Hello everybody who read this post today. I want to talk about the novel "The Host" by Stephenie Meyer, year 2008. It is a romance, action and science fiction story.
It is about a group of aliens called "Souls" who invade the earth. Their change the world into a better place to live, but they disappear the human race. A group of humans who play the role of "resistance" try to survive the invasion, while finding a way to recover their planet.
In the middle of this conflict, begin a love story between an alien and a human being. This love will encounter multiple obstacles in its path. Throughout this post, I want to touch interesting aspects of this story without falling into spoiler.
The aliens.
They are called "Souls". It is due to several aspects: first, their nature, they are pure, honest, and sincere. They trust in each one of them, support and contribute to the welfare of the majority. Second, they look like a kind of jellyfish or spiders with a white or silver bright. Third, they are like a kind of parasite, reason why they require of a host to live, in this case the humans.
Inside people occupy their thinking and their lives, disappearing their host and seizing their lives.
The society
The world is in peace, there is no war, there is no hunger, there are no differences of races or sex, supported, and all contribute for the good of society. Money is not necessary; everyone takes exactly what they need to solve their needs. Everything is created according to what they need to live. The medicines are superior. Therefore, they were able to solve problems with diseases that were incurable to humans. They finished with pollution. It is a whole utopia. Definitely, a world in which many would like to live, the bad thing is that this world is no longer human.
Professions
The book mentions two specific professions. However, since everyone contributes for the social good, all professions exist. When they occupied the bodies, absorbed part of their knowledge, and they had already studied our race. Therefore, everyone takes an occupation so that nothing is ever missing. The two main professions are Seekers and Healers.
Healers: They are the doctors of this society. They are in charge of investigating how to maintain these bodies in their best conditions and to help the guests to have the best of lives in their hosts.
Seekers: They have two functions, one is to be like the police of the planet, to maintain order, to help the needy and to serve society. The other is to look for the rebellious cells to conquer them and look for new planets where the souls can live. They have already conquered nine planets.
Main Characters
Melanie Strayder: She is the main character of the novel, is captured and in her body was introduced Wanderer. Mel refuses to be erased. Therefore, she fights against her host in order to maintain control of his body. In her mind, she is only looking after her little brother Jamie and her great love Jared. In this way, she fills Wanderer's thoughts with images of Jared trying to make her understand the importance of human feelings and convinces her to set off to search for the man that she loves and her brother to protect them.
Wanderer: She is the soul that is placed in Melanie's body. Try to keep control of her thoughts, but her hostess is very strong and resists. She is bombarded by Melanie's thoughts about Jared and ends up feeling love for him. It is because of this love that Mel joins in the search for the man they both love.
Jared Howe: He is a man who is escaping from the alien invasion with Mel and Jamie, he loses Melanie when she was captured. Shortly after, they meet again but now Melanie has a guest inside her, which awakens his hatred towards them and does not believe that Melanie is still inside her body struggling to get out.
Ian O'shea: He is a human that is in the shelters where Jared and Jamie are. At first, he is uncomfortable with the arrival of Wonderer and wants them to get rid of her, but as he begins to deal with her, he begins to see how "souls" think, and ends up falling in love with Wanderer, which is a problem for Melanie and Jared.
Jamie Styder: He is the younger brother of Melanie. He meets her at the shelter along with Wanderer. He is the second to notice that his sister is still struggling to get out and tries to protect her because if they harm Wanderer they harm her sister.
Jebediah Stryder: He is Melanie and Jamie's uncle, found a shelter and put up a little resistance in this. He is the one who governs the shelter and is also the first to discover that his niece was struggling to survive, and begins to see Wanderer as a friend. Learn a lot about his enemies through her.
These are the main characters there are many others that will give life to the story. Like an obsessive seeker pursuing Wanderer, suspecting that Melanie controlled her. Ian's terrible brother Kile and the doctor who helps "the resistance" in the shelter. All of them will lead this plot to an interesting story.
The conflict
As I already said, the main conflict is that thanks to Melanie's thoughts, Wanderer is in love with Jared. When he finds them, he dislike them both by the presence of Wanderer. As I always say so far, this becomes a love triangle between two people, because although Wanderer and Melanie are different personalities they are both the same body. It is like seeing a person with a double personality and both personalities are in love with the same man.
To make the story more interesting, it becomes a loving quartet between three people as Ian enters the story in love with Wanderer. Something interesting to see how it will end.
My Personal Opinion
Here, I want to tell the interesting aspects of the story. For me there are only two aspects. The way to souls change our world into a paradise. However, the author makes it look like it was only achieved by their and that the human race could not reach such a world.
On the other hand, there is the difference between humans and aliens. Where humans observe how aliens act in things such as sports and see that there is no violence in them, they think that the aliens have made our world a boring place. However, we see the seeker acting almost like an obsessive and vengeful person despite being a soul, perhaps infected by human feelings.
They seem to have the best intentions. They improved the planet, they maintained the human race and created a paradise, but they destroyed the people internally, they could not live with them and they erased them from their thoughts. To what extent they are as good as they think or we are as bad as they paint us.
I hope you liked this description of the novel. In addition, there is a movie of this story too The Host