The Host by Stephenie Meyer

I've talked about the point of no return in books before. Seems they usually hit me when I'm already up late as it is, which makes sense considering the bulk of my reading time is done at night once I have all the kids asleep. Well Stephenie Meyer, author of the Twilight series, seems to be really good at hitting that point where there's still a good 100 or more pages to read. Last night I thought I would be safe around 1AM when I was ready to put the book down - no so. I didn't go to sleep until 3AM because I HAD to finish. So since, I deprived myself of sleep on account of the book, I figure it deserves a blog post to encourage all of you to go out and deprive yourselves of sleep.

In The Host, Earth has been invaded by a parasitic species called souls that must take a host body. The majority of the time, the soul completely takes over the mind and body of the host, generally erasing or muting the mind of the host. While they can skip from host to host before a natural life span is completely, they generally live in the host until the body dies and then they are implanted into a new host.

The souls believe that they are making each planet and species they take over better by bringing peace and harmony. Most souls are unable to lie so there is no deception and very little violence. They don't intentionally harm others and since they've rarely met resistance from the host mind, they don't consider themselves parasites.

By the time the story opens, Earth has almost entirely been taken over by the souls and only small pockets of rebels humans exist in hiding. Melanie Stryder is one of these rebels and the story opens with her losing the fight. The Wanderer (later known as Wanda) is implanted in Mel's body but unlike the majority of humans, Mel is able to fight back against Wanda. She keeps secrets from Wanda and eventually the two must learn to co-exist together in order to survive against a common enemy.

I won't tell you anymore plot than that - where would be the fun in that?

I found the book thought provoking and enjoyed watching the characters develop. Seeing Mel and Wanda struggle against each other gave new meaning to the idea of an internal struggle. For the last half of the book I knew what ending I hoped for and kept thinking I'd seen the path towards it before something would throw me off course so Meyer certainly kept me guessing. The struggle over the "violent" humans and the "peaceful" souls presented a struggle of the best and worst of human society and trying to find the middle ground.

The books ends with an "open door" so to speak allowing for a continuation of the plot in a sequel or new series for Meyer.