I love the story lines and details in Meyer's first books, I often find some of the characters weak or one dimensional (Bella and Edward, namely--even though I still love them). All the characters in The Host are phenomenal, constantly changing, struggling, real. Even the ones you hate, you can understand and sympathize with. Often when I am reading a novel, I have a few possible endings or conclusions that float through my head. Most of the time, one of those are the ending that actually occurs. With The Host, it wasn't until the last fifty or so pages that I was able to form any type of conclusion that made sense, I had no idea how it could possibly end up, until the story actually started to wind down. It made the reading process so much more enjoyable to me. Truly the mark of excellent writing and story telling. While Meyers could definitely write a sequel, I hope that she doesn't. This is one of the few stories that I really find to be nearly perfect in the state it is in. This will be a novel that I read again and again. I can not wait to see what else Meyers brings us. Her talent is growing and solidifying with every undertaking.
 Dreadful prose, poorly written, couldn't even finish it June 5, 2008
16 out of 27 found this review helpful
I enjoyed the Twilight books sort of. They are not well written, or well told stories. They were a guilty pleasure--but I still read them. The Host is bilge and I could not get through the first 100 pages without rolling my eyes at the very bad writing. Meyer is TELLING me what happens, instead of just showing me what happens. Because I'm being told how to feel and what to think about her characters I really don't care about them at all.
I laughed at some of the melodrama and badly constructed phrasing. So far that is the only joy this book has brought to me. I wish I could get my money back. UGH.
Extraordinarily Lackluster June 10, 2008
15 out of 20 found this review helpful
I read 'The Host' and then right afterwards read 'Never Let Me Go' by Ishiguro, who also decided to obliquely tackle SF. The differences between this book and that are many, but the most obvious to me is also the most obvious problem with all of Meyer's works, not just this one: she is simply a mediocre writer. There was nothing whatsoever that held my attention about this book: the characters, the story, the action. I can barely remember what happened in it. Like some other reviewers, I, too, think the editing is appallingly weak, and just because a book is big doesn't mean it's good. But the worst offense is the simple lack of anything compelling happening in her stories. Pages go on and on without anything concrete happening, in either the exterior or the interior landscapes of the characters. I read this book because of a review I read online, but sadly it remained a waste of time.
Boring and pretentious, a deadly combination. May 29, 2008
14 out of 29 found this review helpful
Slow and un-involving in the beginning, set in a myopic "world" with little outside influence. the writing style reminds me of the pulp style sci-fi paperbacks of the 60's, but without the taught plot and interesting characters. This book and author are obviously the "hot beach read" being pushed by the publisher for 2008, similar to the awful "Ruins" book of last year that was greatly hyped and delivered zero
Perhaps next time.
Tripe - and practically plagiarized tripe. August 4, 2008
13 out of 17 found this review helpful
This book is so incredibly similar to the Animorphs series that I can't believe Applegate hasn't sued. The "unseen enemy" that takes over most of humanity is practically a direct rip off of the Yeerks, and the idea that Meyer wrote the first romance with three people in two bodies? Untrue.
I almost hate to make the comparison, however, because Meyer's purple prose, two-dimensional characters and misogynistic themes couldn't even begin to touch Applegate's series. The fact that some of Animorphs was ghostwritten by other authors? Further proof of Meyer's inability, if she can't even out-write a ghostwriter.
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