Meyer, Stephenie: The Host
The Host
Writer: Stephenie Meyer
Genre: Science Fiction
Pages: 619
I need to be honest here: since reading Twilight, I've developed an intense dislike for Stephenie Meyer as a person. Like J.K. Rowling, Meyer's popularity has transformed her into a book diva, giving her far more power in the entertainment world than I feel is necessary. Like Rowling, I've come to the conclusion that Meyer is FAR TOO IN LOVE with her own work, and while, generally speaking, it's not a bad thing for a writer to love his/her work, there's a certain line when the writer becomes too involved, too defensive, and frankly, too much of a fan-girl of her own work to be objective about it or objective over any criticisms about it. J.K. Rowling has long given me this impression, and I've gotten this impression about Stephenie Meyer as well.
Appropriate, since both are writers of stupendously popular YA series that get kids into reading. Not that being the author of a wildly popular YA series should equal this kind of diva-ness, I'm just saying it's interesting to find this type of writerly personality in the same genre among authors who've achieved similar levels of success. And honestly, I'm not jealous. I'd love to have their royalities. I just wish they weren't such divas about the whole thing.
But like Rowling, my dislike hasn't stopped me from reading the books. I may not be able to stand the writer, but I can't stop myself from reading the books. It's made me a little more critical in my approach, but honestly, I couldn't have ignore Meyer's The Host even if I'd wanted to. It's adult SF, and it's written by a woman. And we all know I make a point of reading SF written by women.
The premise: it seems like the typical body-snatcher story, but it's the farthest thing from. Told from the POV of the alien, the member of a race calling themselves "souls," we learn that the soul is inserted into the human body where it takes control of the brain, scours the host's memories for clues to the whereabouts of other "wild" humans, and then continues to lead a human's life. The host's personality is supposed to fade away. Unfortunately, Wanderer isn't so lucky. Melanie is resilient and relentless, hiding the whereabouts of the people she loves most in the world, once meeting these people via Melanie's memories, Wanderer falls in love too. A mutual enemy makes Wanderer and Melanie allies, which launches them on a journey to find those Melanie loves. It's a journey that teaches both Wanderer and Melanie what it means to be human, and what it means to be a soul as well.
Yes, there be spoilers.
So let's be honest. The first 100 pages were pretty darn boring. I appreciated some of the world-building Meyer was setting up and revealing, but there was little to no conflict, and how could there be? The souls are a peaceful race (save for the fact they take over a host's brain and all) and abhor even the thought of violence. That's one of the reasons they took Earth over, because based on all the media output, the souls believed the humans were nothing but a violent, barbaric race that needed to be saved, and in turn, they could help save the planet too.
Sure, there's a LITTLE conflict: Melanie and Wanderer play tug of war, and then of course there's Seeker, who's been assigned to Wanderer to learn everything she can from Melanie's memories in order to find more humans. Seeker clashes with every soul she meets, and with Wanderer, it seems personal.
But for all this conflict, it wasn't enough or I didn't care or both. I wasn't fond of Melanie, and Wanderer had little to no personality for me to really want to latch on to, and I just didn't care what became of these characters. I would've put the book down, especially given the length, but I knew part of the premise was how both Melanie and Wanderer are in love with the same human man, and I really wanted to see what Meyer did with that.
After the first 100, things get a little better. We meet more humans, and it becomes clear that Wanderer is not trusted. This is good conflict, but unfortunately, Wanderer is a little too passive for her own good. She keeps to herself, stays quiet, and keeps Melanie on a tight leash. The latter makes sense: no one would believe Wanderer if she said Melanie was still inside because the human resistance is convinced that Wanderer is leading more Seekers to them.
What changes? The leader of the resistance is Jeb, Melanie's uncle, and he's crazy and fun and willing to learn. Her fate is temporarily place into the hands of Jared, who can't bring himself to kill the body of the woman he loved, even though he knows what's inside and hates that with a burning passion. And then there's Jamie, Melanie's little brother, who manages to latch on to Wanderer pretty quick, understanding the difference between Wanderer and Melanie, but willing to accept Wanderer for who and what she is, especially when learning Wanderer didn't choose her host and she wasn't even on the planet when the souls invaded.
