The Host by Stephenie Meyer

The Host by Stephenie Meyer

Reading level: Adult
Hardcover: 624 pages
Publisher: Little, Brown and Company

Melanie Stryder refuses to fade away.
Our world has been invaded by an unseen enemy. Humans become hosts for these invaders, their minds taken over while their bodies remain intact and continue their lives apparently unchanged. Most of humanity has succumbed.
When Melanie, one of the few remaining "wild" humans is captured, she is certain it is her end. Wanderer, the invading "soul" who has been given Melanie's body, was warned about the challenges of living inside a human: the overwhelming emotions, the glut of senses, the too vivid memories. But there was one difficulty Wanderer didn't expect: the former tenant of her body refusing to relinquish possession of her mind.
Wanderer probes Melanie's thoughts, hoping to discover the whereabouts of the remaining human resistance. Instead, Melanie fills Wanderer's mind with visions of the man Melanie loves—Jared, a human who still lives in hiding. Unable to separate herself from her body's desires, Wanderer begins to yearn for a man she has been tasked with exposing. When outside forces make Wanderer and Melanie unwilling allies, they set off on a dangerous and uncertain search for the man they both love.

Review

This book was amazing. I loved it.
The characters were well developed and the plot was really good.

Our world is invaded by the souls -bodyless creatures that live in diferent planets using the bodies of their populations as hosts-.

Wanderer is a Soul destinated to the Earth. Melanie is part of the human resistance. Both in the same body, both knowing what each other thinks.
Wanda (wanderer's nickname) is a kind character -always putting the others before herself and always worried, thinking about if she's doing the right thing-, while Melanie is very determined and knows exactly what she wants.
But both of them are strong and fighters, and both of them would do anything to keep save Jamie and Jared, without worring about what happens to themselves.

I love Ian. He's such a lovely character. A very nice and cute guy; maybe a little bit too protective, but knowing Wanda it is OK to be like that. My first impression of him wasn't that good but as the story continue you get to know him better.

Jamie and Jared are good characters too.
Jamie is so sweet. I found it very funny everytime he complainend because he thought the others treated him as a child, but the truth was that he was the one that wanted to do things that wasn't for a boy to do.
Jared was a character that sometimes made me be angry although I knew it was just natural for him to act like that because of his strong personality and because all the thing going on was very hard for him.

Jeb a Doc touched my heard too.
Jeb was very bossy and sometimes seemed a bit too impulsive, but in reallity he was the most sensible; he was aware of things that others overlooked and was impartial -he acted in the same way with everyone, no matter what they were-.
Doc turned to be an affectionate person. He tries to find a way to save the humans and return them their body but he feels so bad everytime something turns wrong in his experiments. He cares a lot about the others and is very trustworthy.

The other characters were nice as well, though I couldn't help but to think that Maggie and Sharon were way too stupid and unsympathetic.

The story run in a good pace and with lots of descriptions that made me want to really be there, walking where they were walking, seeing what they were seeing and feeling what they were feeling.

Overall: An amazing book written in a very nice way with which Stephenie shows us again the great writer she is.

Here's a trailer I've just found:

Now I only hope we can soon have the sequels "The Soul" and "The Seeker".
Good job Stephenie!*