The Host Redux Chapters 49-52

Chapter 49
Interrogated

I'm really hungry right now. This may make me more cranky.

I don't remember Wes dying the last time I read this. I remember him having a way bigger part. Maybe my mind was making unconscious alterations to the story so that it wasn't as painful. Kind of like when Maria changes the endings of books, like at the end of the Guardian when she pretended that the dog lived.

Blah blah self-loathing blah guilt blah blah blah.

The Seeker was alive; the Seeker was here.
Whoa, deja vu!
But Jared's alive, Jared's here,she crooned.
So, does Smeyer just have a list of words and phrases she can use in her novels? Like, chagrin, topaz, and chuckle would be on the list, as well as phrases like "smooth as marble" "skin was cold", etc. Apparently, also on this list is "______is alive, ______ is here."

Here's how little I am into this book, other than the fact that I just about typed "movie." I had to go back to page 120 to find that second quote, and I just kept recapping from there. I didn't even notice I wasn't in the right place until right now.

So anyway, they captured the Seeker with no effort and are keeping her with no effort.

His face was expressionless, the blank facade that meant he was in the grip of some strong emotion. His poker face.
Him and Lady Ga Ga both. P-p-p-poker face p-p-poker face.

“They're ready to be done with guard duty. It's a hard time."
I'm sure it is. They sit there and point a gun at her. So friggin' difficult.

I'd never traced along the outside wall. It was uneven, with jutting
rocks that would leave bruises and cause me to trip. Staying on the inside was a shorter walk
anyway.
And these facts are integral to this story.

“I didn't know humans had the patience to starve someone to death. That seems like too
complex a plan for you shortsighted creatures to grasp.”
Huh? Sitting back and not feeding someone is complex?

“Careful,” Aaron cautioned. “She's an angry little thing.”
There's all this talk about how small the Seeker is. I imagine her looking like Kylie Minogue.

Chapter 50
Sacrificed

It takes like five pages of vague and ambiguous statements to finally get this across, but Wanderer is going to give the humans the secret of how to get the soul out. Why didn't she mention this before? She would rather that Doc kept going and killing both humans and souls? Oh, duh, because she didn't want to die. Never mind.

This chapter is seriously so boring. NOTHING is happening.

His long face was gentle, the opposite of alarming.
Why didn't she just stop that sentence at "gentle"?

Chapter 51
Prepared

"Be prepaaaaaaaaared!"

“What do you need me to do?” Jared asked.
“I'm making a raid. I could use some… extra muscle.”
"And God knows you're not good for anything else!"

The Seeker didn't seem to be as… what was the word
Jared had used?Altruistic. As altruistic as the rest of us.
No shit. Are you seriously just noticing this now?

To my shock, Jared came to lie beside me,right beside me. He curled around the curve of my back.
Whoa. They're spooning. When did they become that cozy? Did I miss a chapter? How incredibly awkward would that be if he got a boner just then? These are the questions on my mind.

Wanderer tells the story about how she had to do the soul extraction surgery. It should be thrilling but it's not. On the ice sculpting bear planet, she and another bear were out for a walk or something and a claw beast attacked the bear and half-killed it and Wanderer extracted the soul and then the bear died. Then I think she puts the soul in the claw beast, somehow. This is from memory. I'm not actually reading that part. But who cares? It's not like it's plot-relevant.

But I couldn't stand to let him die inside the broken half of his Bear host.
So, the top half was broken but the bottom half was A-Ok? I didn't know you could make that distinction when you cut someone in half.

So, as she's doing this surgery, what in the world is the claw beast doing? Just sitting back politely for her to finish? This claw beast is like the ninjas in generic action movies. If there's a group of ninjas (or any kind of antagonist) and they're fighting one person, they will politely attack the hero one by one, thus allowing him to pick them off one by one. Or, more likely, Smeyer just forgot what the hell was happening in the scene.

“He was still alive. I barely paused to ascertain this. I shoved him into the egg pocket in the
center of my body, between the two hottest hearts."
This is giving me Empire Strikes Back flashbacks. Remember when Han Solo stuffs Luke into the Tauntaun to protect him from the cold? Yeah. You know what else I imagine as I read about these claw beasts? There's this movie that's shown every Christmas, called Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. There's one part where Rudolph is being attacked by a yeti. I imagine the claw beasts looking a lot like that. I also imagine the yeti when I watch Empire Strikes Back, so this part of The Host is like a mishmash of a really good movie, a semi-passable movie, and then the horrible reality of the novel.

“I made it to the beast's back and ran up the double spine, digging in with my knives so that it
couldn't shake me off."
Yeah, that's a great idea. Give the thing an irreversible spinal cord injury before inserting the parasite. Now the soul not only lost its original host, but got a crippled one right after!

My ice cutters were only… about as long as your forearm, maybe. The claw beast's hide
was twice as thick.
I'm having a hard time imagining this claw beast. She said it was as big as a blue whale so I don't know, I imagine it as looking kind of like a ginormous Wampa with fins. Its skin is about as thick as my whole arm though. How can that stupid thing feel ANYTHING? I'm also having a really hard time imagining the ice sculpting bears. I imagine them as bears with arms like the T-1000 when he turns them into like, twin katanas.

Chapter 52
Separated

It seems like these people do a lot of crowing. Maybe they're birds, and that's the plot twist.

Smeyer just cuts out the WHOLE raid after Wanderer's lame story. It's kind of jarring.

Love you too, Mel. But there's not room for the both of us here. In this body, in this cave, in
their lives…
I disagree.
Ha, she sounds exactly like my old Social Studies teacher. Whenever we answered a question and it was wrong, he would be like, "I disagree." I'm not sure if Smeyer meant Mel to sound like a sixty year old teacher.

I thought of those burning kisses in the hall…thought of other kisses and other nights in her memory.
Oh come on. Everyone reading this knows that everyone (except Lucina, I guess, since she had a baby) is a virgin.

So, the big secret is to cut along the scar where the soul was inserted and lift it up with a fingertip? I'm...not getting why this was so enigmatic. Wouldn't that be the first thing Doc tried?