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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: $8.90
You Save: $17.09 (66%)
New (71) Used (22) Collectible (7) from $8.90
Avg. Customer Rating:  544 reviews
Sales Rank: 60
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 624
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.9
Dimensions (in): 9.3 x 6.5 x 2.1
ISBN: 0316068047
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.6
EAN: 9780316068048
ASIN: 0316068047
Publication Date: May 6, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: BRAND NEW COPY, SOFT COVER EDITION. NO UGLY REMAINDER MARKS.
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| Customer Reviews:
 A slow start but electrifying ending... May 7, 2008
10 out of 15 found this review helpful
Having read all of Stephenie Meyer's Twilight books (fav being Eclipse), The Host was on my most anxiously anticipated list of books to read, coming second only to Breaking Dawn.
The story starts with a soul called Wanderer being injected into human host body of Melanie Stryder. Wanderer, having lived in 8 host bodies before, did not expect the current host not to fade away from the body, but Melanie is hell-bent on not giving up the strenuous control she has over the body she owned once.
Melanie will not let Wanderer access the thoughts that could lead the aliens to her brother (Jaime) and the man she loves (Jared). Living in Melanie's body with Melanie suffusing her emotions, Wanderer can't help but fall in love with both Jaime and Jared. And thus begins an alien's search for the two humans that her body refuses to let go.
While the first 100 some pages are quite boring and tedious (though I appreciate necessary), the story picks up when Wanderer finds the human colony. The terror, pain and heartbreak she goes through is truly heartwrenching. Amazing as it may be, you actually start liking Wanda a lot more than the humans as the story progresses.
My favourite character, though, is Ian. Meyer really created a very honorable, lovable and truly compassionate man in Ian O'shea. While most reviews talk more about Jared Howe, I personally found Ian more of hero-material. Jaime is another character that touches your heart, with his attempts at being strong and adult-like yet a child at heart who craves the company of the body of his sister and builds a strong bond with the alien in it.
While I love Stephenie Meyer's Twilight series, it was mostly because of Edward & Jacob. Bella as a character never impressed me much, with her whiny attitude at most times. However, the Host brings us a truly memorable female character in Wanderer. Wanda is the best heroine I ever read about.
The story ends as happily as it possibly could, like all previous books of SM. I gave it 4 stars because of the boring 100 some pages at the start...
 Unfortunately, just okay May 9, 2008
10 out of 19 found this review helpful
It wasn't awful, but I didn't love it at all. It was okay.
The first several chapters were actually quite painful & since I read on a Kindle I tend to get sample chapters first before I buy a book. If I'd based this book just on the sample I admit I NEVER would have continued but because it was Ms. Meyer I did continue & it thankfully did pick up to the point where I cared what happened & was glad that I had gone on.
That said, I was never as involved as I was in the Twilight Series. The pace dragged a bit for me in a lot of places and it was very predictable where everything was heading.
Ms. Meyer is really a wonderful writer & I'm looking forward to seeing what else she has in store, but I may have to wait until she gets this series out of her system.
Is Love What Makes Us Human? May 6, 2008
9 out of 10 found this review helpful
As invasions go, the Souls takeover of Earth was a peaceful one. Very few humans were harmed. In fact the Souls very survival depends on this: their race needs the bodies of other species to survive. That is why they travel through space, colonizing planets as they go by taking over the bodies of the native species. After that, they become their new hosts, living as they would in an idyllic world without wars, hunger or disease. Because, ironically, despite their initial act of invasion, the souls are gentle beings that recoil from aggressive behaviors.
But on Earth, not every one is happy with the new state of things as Wanderer, the soul that has taken over a young girl's body is about to discover. Her host, Melanie, refuses to fade away and as their minds fight, the Wanderer comes to realize what the Souls' invasion meant to Humans.
Wanderer is an old Soul having lived seven lives already, but nothing has prepared her for the overwhelming emotions that means to be a young girl and in love. Unable to control her body's yearning from Jared, the man Melanie loves, she goes in search of him. But Jared refuses to believe Melanie still lives inside her mind and sees Wanderer only as her killer. To convince him otherwise will require their joint effort, and so, out of need, Melanie and Wanderer reach an uneasy truce they both know cannot last.
Wanderer is a wonderful character, gentle and loving, easy to relate to. Through her struggles to understand humans, we see ourselves in a new, not always flattering light.
Although the book's pace drags a little at certain points in the narrative, the strength of its characters and their passion for love and each other, will keep you reading to the end.
an alien gone native May 11, 2008
9 out of 12 found this review helpful
Stephenie Meyer has described herself as being "anti-human" in response to critics accusing her Twilight stories of being anti-feminist, just short of misogynistic, behind a glittery group of vampires that seems to take up everyone's attention. After writing The Host, Meyer might want to change her tune.
The main premise is this: earth has been invaded, its human occupants no more than host bodies for tiny aliens. Melanie Stryder is one such human, forced into cohabitation with an alien called Wanderer. Only, that's not how it's supposed to go. Melanie was supposed to disappear, and Wanderer, struck by memories of Melanie's past and a seemingly impossible future with Melanie still inside her head, begins to change. She flees her alien society, striking out for the Arizona deserts on the memory that Melanie's humans -- in particular, a brother and a lover -- are there. She is blindly chased by one of a feared group of Seekers, the aliens' version of law enforcement, a woman with secrets and an agenda of her own.
To get the critique out of the way first, I will say that this book is overly long and quite slow. It meanders through the first three hundred pages as surely as the main character does, getting lost in several places along the way. The plot has been done before: Body Snatchers and Animorphs come to mind. There's nothing new about alien invasions, and when Meyer tries to explain the history of the "feathery ribbons" that took over the world with smiles on their hosts' faces it seems hokey and overdone, almost a waste of time. I couldn't find myself caring about their previous host worlds, and in fact Meyer makes such worlds seem like Disney World rides rather than functioning systems there for the taking.
But that's the first three hundred pages. It's a marathon of a slow start, but the story builds to a satisfactory climax. What Wanderer finds in the desert challenge her notions of what it means to be human, what it feels like to fall into love, into friendship and family. That is the strength of the story, above the science fiction and the two men she must negotiate between -- one in love with Melanie, the other with Wanderer (four people, three bodies, a problem if ever there was one) -- pushing Wanderer to finally make a choice as to her place and meaning in this world.
 Tepid and a bit disappointing May 13, 2008
9 out of 24 found this review helpful
I think that Stephanie Meyer started with a wonderful concept. I was prepared to like this book as much as the Twilight series, if not more, because I am an avowed science fiction fan and I think Ms. Meyer's writing in the Twilight series was captivating. In The Host, I did like the way the author tried to write the characters, especially the character of Melanie, from a filtered perspective. It is intiguing to think about another sentient species socialized with different objectives and moral codes. However, my biggest disappointment was that the end result did not provoke any intense feelings at all. I like to become involved in a story and vest myself in the characters and their loves, losses and challenges. Unfortunately this particular literary aspect, which is a must in great fiction for me, was absent in this novel. Well written and thoughtful subject matter but definately not worth buying the hardcover version.
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