Book review: The Host by Stepanie Meyer
Those of you who've seen my Twi-mocking can probably guess that I'm about to skewer the book, right? I'm putting it all under a cut, though, in case anyone is planning on reading it, I wouldn't want to spoil the entirely predictable ending, now would I? Of course not. You too can suffer through read hundreds of pages of breathless prose of a teen romance masquerading as an adult SF book.
First, why am I reading The Host? Book club. It was the pick of one of the members, and I really like her, and I'll vent my spleen here and be able to come up with some things I liked about the book, some questions I had etc, for book discussion. But being nice will only be possible if I get some of the venom out of my system beforehand.
First the disclaimer: I listened to the book on CD. I tried to read it, so I could skim what I knew would be the awful parts, but it was so boring and so poorly written, I knew I would need the "captive audience" part of the school commute to get me through it. The reader was Kate Reading and she was fabulous. I probably would have ditched the book, book club or not, if she didn't have such a good voice. She differentiated well between characters, seemed to be extra breathless to the point of mockery when it was needed, and her voicing of Melanie and Wanderer was very good. There were a few points in the book when I actually laughed, and realised that I was laughing not because the dialog was so good -it wasn't- but purely because of the reader, her voice conveyed the emotion that the author probably intended, but the dialog didn't.
Let's start with what is rapidly becoming my standard complaint with SO many authors. Who the hell edited this thing? Or didn't as the case may be:
-- It was toooooo looooooooooong. By easily 1/3. Seriously long in parts.
-- No different "voice" from a grammatical standpoint between any of the characters. Seriously. The 13 year old -Jaimie- had the dialog of an 8 year old and everyone else spoke like teenagers.
-- Emotion etc was always conveyed in exactly the same way, with the same expressions. Which of course I can't remember right now.
-- The writing sounded like it was intended for teenage girls. Oh wait, it was. BS on the "adult" novel. Let me get into that in a bit, the misfiling of this book under "adult SF".
-- If a scene, no matter how much you like it, has no bearing on the story, you freaking cut it. (Hi cassandra7!). I'll kick and scream before I cut something I love, and even if I don't end up cutting it, damn it, NOBODY IS PUBLISHING MY CRAP, I GET TO KEEP IT! She doesn't.
OK. Those are my main editing gripes.
Next. How the HELL did this end up being called a novel for adults? Bzzzt! And SF?
There is an SF theme, but it's not the delved into at all. There is only one book (Shards of honor. It's incredible) that beautifully blends romance and SF but the SF part was well developed, and the whole romance thing was... subtle. Stephanie Meyer does "subtle" with a trowel, and "obvious" with a ton of bricks. I mean, really. Anyhow.
There were interesting SF themes in the book, or what might have been interesting if written by someone who can write, but they were drowned about by the drivel. The one highlight of the book, which I'll come back to later, would have been fascinating, but she forgot about it later.
So, we've established so far that The Host is an overlong, poorly written romance intended for the 15 year old set. The science fiction part was a sham to give her a coverup.
A coverup for what? Abuse of course!
Meyer seems to have a thing for hitting, for women being abused by the men they love. Wanderer/Melanie was repeatedly beaten by her beloved Jared (gag, hack, hurl), but that was ok because it was Jaaaaaared! (Oh the reader! She's nailed the Jaaared! thing beautifully. She pushed it just a tiny bit of a squeal beyond believable to mockery.) I think the saddest part is that there was never any questionning of this. It was obvious. Melanie was now hosting an alien in her body, it wasn't really Melanie, so we can go ahead and beat her. It was... pretty awful.
Let me backtrack and give a summary of the book. Alien species that call themselves Souls on Earth invade Earth and take over. They're gentle creatures who are intent on saving violent aliens (that would be us) from themselves. Supposedly. A few humans do manage to avoid being hosts to these parasites. One Wanderer, a well known Soul, is put in the body of Melanie, who loves Jared and Jamie. Melanie, unlike what humans usually do, does not go and remains in Wanderer's head. Little by little Wanderer falls in love with Jaaaaaaaaaaared and comes to love Melanie's brother, Jamie. They figure out that they might be hidden in the desert, go to find them, find them, but of course, Melanie isn't Melanie because she's been possessed or eaten, and they beat her up, but little by little Wanderer and her gentle self win them all over. Wanderer falls in love with Ian, but her body and Melanie inside her love Jaaaaaaaaaared, so this is a problem. Then, because of various boring improbable events she tells them how to remove Souls from their brains, decides to give Melanie back her body, and that she must kill herself, because she's a traitor to her species, only she isn't killed, she's put into a new body, that of a woman-child who is weak and... wait. Next point.
Meyer has some type of pedophilia thing going on. I mean, really. Edward, the hundreds year old vampire hanging out with a teenager (and going to fucking high school. Really?). When Jared and Melanie meet, she's 17, he's 26. He turns down her advances (shaming a girl for wanting it?) but eventually they do the deed. Wanderer, who is very very old, is put into the body of a small childlike women, who is 16, almost 17, though Wanderer lies and says 17, almost 18, so she can start having sex with Ian right away. The thing is, they choose that body for her. It is fucking creepy, that small/weak/young girl with an older guy thing, adding to the lack of power of Meyer's girls and women in relationships.
