The Host Redux Chapters 55 to THE END OMG YAY

Chapter 55
Attached

The little face, pale under the deep tan of her skin, peeped around Kyle's elbow again with a
swish of long, curly black hair.
Excuse me? How can she be pale and tan at the same time?

“Kyle's got a guest, and you're scarin' the snot out of her, people."
Ha ha, I love how Smeyer's worked herself up to saying "hell" and "damn" but she still can't bring herself to say "shit."

So, the girl that Kyle brought back is terrified and she's clinging to Kyle because she can't function by herself, much like every single female in every single book written by Smeyer.

“Probably ought to git along to Doc,” Jeb continued with a sigh, giving the frightened little
woman a wistful glance. I guessed he was sad to be missing out on new stories.
Or he's just sad cuz he doesn't get to fuck her.

Side note: I'm watching Golden Girls and Blanche's prof said he'd pass her in the class if she slept with him. The BEST part is that the prof is played by Deep Throat from The X-Files! Lmao. I think of him in X-Files and then I think of the skeezy guy he plays in this episode, and I laugh.

"Sunny was in Jodi's old room, alone. I snuck in after they'd all been asleep
for hours. I yanked Sunny up, threw her over my shoulder, and jumped out the window. I
thought she was going to start screaming, so I was really booking it back to the jeep."
The mental images here are amazing. Can you IMAGINE if some big guy broke into your room, threw you over his shoulder, and then just fucking RAN? He's like a Cro-Magnon.

Chapter 56
Welded

Wanderer lets it slip that she has to leave and Ian freaks the fuck out.

Ian, tired of waiting, grabbed my arm and hauled me up from the floor. When Sunny seemed
like she was coming along, too, still joined to my side, Ian shook me until she fell off.
Yes, those big strong men. They are so attractive.

“C'mon,” Ian snarled, dragging me away from them without a backward glance.
“Ian –”
He wrenched me roughly along, making it impossible for me to speak. That was fine. I had no
idea what to say.
Yeesh, this pisses me off. Never mind that he had a complete personality transplant (BAD WRITING) but this is abuse, ANY WAY YOU SLICE IT.

“Did you know about this?” Ian shouted back, shoving me toward Jared and shaking me at
him.
What? I am completely unable to visualize what is going on here. I thought he just pushed her over to Jared, but then he's shaking her? I imagine this going down like a dog shaking a chew toy. This is so bizarre.

“Ian, stop,” I begged.
“You stop,” he growled back at me.
This reminds me of something funny. I was watching Twilight with Rifftrax, and after Edward saves Bella from the gang she's like, "you should put your seatbelt on" and he's like, "Ha ha ha, why don't YOU put your seatbelt on!" and Kevin Murphy goes, in this exaggerated teenage voice, "Ha ha ha ha ha, no YOU put your seatbelt on! Ha ha ha ha, no YOU!"

It was then that I began to feel the throbbing from Ian's grip. His hand was tight as a tourniquet around my upper arm, his long fingers making the circle easily and then overlapping. My hand was going numb.
I'm not even kidding. This is definitely abuse. There is NO WAY you can rationalize this.

“You. Are. Not. Leaving. Me.” His eyes blazed–burning brighter than I had ever seen them,
blue flames.
THIS! IS! SPARTA!

“Ian, please. Don't feel this way. Don't. I'm so sorry. Please.”
I was crying, too, shaking, too, though that might have been him shaking me.
“You can't leave.”
“I have to, I have to,” I sobbed.
And then we cried wordlessly for a long time.
That was the worst segue I have ever seen in my life.

“Sorry,” he whispered. “I was mean.”
No shit, you jackass, although "mean" is not the word I was thinking of. He's mean in the way Ted Bundy was mean.

With Ian it was different, so very different, because Melanie didn't love him the way I did. So
when he touched me, it was deeper and slower than the wildfire, like the flow of molten rock far beneath the surface of the earth. Too deep to feel the heat of it, but it moved inexorably,
changing the very foundations of the world with its advance.
Argh, this is SO PURPLE. I'm actually cringing right now because it is SO BAD.

And I started to cry again, realizing that it must be changing him, too, this man who was kind
enough to be a soul but strong as only a human could be.
Argh, STOP STARTING YOUR SENTENCES WITH "AND".

