The Host

The Host

Terri Thampan 804

   I have recently read the "book" "The Host" by Stephenie Meyer.  I started reading the book with hopes that Stephenie Meyer had made a good book (the Twilight Saga, which I have already read, are horrible books!) and determination to actually read the book, the whole thing. Sadly, I was greatly disappointed, for both were wrong. Now, I know I shouldn't be really writing a blog for a book I don't like, but, I only just started my newest book, and, I'm a good ranter/rantist.

   The book, is about how “Aliens” also known as souls are taking over the world. They are the kindest, most perfect beings. And they take over the world to help make it perfect. Wanderer, is our protagonist, and she learns to love humans or something like that, because I didn’t finish the book.

    Now, first of all, why don't I like this book? I have many reasons for disliking this book. One, I hate how the "aliens" are being made to be "perfect". In the book, they are referred to as souls, and are described as "all things good. Compassionate, patient, kind, good, Virtuous, and full of love". First off, as a person who likes darker stories and characters and plots in general, the whole description, was kind of stupid. What the author tries to do, is make them the perfect characters (*cough Sparkly Vampire Edward cough*) but epic-ly fails. What SMeyer describes humans as in her story, are vile, violent, evil creatures. She gives us many flaws, as a species in general. SMeyer, knows perfectly well that people aren't perfect, thus including herself as she is a person. Because of that imperfection, it's really hard to write a perfect character, a.k.a the Mary Sue: epitome of bad character writing, because there will always be flaws. The "aliens" in SMeyer's book, are very flawed.

   First off, they're conceited. They think themselves as the perfect race, and thus, deem themselves worthy to go and change the rest of the universe by taking over the bodies of other species, on other planets. Well, I don't know about you, but if someone thinks they're perfect enough, and start changing the world to be just like them, that's pretty egotistical, and in my definition, a character flaw. If that was done on purpose, it would have been more tolerable, but throughout all that I have read, it paints the Aliens as the more "supreme" race, better than the humans.

   Secondly, the aliens are described as kind, and compassionate. Again, they are supposed to be all things good (blegh). Really though, if they were all things good, they would have thought, 'Oh, this body that I'm being a parasite to, is actually someone else's and it was never mine, so I shouldn't steal it, from them.' But really, Wanderer, or Wanda (I skipped to the end before I put the book back, just to see how it ends) decided to give back the body to Melanie, and like die or something, because she wanted to be selfless. That pissed me off to no end. First off, they aren’t being selfless by giving back the bodies to the rightful “hosts”. That’s like saying; a guy who stole a valuable artifact, something priceless, and gave it back is a selfless man. Being selfless doesn’t work like that. If they were the ones who gave their bodies up out of their own free will, to others, that would be selfless.

     Another thing is, the whole race is prejudiced. They are all prejudiced towards the seekers, who are basically like police. They shun the seekers for choosing a life of violence, which they do so to protect the other souls from dangers. They protect souls from humans, and basically, kill off stragglers that can be violent. They are greatly disliked by many of the regular souls. I think this is also counted as a character flaw of the whole race; they are prejudiced against their own kind, and think of humans as barbaric monsters.

    What I didn’t like, was how SMeyer made the character interactions. Melanie, the host for Wanderer, shows different memories throughout the text. Her first memory of Jared, the man she is in love with, has him kissing her as soon as they meet, and he finds out she’s a human, not a soul using a host. I liked how Melanie forcefully removed him from her person because really, even if aliens are taking over the world, a girl who has the very determined, and strong, dominant type of personality like Melanie would not let some random guy kiss her. But what really aggravates me was that as soon as she got the kiss, Melanie realized she wanted more, and let him kiss her again. What the hell? You don’t kiss a random person you just meet! And then, it makes them really close, but like in a span of weeks, but we barely see the romance, except for how Melanie’s all over him, and wanting to kiss him, (BellaxEdward), when there have been no scenes with the characters getting closer. Also, The Seeker (who sadly has no name and is my favorite character) comes off very annoying to both Wanda and Melanie. Now, I don’t really care about that, but Melanie and Wanda get closer through this dislike for the Seeker, and then Melanie just starts spilling all her secrets to Wanda. I don’t care how much an alien invading your body is infatuated with the idea of your lover because of your memories, you don’t just spill all your secrets to them because you think, oh they won’t hurt them, when one has already took over your father and got to you (even though you escaped), which hurt you! Plus, when the Seeker seems really annoying, Melanie thinks ‘Let’s kill her!’ and Wanderer (Wanda) is like, ‘this is why we took over, ‘because you humans are so violent!’ That just angered me to no extent. First of all, if someone says that, they are CRAZY! Not all humans go around killing! And even if it is a survival thing, we aren’t going to kill you, unless you pose as harm to us. This just got me so mad; I hit my head against a table.

    Now, I think this book would be so much better if it was a romance between The Seeker (who deserves a name) and Fords Deep Waters (who deserves a better name). Now, the pairing might seem a bit like a crack pairing, but I really believe they would be a good couple. If Fords, was the kind, good guy doctor, who suddenly finds a temperament when Seeker is around, learns to live a little and understand Seeker, was the main story romance, I think I might have read the book. Seeker, if you couldn’t have told, is my favorite character in that whole book. I think it would have been much better if it was told through her perspective, rather than Wanderer’s. I can see Seeker as a more cool character. She’s a woman, who is determined, stubborn, passionate, not afraid to be violent, and can deal with the prejudice her world has against people like her. I feel like she would be an amazingly strong character, and that she is one of the more tolerable alien characters, because she herself is more human like, ad more realistic.

     The last thing that really bugged me about this story was the whole “For the Greater Good.” I read that line a couple of times and it put me so on edge it wasn’t even funny. The reason why, I don’t like that phrase, is because of Harry Potter. Grindelwald, tried using that as his saying, when he tried to exterminate all the muggle-born children. Dumbledore, as awesome as a character he is, he makes mistakes, which he humbly admits to, and has been quoted doing things for the greater good. Not all his choices are the best, and it puts me on edge when people say that line. It feels like they’re trying to justify what they do. Adolf Hitler must have used that line, “it’s for the greater good if we kill all Jewish people” so I’m a bit wary. But I’m going to go do something you should never do with Stephenie Meyer’s books. I’m going to look very deeply in to this book (which is bad for your health and mine) and say that, the aliens were trying to justify themselves. That deep inside them, they knew they weren’t as perfect as they said they were, and so tried to justify their weird craving for immortality by saying it was for the greater good.

   Oh, another thing I forgot to mention. These Aliens are basically just striving for immortality, switching hosts like that, and living multiple lives (Reminds me of Orochimaru from Naruto). They don’t need to die unless they want to. Voldemort, and many other super villains must be rolling in their graves.