The Host (The Host, #1)

by Stephenie Meyer

The Host is told from the Wanderer's point of view. The Wanderer also known as Wanda is an alien life form inserted into the human body of Melainie Stryder. The twist comes into to play when Melanie begins to offer resistance and makes Wanda's life a scary misery.

Wanda was an extremely enjoyable character to read about. She was good and kind and cared about other people. She was extremely likeable too, but at times, I felt that she was a little too accommodating and self-sacrificing. On the other hand, we have Melanie, a person who loves to make herself known inside Wanda's head. Melanie is the exact opposite to Wanda. She is tough and fierce and extremely strong willed. Together they make a really interesting and fun combination and I couldn't help rooting for them as their bond and sisterhood friendship developed. Aside from the Wanda, I enjoyed Jeb and his really crazy attitude towards Wanda and I loved the bond between Wanda and Melanie's brother Jamie.

One thing that I was extremely conflicted about was the romance. We have Melanie and Wanda sharing the same body. Melanie is in love with Jared and Wanda seeing memories of Jared starts to kind of love him too. But later on, Wanda begins to fall a little for Ian in Melanie's body. Wow! That's really awkward. The issue that I had with the romance was that I was only cool with one part of it. We have the Mel and Jared part; Mel and Jared's relationship felt so insta-lovey. They spend four weeks together and already Mel is talking about her love for him. The reason the romance felt as though it was so fast was because it is told in two flashbacks. Jared is also 26 while Mel is 16 at the time. On the other hand, we have Ian and Wanda. It was awesome to see their friendship grow slowly into something more and watching two people with the same peaceful nature fall for each other.

This book starts painfully slowly, but after the 100 page mark, it begins to become more interesting. I felt as though the story could have been told in a lot less pages than it was. At times, the dialogue and plot felt over dramatic and sappy.

The Host isn't really a sci fi novel, because in a sci fi novel the world building is really detailed, but it is a book about the joys and pains of humanity, the trials towards acceptance and moving forward towards a peaceful world.