Here is what I find perhaps the most disturbing. Melanie, as written, is a strong character. She's the only one who rings true: teenage/early 20s girl, which seems to be about Meyer's only forte, the only type she can write believably. (Provided the teenage girl is breathless and in luuuuuve, and melts into a puddle of goo when her guy shows up. She's have no idea how to right Katniss or Hermione). Melanie is strong, physically and emotionally. She's intelligent. She is capable. Then... Jaaaaaaaaaared! She turns to subservient mush at the mere mention of her beloved. This is doubly bad, imo, because the message is that even strong girls like to be beaten and dominated by the men they love. Yech.
Melanie's brother, Jamie. OMG. Yech. He was supposed to be 13, but spoke and acted like a child. That just made things a bit creepy in places.
Jeb is a caricature of the old salt of the earth character. The odd man who was the only one who understood. Wise, and perceptive. Thoughtful. And so completely all of above as to be 100% fake.
She wrote herself into a corner on the ending. She wanted the maudlin drama of Wanderer deciding to die because she betrayed her species, but she couldn't go through with it. If she had, I would have respected the book a teeny tiny bit more. But no. A save had to happen, born of violence of course (knife to someone's throat), with the best of intentions, of course, and Wanderer accepts it, with no issues at all. Of course. She had said she no longer wanted to be a parasite, but in the end she was: the body they found for her had been owned by a human, but their previous Soul had subdued that human, so it really was vacant. Only, really, not, you know? She's still using a body of a human who was killed to benefit her species. Now it isn't like the initial occupant was going to come back (unlike Melanie), but that's still a fine philosophical line, and Meyer just kicks (purple desert) dust over it and pretends it's not there.
The whole storyline was SO at odds with itself. Wanderer portrays the Souls as gentle creatures, yet they take over planets, and don't listen to objections. An internal contradiction, but the story couldn't work without it, so more purple desert dust.
And the one point that could have saved the book -maybe- if she'd bothered to mention it again. At one point, Melanie/Wanderer, Jaaaaaaaaaaared, and Ian see a family: two hosting humans and their non-hosting child. Wanderer is confident that if the Soul parents wanted to keep their human child, whom they clearly loved, the Souls wouldn't take him away from them, and would let the child stay. And that was the only interesting point of the book, in my opinion. Because it represents out, and the next generation, and hope. But it's never spoken of again, of course.
All in all, a thoroughly dreadful book.
First, why am I reading The Host? Book club. It was the pick of one of the members, and I really like her, and I'll vent my spleen here and be able to come up with some things I liked about the book, some questions I had etc, for book discussion. But being nice will only be possible if I get some of the venom out of my system beforehand.
First the disclaimer: I listened to the book on CD. I tried to read it, so I could skim what I knew would be the awful parts, but it was so boring and so poorly written, I knew I would need the "captive audience" part of the school commute to get me through it. The reader was Kate Reading and she was fabulous. I probably would have ditched the book, book club or not, if she didn't have such a good voice. She differentiated well between characters, seemed to be extra breathless to the point of mockery when it was needed, and her voicing of Melanie and Wanderer was very good. There were a few points in the book when I actually laughed, and realised that I was laughing not because the dialog was so good -it wasn't- but purely because of the reader, her voice conveyed the emotion that the author probably intended, but the dialog didn't.
Let's start with what is rapidly becoming my standard complaint with SO many authors. Who the hell edited this thing? Or didn't as the case may be:
-- It was toooooo looooooooooong. By easily 1/3. Seriously long in parts.
-- No different "voice" from a grammatical standpoint between any of the characters. Seriously. The 13 year old -Jaimie- had the dialog of an 8 year old and everyone else spoke like teenagers.
-- Emotion etc was always conveyed in exactly the same way, with the same expressions. Which of course I can't remember right now.
-- The writing sounded like it was intended for teenage girls. Oh wait, it was. BS on the "adult" novel. Let me get into that in a bit, the misfiling of this book under "adult SF".
-- If a scene, no matter how much you like it, has no bearing on the story, you freaking cut it. (Hi cassandra7!). I'll kick and scream before I cut something I love, and even if I don't end up cutting it, damn it, NOBODY IS PUBLISHING MY CRAP, I GET TO KEEP IT! She doesn't.
OK. Those are my main editing gripes.
Next. How the HELL did this end up being called a novel for adults? Bzzzt! And SF?
There is an SF theme, but it's not the delved into at all. There is only one book (Shards of honor. It's incredible) that beautifully blends romance and SF but the SF part was well developed, and the whole romance thing was... subtle. Stephanie Meyer does "subtle" with a trowel, and "obvious" with a ton of bricks. I mean, really. Anyhow.
