The Host by Stephenie Meyer: Pricky's Perspective

First a warning: The Host is nothing like the Twilight series. I love the Twilight series and naturally, started reading The Host with the same expectations as Twilight: the overwhelming emotions, the anticipations, the love triangle, etc...

First off, the summary at the back of the book is a little misleading. I felt like the book was more about the exploration of what is human while the "love triangle" aspect was more of a secondary theme. Don't get me wrong. There is a "love triangle" and it is an important part of the story but I felt like the "real" story was about the soul's experience with humanity.

The book is patiently told and picks up with more momentum towards the end. In my mind, this story was told in a similar fashion to LOTR: slow and steady but an amazing story nonetheless. Slow is not necessarily a bad thing: there were so many necessary experiences that needed to be expressed thoroughly in the story that it took time to really explain it well. When I finished the book, I didn't feel an overwhelming sense of emotion. Instead, this was a story that as I pondered on the complexity of the themes, on the character, on the plot, my emotions for the book grew more and more. I began to "see" more and more the ingenuity of the storyteller and the depth of the characters.

I really loved this story, and it has me thinking about it on a deeper level every moment of the day. For me, this ranks up with LOTR. It is a book that will compliment my library and that I will read over and over again. An amazing story and definitely worth reading.