And so, the story unfolds. Slowly, I might add. It takes time for Wanderer to become part of this human community, time for her to be trusted. She takes a human name, Wanda, and slowly begins to tell the tales of her former lives living in hosts of other races on other planets. She becomes her own person as Melanie stays her own person, and Melanie doesn't take kindly to the fact that Wanda is just as in love with Jared as she is.
It's kind of funny, once Jared pulls his head out of his ass and stops acting so violently towards Wanda. Melanie's quite jealous and doesn't want Jared touching her body because it's not Melanie, it's Wanda. And then there's the fact that Wanda is slowly falling in love with Ian, whom Melanie can't stand and doesn't want to have touching her body either (because she thinks of the body and hers and her body wants Jared). It's an interesting conflict, but if there's anything to unite them, it's Jamie, the little brother.
Once I got into this book. I enjoyed it. I still say it's too slow, and I think Meyer took WAY TOO LONG to get to the solution of Melanie and Wanda's conflict (because Wanda knew it all along). But there's a lot of good things Meyer is doing. For starters, our protagonist is not entirely helpless even though she's a pacifist. She's an admirable character who makes tough choices and manages to save lives of both humans and souls, even that of the Seeker, who hates her with a passion. Parts of this book reminded me of Cormac McCarthy's The Road, and part of the exploration of the conflict between human and alien and the survival of both races reminded me of Octavia Butler's Lilith's Brood. This is definitely soft SF, and it's funny, but it's dystopic as well in a rather ironic way, when you consider how much the souls abhor violence and war.
Though, it's not a perfect book. There are plot holes, especially at the beginning when it seems that Wanderer can't remember her previous lives, and then suddenly she does and she's teaching from her experience. That bugged me, pun intended. :)
My Rating
Buy the Paperback: it's close to "Worth the Cash" but I really think it depends on how you approach this book. For Stephenie Meyer fans, the book's a must. Yes, it's slower than Twilight and the narrative voice is different, but it's still MEYER. She said in an interview, and for once I liked what she said, that she takes scary ideas and turns them into love stories. This is no doubt a love story, but not a simple, sappy, or sentimental one. She's also said this book is SF for people who don't like SF, and that's another great description. This is actually a great introduction to SF as a genre: you explore known themes (what does it mean to be human) but in a setting that's both tangible, real, and not overwrought with SF conventions or info-dumps. Now if you're an SF reader, then it's a little more tricky: those who like SFR will probably really enjoy this book and how Meyer resolves that particular conflict. Those who like soft SF/dystopian SF will probably also like this title, but just know there's not a whole lot of time in the 600 + pages spent on discussing the souls and their technology, though it is covered and I appreciate that. What drives this book are the relationships and the themes. Sometimes, especially toward the start, I thought Meyer was getting a little TOO preachy, possibly forcing her own morals onto the characters (in one of Melanie's memories, we learn Jared won't sleep with her because she's not yet eighteen and he's 26 or something--admirable, but not too realistic, especially in the world she's created where real human contact is so hard to come by), but overall, the theme of taking the path of least violence worked out pretty darn well, and I was surprised by the solutions that brought about the end.
And it goes without saying that if you like your SF action-pack or science-packed, you just need to leave this book alone. Since I read it all, I find I'm glad I read it and plan on reading the sequel that I heard is coming one day. However, I'm not sure I needed to read it in HARDCOVER, because it lacks the sheer addictive quality to the story and narrative that, say, Twilight had. But it's also a little more mature as far as characters go, with a bit more depth in terms of theme and personal responsibility. This makes for a nice adult SF debut for Meyer, and since I did spend the money on the hardcover, I'm glad. :)
Next up:
Book: Surprise, surprise! I'm not going to tell you! Don't worry, at the rate I'm reading, you'll know why soon enough.
Graphic Novel: V for Vendetta by Alan Moore