Mind invasion of the very pleasant kind! (The Host - Stephenie Meyer)

Member Name: burtybookworm

Product:	The Host - Stephenie Meyer
Date:	10/08/09 (98 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: an all round interesting and engrossing read

Disadvantages: took me a couple of chapters to get to grips with

If you are in to books and keep pretty up to date with the best sellers lists in fiction, (that is if, like me, you spend half your lunch break most weeks gazing at the lovely new books out in the book shops!) it would be hard to miss this author and the massive popularity of her previous series of books for young adults about a normal girl falling in love with a vampire. So successful was this series, it was made into a film with the further books being made soon I assume.

As a follow up, Stephanie Meyer has targeted "The Host" at an older audience although it has a similar sci-fi/another world theme about it. The idea of this story is that another world of aliens has taken over the Earths population by entering the minds of humans but leaving their human bodies in tact. These centipede-like aliens believe that humans are corrupt and evil and the spread of disease is out of control, so by controlling their minds they are creating a peaceful land with no need for war, violence, disease or hatred. (they have medicines to cure all illnesses and afflictions.)

As you can see, this idea isn't entirely new to the science fiction genre, and as I don't really read this sort of stuff, I would never be inclined to pick it up if I didn't already have an understanding of the authors writing style. Added to the fact that I enjoyed Meyers previous books, I was further intrigued by the story surrounding the "host body and its new occupant.

The story is this. Wanderer, one of these centipede aliens, is placed in the human body of Melanie. Unlike most of Wanderers kind who enter human bodies, she is unable to entirely suppress Melanie. Usually what happens is that the aliens enter the bodies and before long the humans just fade away. Melanie is part of a small group of humans who have thus far refused to be captured by the alien invaders and has hidden, along with her brother and boyfriend, for years before eventually being captured resulting in Wanderers presence in her body.
Melanie now refuses to leave Wanderer to her body so effectively she and Wanderer both share the same mind, although Wanderer is in control for most of the time.

Despite the resentment of both sides, Wanderer and Melanie are soon reunited when they realise they have the same goal and they go in search of Melanie's younger brother Jamie and her boyfriend Jared....

Once this last plot summary was revealed, I was hooked enough to get the book and I wasn't disappointed. it's a fairly hefty book and the first few chapters were hard to get my head round and made me worry slightly that this was just a little too sci fi for me; as I have mentioned, most sci-fi things go straight over my head so all the mention of host bodies and dealings with outer space were alien to me (ha ha). However, I wasn't put off and slowly the author explains everything fully and I was gripped by Melanie and Wanderers plight.

There are some definite similarities to the Twilight Series I found and I couldn't help but compare the way in which the main characters were drawn. It seemed that Melanie was a stronger version of Bella from the Twilight books and Jeb (Melanie's uncle) seemed to be made from a similar mould to that of the wise Billy Black from the same series.

The strongest similarity between the two however seems to be the love triangle - and in this case love square - that occurs in each book. Melanie and Wanderer both find it difficult to cope with each others strong feelings towards Jared and equally it is complicated even further when Ian, another member of the rebel group to remain human, falls in love with Wanderer. In a similar vein to the dilemma presented to Bella in the Twilight series between her, Jacob and Edward, the body of Melanie is constantly torn between her conflicting feelings for Ian and Jared.

At first I found this storyline irritating, after all Meyer has already played a similar scenario out before. However, I remembered how well she does at presenting the agony of love and how wonderfully descriptive she can be about characters feelings and this is her main strength as a writer. Unlike Bella, (who, if you have read my reviews you will know irritated me immensely for most of the books) Wanderers kind spirit is evened out with Melanie's much more practical human one and so the love storylines are not as annoyingly sickening as Bella's. The way in which the characters emotions are drawn out really got me involved with the characters feelings and it was this main area that became the hook for me.

As for the science fiction part of the book, I am no expert. However, I don't believe that the author herself is an expert and so her perception of such a genre appealed to me. The story was intriguing extremely engrossing and very simplistic. She didn't take anything too complicated to understand and for that I was grateful, I could follow without getting too lost or bogged down in the science of it. As well as that, action and suspense were thrown in for good measure; I was unable to put the book down at some points which meant many a late night finding out what happened next.
Overall, Meyer manages to pull a difficult genre off very well and not alienate her audience (there I go again!) and blind them with too much sci-fi jargon. As always, her characters and their emotional lives are the main attraction and she had my undivided attention. I am keen to see what she comes with next.

Summary: Sci-Fi for beginners!