Ian randomly decides to hold a tribunal.

Chapter 57
Completed

Nothing really happened here. They tried to get Jodi to wake up, nothing was decided in the tribunal, more mushy Ian/Wanderer stuff and blah blah blah blah.

Chapter 58
Finished

Gasoline and an open flame–we exploded again.
"And you exploded. Yeah. That was kind of weird." Also, please explain to me how "exploding" is romantic imagery?

“Eustace. It's a family name, and my parents were cruel people.”
Noooo! GodDAMMIT. Now whenever I read The Silver Chair (my FAVOURITE Narnia book) I will think of this book.

Anyway, Wanderer goes to be removed.

Chapter 59
Remembered

I believe there are some pretty good lulz coming up. Good thing too, because these last few chapters have been pretty lacklustre.

She's a new neighbor–how nice. I love new friends.
These are the most inane two sentences I have ever read in my life.

“Of course! Come with me. I'm Petals Open to the Moon, but my family mostly calls me Pet."
Ugh, SO cutesy. I want to toss my cookies.

His hand swings toward my face, and I gasp. I suck in the mist that comes from his hand. A
silver cloud that tastes like raspberries.
LOL WUT. What is happening? WHAT IS GOING ON IT'S AN ACID FLASHBACK!

The setting of the memory threw me off for a moment because I wasn't used to so much
civilization–at the same time, I knew nothingbut civilization. A pretty dresser with all kinds of
frilly and delicate things on top of it. A profusion of dainty glass bottles containing the scents I
loved–I loved? Or she loved?–so much. A potted orchid. A set of silver combs.
Here's what I imagine her new host body being. I imagine her being a ten year old spoiled little brat, like the kid from that Shirley Temple movie with all the pilots. This kid also lives in the Victorian age. I mean, this is supposed to be a modern girl, presumably, but she has a set of silver combs? I mean, what?

This is another of my favourite parts!
“But still older. I'm almost –” And then I stopped, changing my sentence abruptly. “My
birthday is in two weeks.”
I might have been disoriented and confused, but I wasn't stupid. Melanie's experiences had not
gone to waste; I had learned from them. Ian was every bit as honorable as Jared, and I was not going to go through the frustration Melanie had.
So I lied, giving myself an extra year. “I'll be eighteen.”
She LIED ABOUT HER AGE SO HE COULD FUCK HER. Oh man, Smeyer is dropping to NEW DEPTHS.

“Jodi? What happened to Jodi?” I chirped, my little voice going higher, like a bird's, with
anxiety.
Birds don't have voices. Also, this reminds me of one of my FAVOURITE stories. There's this girl named Kerri who I went to school with. She was the most annoying and stupid person EVER. I'm not even lying to you. Anyway, we had to present these book reviews to the class, and she was reviewing some book about ghosts. You know how your voice gets higher when you ask a question? She asked this really really long question, and her voice kept getting SO HIGH. The question was something like, "Can Billy escape from the church before he faints from loss of blood and will he ever figure out what the ghosts are blah blah blah blah?" and her voice was so high by the end. Heidi and I were looking at each other and trying so hard not to laugh. Good times. I mean, who does that? Everyone waits until the end of the question to get higher, EXCEPT APPARENTLY KERRI.

Epilogue
People touched my cheeks often, or put their fingers under my chin, holding my face up to see it better. I was frequently patted on my head (which was in easy reach, since I was shorter than everyone but the children), and my hair was stroked so regularly that I stopped noticing when it happened.
Who does that? She's sixteen. No one strokes my hair except my mom. PERFECT STRANGERS do not do this. When was the last time Smeyer went outside?

Ew. So we have Pet and now the Healer's name is Candy?

This epilogue is long enough to be a chapter in itself.

Ian asks Melanie to have sex with him in the most roundabout way possible and it honestly takes like a page to show this whole conversation.

And then he kissed me in the most unplatonic way possible under the crowded circumstances,
and I was thrilled to remember that I'd been smart enough to lie about my age.
That's nutso, and that is all I'm going to say about that.

And they find another group of colonists, who also have their own friendly soul and it's a happy ending as per usual the end.