The Host

[June 2011]

The Host, Stephenie Meyer

number of voters: 5

percentage of voters who finished the book: 100

highest rating: 7.8

lowest rating: 6

average rating: 7.1

average star rating: 3 stars

*****

It seemed as though the reader’s eyes were not her own; they would not adjust to the page, no matter how hard she tried. Could this really be her book club book? This was, after all, the group that had read To Kill a Mockingbird and A Tree Grows in Brooklyn and Little Women. Then again, this was also the group that had read Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants and Confessions of a Shopaholic and Angry Housewives Eating Bonbons. But this book — this massive science-fiction-meets-romance-novel of a tome — was something new altogether.

The reader resisted at first. As anyone in the same position might have. Science fiction wasn’t her thing. Romance novels seemed so — she hated to say it — junior high. And its length (600 some odd pages long!) didn’t help its chances either.

But here she was, reading The Host, and if not exactly liking it, at least trying.

It was a slow start. Yet she had to admit that the concept was interesting: Alien race takes over earth using human bodies as hosts, one human refuses to be conquered, etc. etc. etc. Intriguing. Not a page turner yet, but definite possibilities.

Then, just when the reader was tempted to give up, the plot took a serious turn for the better. She was hooked. Like an out of body experience, she was reading science fiction…and liking it.

As she went on, the book got better and worse in turns. There were moments of intensity, where the reader feared for the protagonists lives; these moments were often followed by pages upon pages of intricate descriptions of cringe-worthy emotional conflict.

In the end, the reader had to admit it was entertaining. Cheesetastic in its own right. The author, if anything, has cornered the market on the science fiction/romance genre. Yes, the book could have been about 300 pages shorter. Yes, the reader slid further down into her chair hoping no one noticed her or the book, but she kept reading to the bittersweet end.