In short
The Host tells the story of planet earth being overtaken by another species, a parasite-like alien who instead of destroying us, uses our bodies to stay alive.
This tale starts when most of humanity is already under control of the parasites, so-called Souls, and a human rebel has been captured. A seasoned "soul" is being put in her body and is supposed to be helping the others to find the last remaining humans.
Wanderer, as this soul is called, struggles to adapt to her new body. Melanie, the woman the body belongs to, isn't giving up without a fight and tries desperately to protect her loved ones.
This results in the Soul being overwhelmed with feelings of love for people she doesn't know. Instead of helping her own kind find the humans, she goes off by herself and tries to find Melanie's brother and lover.
She succeeds in her attempt when she stumbles upon a small community of humans. As relief washed over her that she has found the ones she was looking for, she realises that the humans aren't believing her and threating her with the utmost contempt for she is what has been taking over their lives. In the weeks and months that follow both humans and souls will realise that not everything is always as it seems.
My two cents
Expecting an adult novel from the praised Twilight author Stephenie Meyer, I wasn't in a very happy mood, when again I found myself wasting my time with something I'd much rather have read 15 years ago.
Still, I couldn' put it down either. I wanted to know what was going to happen, and now that I know, I'm feeling quite ambivalent about it. I'm glad I know the ending, but it wasn't as satisfying as I thought it would be. No grand finale, just kind of giving it the happy ending we all know from the nineties.
It could have been giving a little bit of depth if the ending had been different.
Nah, I'm not a fan of this novel. Too longwinded, too childishly written and again a heroine whose afraid of her own breath and then turns a 180 and helps the lot in a life jeopardising manner.
Another Bella, but from another planet.
Page count: 619 pages
First published in 2008
