REVIEW: The Host (The Host #1) by Stephenie Meyer

The Host by Stephenie Meyer

My rating: 

“Perhaps there could be no joy on this planet without an equal weight of pain to balance it out on some unknown scale.”

So I'm a little upset that my original review got deleted. So here I am starting again.

After finishing this book, I had a satisfied smile on my face.

I love this book. I just absolutely love it to bits. I would have to say that Twilight (despite my love for it), is nothing compared to the Host. This book is so much more than a scifi novel with a love-square. This book was about humanity, love, friendship, family and survival. It was about finding where you belong.

The story follows Wanderer who was a soul. She taken the body of Melanie Stryder as a host. It was supposed to be easy. It was supposed to be a smooth process. But, Melanie did not want to let Wanderer control her body. She was fighting back. But Wanderer, convinces herself, that this was her body now, not Melanie's.

Wanderer was struggling. It was uncommon for a host to still be there when the Soul gets implanted to the body. Melanie was strong, and she was fighting dirty. She was feeding Wanderer images of what her life was, and how she wanted to be with them again. Wanderer was developing sympathy towards her host. She shouldn't, but she did. She decided to help Melanie find Jared (the boyfriend) and Jaime (the brother). But up to what lengths could Wanderer help Melanie? Would she be willing to give up her body? Will there be a way to do so?

I want to start taking about Wanderer/Wanda.

I really liked her. It seems that all Souls were supposed to be really nice. They were peace loving creatures - so Wanda was not very different. She was almost the opposite of Melanie, although, they do share the same passion in helping the people they love. Wanda was selfless. Sometimes, a bit too much, as Ian would say. She always wants what the best for everyone, even at the cost of her giving up her own existence. She developed and deep connection with Melanie - Melanie did too. They both connected with each other, in a way they didn't know was possible. They compromised. And when they did, living with each other sort of worked for them.

While Wanda was a peace-loving gentle person, Melanie, was a little bit the opposite. She was more agressive, and strong. And at the time, they were together in Melanie's body, Wanda, sort of got a little bit of that strength from her. They both learned from each other. At some point, treated each other as the same, only with different thoughts.

Thank you, Wanda. My sister. I will never forget you.

Be happy, Mel. Enjoy it all. Appreciate it for me.

The way Stephenie made these two live with each other in one body was really realistic for me. At first, I was kind of thinking how that will work, but as I was reading it, it made a lot of sense. Mel hasn't left her body completely, so Wanda was still getting part of Mel's emotion, especially when it comes to Jared and Jaime.

Honestly, if it wasn't for the movie, I'll hate Jared so much. The movie toned his character down. In the book, he was mean and very intolerant to any thoughts of Mel still being inside her body. He was very physical with her. Especially, the first time they met, after Wanda took over. I get that he was angry that everyone he loved got taken away from him, including Mel, but still. He didn't even regard to Wanda as a human, he called her an "It". He was very stubborn. But one thing good about him was, he kept his promise on taking care of Jaime.

I want to talk about Ian. Who's Ian? Well, he's just the love of my life. I want my own Ian. This was how Wanda describes him, and so would I. He was just the purest male character I've ever read in like ever!

“And I started to cry again, realizing that it must be changing him, too, this man who was kind enough to be a soul but strong as only a human could be.”

Ian was everything Jared was not for me. Ian was, at first, hostile as well. He even tried to strangle Wanda (mainly I think because of the influence of his stupid brother, Kyle), but it changed, he started to see reason. When he did, oh he was just the most sweetest, dedicated, amazing, cool, loveable guy ever. I could put on some more adjectives, but I'm too lazy to enumerate them all. All I'm saying is that, Ian was amazing.

This book is not all about the scifi, as you may already know. This has romance, so let me give you a short summary on how it works.

Mel loves Jared. Jared loves Mel. Wanda sort of loves Jared. Wanda sort of loves Ian. Ian loves Wanda.

It is a Love Box as my boyfriend Jake Abel said in one of his interviews. It was complicated, but then Stephenie, made it in a way that you will be rooting for everyone in that love box. You want everyone to be happy. Even Jared. In the end, it worked out really well. I am so happy it did.

Jaime and Uncle Jeb are two of my favorite side characters. They were the most human among the humans if you ask me. Uncle Jeb was a wise leader. People think he's crazy, but I guess its because he always thinks out of the box. Weird stuff come out of him all the time - after a while it all make sense. Jaime was a kid, but he understood more than all the adults did. I think he was the first to believe, that somehow, his sister was still in there. And he was right.

If you think, that this book was just about aliens, romance, and survival, then you are so wrong. This book for me, has an underlying message, that I think most readers fail to get. This book was also about humanity. And I didn't mean us specifically, but the being human part. Sometimes, being human is not enough to be human. If you've read the scenes from the caves. You'd understand why, I am saying this.

Stephenie made this book in the POV of the Soul. Why? I think, its because she wanted the readers to see the POV of someone who is not like us, and see what they see. It is not about the aliens. I'm not saying, that she is giving us the POV of a real alien, just someone different from us, she just used the alien as a character figuratively. Am I making sense? I feel like I'm not explaing it too well.

Let me try again.

Sometimes, we humans (us) can be cruel to one another. We fight with each other, we cheat, we steal, we hurt, we destroy each other. I'm not saying all of us are, but come on, most of us are. And mostly, we are mean and unforgiving, to those people who are the least like us. We tend to judge people, even though we don't personally know them. We judge them, just basically on what they're wearing and what they look like. Again, I'm not generalizing, I'm just saying, most do. And also, humans tend to react negatively to things they do not understand, and Wanda was something they did not understand.

The caves scenes were the most crutial parts of the story if you ask me. There were a lot of good, eye-opening scenes in there that I was not expecting.

Stephenie Meyer. I hope you'll get your lazy ass up and write the sequels for this trilogy! You are an evil person for making so many fans wait too long for them.

What else can I say? I love this book. I love Mel and Wanda. I love Ian, Jaime and Jeb. Sorry Jared, No love for you.

If you haven't read this and you're a fan of scifi with a hint of romance, then I highly recommend this. If you have read it, please comment below so I'll know how you thought of it.

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