The Host Chapters 2 and 3

I forgot to do my recap yesterday, so lucky you, there will be TWO posted today. Whee.

Chapter 2- Overheard

Weird Words Used List


I just noticed a strange sentence from chapter 1: "Mine,spoke the alien thought that should not have existed." I guess technically this could be correct but, it seems to me that thoughts can't speak. I don't know if this a mistake on the part of whoever made the e-book, or a fuckup on Stephenie's end.

So Fords and all the medical students are all talking about this new "soul" and about how strong she is and how others have screamed more with less cause. To recap, a bunch of "souls", which are benevolent, beautiful, blah blah beings are inserting other "souls" into the bodies of wild humans. One uber soul is being inserted into the body of a girl who seemed to have died traumatically and the uber soul is experiencing the girl's last moments. Except, DUN DUN DUN, the host body is speaking and she isn't supposed to be able to talk!

There are also things called "seekers" which, I'm not sure what they are yet. I'm guessing they are souled humans who find these host bodies. Fords (?) doesn't seem to like Seekers. He is arguing that they enjoy the violence they inflict when souls are supposed to not like violence. They are now talking about how the host body inexplicably arrived in the middle of Chicago (not Phoenix?) which is far from any rebel activity and the fact that she got there unnoticed is cause for fear and violence.

Okay, so far I've been saying that the host body died and then was brought back to life somehow. Scratch that. She just came near death.

Uber soul is now referred to as "Wanderer".

“You would have reacted poorly to the early days of this occupation,” she [a seeker] said. Oh, so it was an INVASION. These "souls" aren't as benevolent as they like to think! The woman seeker says that the violence they inflict against humans are necessary, as the humans would kill them whenever they had a chance. It seems that the souls invaded Earth and have basically killed off/possessed most of the humans, with only a few rebels remaining. More and more Animorphs-y. I kind of miss Animorphs. I think I started devouring them in maybe the sixth grade? I remember reading like two a day. Those books were awesome.

And the return of the trademark Smeyer purple prose! Apparently Wanderer's last host species had a hundred arms and a thousand eyes on each of those arms. It kind of reminds me of Biblical prose. Like, "you will have seven sons, and each of those sons will have seven sons..." etc. etc.

"Storytelling was the most honored of all talents, for it benefited everyone." HO HO HO I SEE WHAT YOU DID THAR SMEYER!

"Sometimes, fact mixed with fiction so thoroughly that, though no lies were told, it was hard to
remember what was strictly true." This sounds to me kind of like something Bush would say to deny telling a lie. It's like bureaucracy-speak. If it's not true, it's a lie. IT'S NOT SUPPOSED TO BE COMPLICATED.

So Wanderer is saying that in her old host body, they all told stories a lot, and there were a lot of stories about Earth. There were stories about human hosts that were too strong to be suppressed, or as I like to call it, blatant foreshadowing. Anyway, the Seeker wants to ask Wanderer questions about the rebels, and Wanderer is putting it off to get adjusted to her new body, but she knows that she has to help the Seeker. So Wanderer is sifting through memories. The host body was looking for some kind of family, a cousin. And then suddenly, Wanderer's thoughts grow sluggish. Is she still sedated?

Nope, her host body is fighting back! And she's PISSED.

Chapter 3- Resisted

Wanderer is angry at the Seeker for being placed in a damaged body. She thinks the brain has been damaged somehow, but the Seeker denies it. I guess Wanderer hasn't thought of the possibility that her host body is lucid, despite the fact that she keeps getting these waves of anger and the memories have seemingly been blocked.

“Yes,” the Healer said. “All eight hundred twenty-seven points are latched securely in the
optimum positions.” At first I thought that said "opium positions" and that they severely drugged her with a shitload of opium.

Apparently the Seeker was aware that the host would be resistant, and Wanderer is angry. The Seeker says that there was another case where the host resisted and periodically took control of the host body.

Expository information about the host: Her name is Melanie Stryder, lived in New Mexico and then Los Angeles. She is twenty years old. Can I just say HOW MUCH I hate the names Smeyer decides to use? There's a Kevin, Melanie, and Jared in this book, and then in Twilight there's Bella, Edward, Jasper (the name of my cousin's old dog, and as such will forever be a dog name, not a human name, to me), Esme, Carlisle (although it brings back memories of holidays in Carlyle riding my uncle's motorcycle), Alice, Emmett, Angela, Mike, Eric, Ben. I hate all those names. Not to mention Fords Deep Waters. And Renesmee.

Wanderer says that Melanie was supposed to rendezvous with someone and that she left a note under a door. Then she asks, "Did they find Sharon?" Sharon is the cousin. And Wanderer is scared because this question wasn't hers; it was Melanie's! Dun dun DUN.

"What was outside Chicago? Cold, I thought. It was cold, and there was some worry about that." Is she talking about Canada? AWESOME!

Wanderer discovers that Melanie missed the rendezvous, but Melanie seems to be smug. And then Wanderer sees the beautiful boy again, who we find out is named Jared.

This book kind of reminds me of "Uglies" by Scott Westerfield. I'm not sure why though. The writing style, the use of surgery, and the rebels in hiding and rebelling against the people seemingly in charge all just reminds me of "Uglies." Oh, and people having surgery against their wills. Twilight is evocative of many things, like Inuyasha and Midwich Cuckoos, and it seems that The Host isn't original either.

I have to be honest here. I fully expected to hate this book, but I don't. And this makes me sad.