MLA CITATION

                                                                         The Host
                
             The Host by Stephanie Meyer is a romance novel based around Melanie, Wanderer, The Seeker and Melanie's love interest Jared. Everything comes crashing down once the earth is invaded by parasitic aliens otherwise referred to as "souls". The novel follows one aliens predicament when its host's  consciousness refuses to co-operate with the alien. This alien's name is Wanderer and The Seeker (the villain in this story) sends her on a mission to recover the rest of the humans. She earned her name because she lived on nine planets before coming to earth and being implanted in Melanie. Most of Melanie's memories are of her younger brother and boyfriend. Seeing these memories Wanderer has always lacked love in her life and latches on to the memories as well as Melanie. Throughout the book Wanderer starts to love each and every one of them and will become emotionally attached in the best way possible. But will The Seeker stand for such betrayal from one of her own?

           Melanie was a teenage rebel who constantly rebelled against the aliens trying to obtain complete freedom. While going on a mission Melanie gets chased out of a window where she falls in a fountain and goes unconscious. She wakes up the next day to find that the parasite was already implanted in her. As soon as Wanderer is implanted in Melanie the first thing she encounters in Melanie's memories. Wanderer tries to search her memories to find information regarding "wild humans"(humans who haven't yet been implanted) but they had appeared to be blocked. Wanderer confused by this continued to get familiar with her new body and found out that she couldn't access the memories because Melanie was still alive and was protecting them.

           Wanderer soon tries to fight back but stops after Melanie starts threatening her. Wanderer starts to love Jared and Melanie's younger brother Jamie like their her own family. She quickly starts to sympathize with the humans. This causes her to completely abandon her original mission and species to become an allie with not only Melanie but with the humans in general. Through each chapter you realize Wanderer cant tell which of the feelings going on in Melanie's body are hers. They each become a big part of each other almost like sisters.

          Once Melanie has built a relationship with Wanderer and knows she can trust her she convinces Wanderer to run away from The Seeker to go and find Jared and Jamie. They drive to Phoenix to find her Uncle Jeb's  bomb shelter in the middle of the desert. Once they get to a certain point when they can no longer drive they begin to walk. Being the fact that Melanie can handle harsh weather conditions but Wanderer can't they have a hard time coping with each other. Eventually they run out of water and think they are going to die. Of course we have all read that book that has the most unrealistic situation ever and sadfully this is one of those. At the nick of time Uncle Jeb and his team of survivors find Melanie's body but want to kill it because its not really her. They take her back to the shelter where her brother and Jared cant decide what to do with her so they put her in a storage closet and feed her bread. Two of the residents of the shelter (Kyle and Ian) want wanderer dead but soon Jeb comes and saves her by threatening the boys.


          Uncle Jeb gives her a better place to reside (in the living quarters of Jamie and Jared) which Wanderer doesn't quite like but Melanie is ecstatic about. Once wanderer and Melanie start to interact with the community Uncle Jeb and others start to see that she is different from other "souls". She starts doing chores in the cafeteria and gets to know the camp members especially Ian. They soon began to talk , Melanie doesn't like where that was going. Ian and Wanderer fell in love and started to spend time together. The camp figures out that Melanie is still alive inside and to confirm it Jared kisses her. Melanie goes to the hot springs to take a bath alone when suddenly Kyle tries to kill her. The ground starts to give out so Wanderer runs away but felt guilty leaving Kyle so she goes and saves him. Everyone asked what happened so she lied saying she fell but Ian knew that was a lie and attacked Kyle. Wanderer stops this. Kyle is confused on why Wanderer was still so kind after what he did. A guy with cancer calls for Wanderer asking her to get medicine because he was sick. Once she gets it the camp knows they can trust her and let her go on raids. She simply walks in the store and walks out with whatever food she wants. Wanderer wants to be extracted from Melanie's body so she gives him a step by step tutorial.

             The doctor asks if she is sure about this and she agrees. Her and Melanie have a heartwarming goodbye and then the doctor puts Melanie to sleep and extracts Wanderer. Even though she was extracted Wanda woke up in a new body. Melanie explained she couldn't let her die and Ian told her that he held her soul and she was beautiful. They all go on another raid to find other humans and "souls" coexisting among each other. One of the other souls asks Wanderer ,"Its a strange world isn't it". The Host shows that love and a strong will can help you overcome anything even a parasitic alien apocalypse.


               Meyer, Stephanie; The Host: United States; Little, Brown and Company; 2008