The Host

Genre: Fiction / Fantasy / Sci-fi
Publisher : Sphere

Stephenie Mayer

Summary

The earth has been invaded by a species that take over the minds of human hosts while leaving their bodies intact. An invading “soul” called Wanderer has been given a human body of a Melanie Stryder to try get information on the resisting humans. Wanderer didn’t expect to find Melanie refusing to give up control of her body or give up on her family.

As Melanie fills Wanderer’s thoughts with visions of humans who still lives in hiding, Wanderer begins to yearn for the humans and Melanies loved ones. Will the humans accept Wanderer or are they headed to their doom.

Review

I bought this book after a work colleague couldn’t recommended it highly enough. I can completely agree with her now.

There seems to be a very big divide on what people thought of this book, a hate it or love it relationship but no in between. The main pitfall people fall into when reviewing this book seems to be that they focus so much on her previous work and everything is compared to Twillight. This is a stand alone novel and when you read it you would understand this.

Firstly, I really enjoyed the back story. The aliens and their way of life was interesting to read. It was well developed and described. You continue to learn about the race throughout the book. Although there is romance in the book it is not the focus point.

The characters were great, very well developed and interesting. Even though you had two characters in one body you can really feel for both and there is just no way to pick sides. Wanderer is compassionate, caring and very deserving of the name as simple as it may be. Melanie is strong, a fighter and caring but in a strong way. You can feel the hatred from humans towards the aliens, the longing to be understood, these are all very real issues that people can relate too.

The ending was full of hope and happiness which left me in a daze of warm and fuzzy for days. Who doesn’t love that feeling after reading a book.

Conclusion

This book is definitely in my top 5 favourite books. Perhaps it is because I’m a sucker for fantasy books or maybe the story was just that good. I enjoyed reading it and look forward to reading it again!! I would recommend this to everyone, boys/girls you name it. The one piece of advice I would give is don’t judge a book by the authors previous works, this book is worth giving a chance to.