I loved this book. Loved it unapologetically, even though I gagged on Twilight and gave it an awful review. It is beautifully written, and the characters are truly believable and very endearing. It was the kind of book that, as soon as I had finished it, I had to flip back 50 pages or so just to re-read the ending because I loved it so much. No joke, I cried AND finished it in two nights of reading...both of which are pretty rare for me these days. ( )

This is a really great science-fiction book, which probably doesn't say much since it was my first. But The Host is more real than the twilight saga. The emotions are more vivid and the actions done were more something-human-would-do which I could relate with. I'd say everyone should read this, so good that I found it hard to put it down! The book almost made me cry too! Good book! ( )

Al principio no me causo mucho interes, no fue hasta el capitulo 9 que la historia ya tiene mas sentido, luego de ahi me facino fue muy facil de interpretar y claro una Historia asi solo pudo haber sido escrita poruna persona con sufieciente imaginación.
De Vampiros a Aliens, que puedo decir,.. Steph me sigue sorprendiendo =D ( )

I've never been big on sci-fi books but I've occasionally gotten into a few sci-fi movies/shows... I love me some Stargate SG-1 (Daniel Jackson= hot archaeologist... GREAT combo)! A friend was determined that I give this book a chance, so I decided to have a go. This one had two things working against it- (1) I don't do aliens and (2) If you've read my Twilight series reviews, you know how I feel about Stephanie Meyer's writing skill... However I was willing to hope that perhaps she was just bad at writing the Twilight series.

This book, for those who don't know, is essentially about an alien invasion. These aliens, called "souls", come to Earth and fuse themselves to the spines of humans. They then inhabit the human, obtaining all of its memories and essentially taking over the host's life. The human consciousness is suppressed until it essentially disappears. The souls then live out the lifespan of their host and then transfer to another. They do this on a number of planets, not just Earth. The book focuses on a soul named "Wanderer" who is put into the body of a young woman. Typically the transition is easy and the human is immediately suppressed. Instead, this one remains as a very annoying voice in the head of Wanderer and makes life very hard. Along with acquiring memories, a soul also acquires the human's feelings, so it wasn't long before Wanderer wanted to see "her" family as badly as her human host. From there it's just a long line of mishaps and troubles with people wanting to kill her.

There were a few things I enjoyed about the book. It was certainly a different story than my norm, and I'm always happy to try something new. The relationships were more tolerable than those written by Meyer in the Twilight Series. They were more "normal" if you will, in terms of not being over-the-top, mental case levels of attachment. I will admit, by the end of the book, I felt bad for the dilemma the Wanderer suffered from, wanting to remain on Earth with people she had become attached to, but knowing she was an unwelcome guest in a body that wasn't her own. It's one of the only Stephanie Meyer characters I've ever felt for, aside from Jacob Black. There were a few turns of events in the book which kept it interesting, and added some unique perspective (typically with the body-snatcher scenarios you only ever get the crazed aliens who only want to dominate the planet where-as with Wanderer you experience other emotions regarding the whole scenario).

Like the Twilight series, Stephanie Meyers has an unnatural talent for being long-winded. She takes four pages to say what I could write in a paragraph. She becomes overwhelmingly focused on details to the point where you're mentally begging her to move along! She is also painfully repetitive, reiterating facts every three or four chapters that really don't need to be repeated. For example, the "soul" abhors violence. Rather than say it once and hope the reader has the mental capacity to remember, she feels the need to remind us at every unfortunate turn of events that the soul refuses to defend herself because it would be violent. And then you're stuck reading multiple pages of her arguing with the voice in her head about it as though the argument will actually result in any change in personality.

The story lacks originality in my opinion... parasitic aliens who take over the human race. From Invasion of the Body Snatchers to Animorphs, the story line has been played out. I've heard some people say they couldn't put it down, but I'd have to say there was no easier task for me to perform. I was hoping to read the book quickly and return it to the loaner, but it ended up taking me about four weeks to push myself through. As I reached the third week and had only finished half the book, I had to force myself to sit down and read the rest before I saw the friend again.

The book had a very slow start, and the story took too many chapters to develop. Once the story was finally on a roll, it didn't stop. I mean, it would NEVER END. You sit there thinking, "I'm only 2/3 of the way through the book... how much more can she possibly drag this out?!" No one can beat a dead horse like Meyer can!

In the end, I'd have to say the read wasn't worth my time. Stephanie Meyer lacks writing skill above that of many high school kids, and I find it very difficult to enjoy her books. Something about her writing style reminds me of when students have to write term papers and they add in random adjectives and repeat themselves a dozen times in an effort to make their papers longer. ( )

Even better than Twilight. Great take on what could happen and interesting perspective. Invasion of the body snatchers. ( )