There were interesting SF themes in the book, or what might have been interesting if written by someone who can write, but they were drowned about by the drivel. The one highlight of the book, which I'll come back to later, would have been fascinating, but she forgot about it later.
So, we've established so far that The Host is an overlong, poorly written romance intended for the 15 year old set. The science fiction part was a sham to give her a coverup.
A coverup for what? Abuse of course!
Meyer seems to have a thing for hitting, for women being abused by the men they love. Wanderer/Melanie was repeatedly beaten by her beloved Jared (gag, hack, hurl), but that was ok because it was Jaaaaaared! (Oh the reader! She's nailed the Jaaared! thing beautifully. She pushed it just a tiny bit of a squeal beyond believable to mockery.) I think the saddest part is that there was never any questionning of this. It was obvious. Melanie was now hosting an alien in her body, it wasn't really Melanie, so we can go ahead and beat her. It was... pretty awful.
Let me backtrack and give a summary of the book. Alien species that call themselves Souls on Earth invade Earth and take over. They're gentle creatures who are intent on saving violent aliens (that would be us) from themselves. Supposedly. A few humans do manage to avoid being hosts to these parasites. One Wanderer, a well known Soul, is put in the body of Melanie, who loves Jared and Jamie. Melanie, unlike what humans usually do, does not go and remains in Wanderer's head. Little by little Wanderer falls in love with Jaaaaaaaaaaared and comes to love Melanie's brother, Jamie. They figure out that they might be hidden in the desert, go to find them, find them, but of course, Melanie isn't Melanie because she's been possessed or eaten, and they beat her up, but little by little Wanderer and her gentle self win them all over. Wanderer falls in love with Ian, but her body and Melanie inside her love Jaaaaaaaaaared, so this is a problem. Then, because of various boring improbable events she tells them how to remove Souls from their brains, decides to give Melanie back her body, and that she must kill herself, because she's a traitor to her species, only she isn't killed, she's put into a new body, that of a woman-child who is weak and... wait. Next point.
Meyer has some type of pedophilia thing going on. I mean, really. Edward, the hundreds year old vampire hanging out with a teenager (and going to fucking high school. Really?). When Jared and Melanie meet, she's 17, he's 26. He turns down her advances (shaming a girl for wanting it?) but eventually they do the deed. Wanderer, who is very very old, is put into the body of a small childlike women, who is 16, almost 17, though Wanderer lies and says 17, almost 18, so she can start having sex with Ian right away. The thing is, they choose that body for her. It is fucking creepy, that small/weak/young girl with an older guy thing, adding to the lack of power of Meyer's girls and women in relationships.
Here is what I find perhaps the most disturbing. Melanie, as written, is a strong character. She's the only one who rings true: teenage/early 20s girl, which seems to be about Meyer's only forte, the only type she can write believably. (Provided the teenage girl is breathless and in luuuuuve, and melts into a puddle of goo when her guy shows up. She's have no idea how to right Katniss or Hermione). Melanie is strong, physically and emotionally. She's intelligent. She is capable. Then... Jaaaaaaaaaared! She turns to subservient mush at the mere mention of her beloved. This is doubly bad, imo, because the message is that even strong girls like to be beaten and dominated by the men they love. Yech.
Melanie's brother, Jamie. OMG. Yech. He was supposed to be 13, but spoke and acted like a child. That just made things a bit creepy in places.
Jeb is a caricature of the old salt of the earth character. The odd man who was the only one who understood. Wise, and perceptive. Thoughtful. And so completely all of above as to be 100% fake.
She wrote herself into a corner on the ending. She wanted the maudlin drama of Wanderer deciding to die because she betrayed her species, but she couldn't go through with it. If she had, I would have respected the book a teeny tiny bit more. But no. A save had to happen, born of violence of course (knife to someone's throat), with the best of intentions, of course, and Wanderer accepts it, with no issues at all. Of course. She had said she no longer wanted to be a parasite, but in the end she was: the body they found for her had been owned by a human, but their previous Soul had subdued that human, so it really was vacant. Only, really, not, you know? She's still using a body of a human who was killed to benefit her species. Now it isn't like the initial occupant was going to come back (unlike Melanie), but that's still a fine philosophical line, and Meyer just kicks (purple desert) dust over it and pretends it's not there.
The whole storyline was SO at odds with itself. Wanderer portrays the Souls as gentle creatures, yet they take over planets, and don't listen to objections. An internal contradiction, but the story couldn't work without it, so more purple desert dust.
And the one point that could have saved the book -maybe- if she'd bothered to mention it again. At one point, Melanie/Wanderer, Jaaaaaaaaaaared, and Ian see a family: two hosting humans and their non-hosting child. Wanderer is confident that if the Soul parents wanted to keep their human child, whom they clearly loved, the Souls wouldn't take him away from them, and would let the child stay. And that was the only interesting point of the book, in my opinion. Because it represents out, and the next generation, and hope. But it's never spoken of again, of course.
All in all, a thoroughly dreadful book.