“This was me now”

Stephenie Meyer, The Host (2010)

For the first time in a while I found myself spending a couple of hours unable to put a book down. The Host not only takes place in a compelling and thought-provoking environment but involves a number of fascinating relationships as a result. With Earth becoming home to a race referred to as souls this could be seen as a sci-fi story of alien invasion. However, the souls require a host in order to survive and this story follows the path of Melanie Stryder and the soul that inhabits her. It swiftly becomes more of a story about the relationship between the human and soul that occupies her mind. In fact, the most compelling elements of The Host to me were to be found in these relationship elements. Imagine for a second having a love triangle but with two bodies. This is the conundrum that Meyer presents so beautifully throughout the book.

Even before external romance enters the plot, The Host shows the gradual process of budding friendship and love between Melanie and the new soul that inhabits her. The Earth has become a place in which the Souls have taken the majority of human society as hosts with pockets of human rebellion. Without ruining the plot of the story it is compelling as a result of the legitimate justification that both sides can have for their actions.

When the evening news was nothing but inspiring human-interest stories, when pedophiles and junkies were lining up at the hospitals to turn themselves in, when everything morphed into Mayberry, that’s when you tipped your hand.

Meyer, THE host

The Souls move from planet to planet creating harmony and peace. Generally it is suggested they effectively erase the human identity they inhabit, however, with Mel her human side is too strong to suppress. On one side we have an alien entity that homogenizes society but brings this peace at a perceived cost of erasing the native people. On the other we have humans who despite the flaws and susceptibility to violence are capable of overwhelming love and forgiveness. It is through love that the narrative of The Host is wound. The story follows the learning process of both sides within the same body. Mel and Wanderer (the soul that inhabits her) both grow gradually closer as they begin to see the situation from the others perspective. It is also the love for others that empowers Mel to not succumb to Wanderers occupation of her mind.

By nature souls are described as ‘all things good: compassionate, patient, honest, virtuous, and full of love.’ In this first description irritation and anxiety are subsequently blamed on the Soul in question occupying a human body. The strength of emotions in humans are noted as a problem in The Host but there are numerous examples of even the Souls struggling with their actions. One of the jobs in the new society was “Seeker” and there is hostility toward them from both the humans and other Souls. Perhaps because they often exhibit qualities that place them between the human nature and that of the Souls.

Who would be attracted to the chore of tracking down unwilling hosts and capturing them? Who would have the stomach to face the violence of this particular species, the hostile humans who killed so easily, so thoughtlessly? Here, on this planet, the Seekers had become practically a…militia – my new brain supplied the term for the unfamiliar concept. Most believed that only the least civilized souls, the least evolved, the lesser among us, would be drawn to the path of Seeker.

Meyer, The Host

The internal conversations between Mel and Wanderer act as the thought provoking elements to the story unfolding around them. Human impulse against the peaceful and “good” nature of the Soul. It is in this clash that the relationship elements of the story also become so much more compelling. Furthermore, it becomes harder to separate the two as the story develops and it is when the qualities of the Souls are found in humans and vice versa that the most significant developments take place, especially when this is internalized by Mel’s mind.

Look, I’m human. It’s hard to be fair sometimes. We don’t always feel the right thing, do the right thing. The resentment was still there, but she was trying to forgive and forget that I’d just made out with her true love – that’s the way she thought of it, at least.

Meyer, The Host

It takes effective writing to make these passages easy to understand and Meyer does it throughout the book. It is a long book but it draws you in and I found it easy to get through large sections at a time. It does require attention though simply due to the situation I presented in the first paragraph of a love triangle with two bodies. The story of Mel and Wanderer has such a pull on it and the ending is both emotional and uplifting. I would wholeheartedly recommend this book to anyone looking for a longer read and I am now looking forward to watching the film adaptation.