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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: $13.42
You Save: $12.57 (48%)
New (72) Used (35) Collectible (10) from $13.36
Avg. Customer Rating:  691 reviews
Sales Rank: 37
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 624
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.9
Dimensions (in): 9.3 x 5.6 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
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| Customer Reviews:
 Awful May 25, 2008
34 out of 47 found this review helpful
I didn't like the book. Yeah, I know that Stephenie Meyer's books are popular, but her characters are two-dimensional. I want to read plausible dialogue with honest emotions, not Soap Opera speak. This book also needs a good editor: bigger is not always better; entire chapters need to be cut out. And if you think that Bella* is self sacrificing, just wait till you meet the Wanderer. The Wanderer is a parasitic alien that lives in the body of a human host, a 20-year-old girl named Melanie.
The aliens take over planet Earth by surgically inserting themselves into the brains of humans. (Once implanted, the human soul dies.) The aliens then live human lives: they shop, watch TV, play sports, eat Cheetos, etcetera. The only thing that is different about them is that they are super nice...in a Stepford Wives sort of way. They are also very altruistic creatures (except for the fact that they've killed off creatures from 9 worlds); they live in Communist-like communities, are very naive, and incredibly boring. At the Olympics, everyone wins a medal; movies always have a happy ending; and there are never any conflicts--well, except for those pesky humans that don't want to die...
*Bella is a character from Meyer's Twilight series.
BORING!! May 12, 2008
29 out of 66 found this review helpful
It took me a total of three days to read Twilight, New Moon, and Eclipse. I loved this series and I was very excited for this book to come out thinking it would be another great read.
Far from it! I have spent the last six days forcing myself through the pages of this book. I love reading and have not enjoyed a book less than this in a very long time.
I would not recommend this book to anyone.
So disappointed May 25, 2008
26 out of 44 found this review helpful
I wanted to like this book - I really did. I had looked forward to its release and preordered it from Amazon. I love the Twilight series. The books are written perfectly for the young adult reader. When The Host was promoted as an adult book that Ms. Meyers would be able to write to her target audience. Didn't happen.
Sadly, I thought the book was slow and the characters weren't particularly engaging. The humans were cruel. The Wanderer was self sacrificing and she spent her time cringing and flinching and hiding. I saw the ending coming from a mile away. I read the entire thing but it was a struggle. I was tempted to put it down several times, and only a determined effort kept me going.
Just Didn't Like It June 21, 2008
23 out of 30 found this review helpful
I am glad there were so many who enjoyed this book, as it's always great to find a book one loves.
As for me, however, I have to agree with the other one-star reviewers who found "The Host" to be incredibly slow and boring. I did think the very end got a tad more interesting, but it didn't make up for the previous 3/4 of mind-numbing boredom through which one has to wade to get to that point. I found it impossible to be interested in the story and didn't feel much or any empathy for the characters. In fact, Wanda/Wanderer's incessant stories about her previous lives with Bears, Claw Beasts, and all the rest got very tedious and annoying after a while.
Finally, as another reviewer alluded to, I thought it totally ridiculous when Wanderer took such personal offense at the humans' attempts to remove her parasitic family members from other humans. It seemed rather hypocritical to call the humans "monsters" for trying to save themselves when Wanderer and her kind had effectively taken over and killed entire species for their personal benefit.
So, sorry to those who loved "The Host", but I really did not enjoy this book at all. I found Meyer's "Twilight" series very entertaining, but wish I had passed on this one.
 Entertaining and Thought-provoking May 6, 2008
22 out of 38 found this review helpful
For those YA's that love the Twilight series, there isn't anything too 'adult' in this book, even though that is the intended audience purportedly. Meyer's has a way of creating vulnerable yet strong characters in her books and she doesn't let us down here. In many ways her characters remind a lot of those in Amy Lane's Little Goddess series (which is definitely more 'Adult') or her latest series (more YA) in that they bear their suffering and tragedy with a solid core of ethics and morality that, while at times may stretch believability, still provide an emotional catharsis and identification with those better parts of ourselves. Love conquers all, even across species, isn't exactly a new theme, but Meyer really brings a great story and environment to life, that transports us while we are in it. There are also hints of Nalini Singh's Psy-Changeling series here, which have always had a Pavlovian reaction for me: the 'emotionless' breaking through their conditioning, experiencing love for the first time, and all the heartache and joy that can encompass.
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