I recently read The Host written by Stephanie Meyer, more widely known for the annoyingly popular (and annoyingly addictive) Twilight Saga. I’m not a huge fan of Meyer’s writing style, but the standalone novel came highly recommended, and with the qualification that it was not at all like Twilight. After hearing good reviews of the book from several people, I decided to give it a try. I picked it up the other day and I thought I would give you guys a heads up.
The Host is a futuristic “apocalyptic” novel working off the premise that an invasion of aliens (who somewhat inexplicably call themselves “Souls”) has resulted in the virtual decimation of the human race – except not really. The souls are centipede-esque parasitic creatures that survive by inserting themselves into the brain of a host creature – in this case, humans. The human in subsequently enslaved by the Soul until, little by little, the consciousness of the person fades away, replaced entirely by the Soul in a human suit. If this sounds familiar, it’s probably because you read Animorphs, and the concept is lifted pretty much right off the pages of that series.
I’m always a little ticked by a lack of creativity, but I actually really liked the concept in Animorphs, so I figured I would plow through here.
Anyway, there are, naturally, uninfested survivors living day by day, hiding from the Souls who would capture and infest them. One of them, a woman named Melanie, is caught and infested with a Soul called Wanderer.
Wanderer is sweet, kind, pacifistic, and extremely altruistic, and Melanie is strong enough that she utterly refuses to fade away, so we have an interesting dynamic. Eventually (by which I mean by page like 50), Wanderer is convinced by Melanie to go and find Melanie’s younger brother Jamie and the love of her life, Jared. What follows is an inspiring story of an outsider being accepted by a group of hostile humans and facing a fierce internal struggle between loyalty to her old people and her new people.
Or something like that.
The Good – Meyer’s writing is typically enthralling. I blew through this book pretty quickly, and enjoyed reading it. Her characters are sympathetic if not as realistic as I usually prefer, so you do get caught up in their lives. Her male characters are strong and masculine, which is a nice change from Edward, who might as well go shopping at
The Bad – Meyer suffers from the same affliction she does in the Twilight books – she’s just not a very talented writer. She touted this book as her big novel for Adults, in direct contrast with the twilight series. This is clearly misleading, as her prose totters around on unsteady legs, no more complex or insightful than the perennial classic Hop on Pop. Furthermore, everything is just too simplistic. Her characters face difficult decisions but they approach them without one iota of complex thought. What you see is what you get here, which makes this good popcorn material but not much else.
The Ugly – Here’s where the nitty gritty comes in. I think this book is ultimately a failure. Meyer brings up an important philosophical debate here and takes an extremely backwards position on it. The entire book – all nearly 700 pages of it – is a chronicle of how Wanderer wins the love of the humans, and, by extension, the reader. She is sweet, sincere, kind, brave, and she is well-loved. The problem? She’s still enslaving a human being. I find it utterly unbelievable that the majority of the human characters – including Melanie’s lover and brother – would even remotely consider choosing for Wanderer to stay in Melanie’s body. Regardless of how wonderful Wanderer is, the fact remains that she had imprisoned a human and stolen her dignity and her freedom in order to experience human life herself. This is something that is so intrinsically unacceptable, ethically speaking, that I couldn’t get around it and let myself like Wanderer. Every time Meyer tried to make me, I just remembered that all of Wanderer’s wonderfulness was at the blatant expense of the human prisoner she kept locked up in her own mind.
SPOILER ALERT!!!!
I had to find out the end of the book before I got there because the idea of Wanderer staying in Melanie’s body until the end infuriated me so utterly that I flat-out refused to read the book if I found out it ended that way. You’ve probably guessed that it doesn’t, as I did read the entire book, but there are still a lot of surprises in store.
END SPOILER!!!!!
Anyway, all that having been said, The Host makes for interesting if not an enlightening read, and I recommend it for a good rainy day.
Final Verdict: 2.5 body-snatching slugs out of 5
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