Author continues distinctive style with ‘The Host’

While I'm not as obsessed as many of my friends, I enjoyed reading the Twilight series by Stephenie Meyer. And like most Meyer fans, I was a bit disappointed to find out that "The Host," her latest book, was not connected to the Twilight series.

Despite this, "The Host" still is told in Meyer's distinctive style -- first-person narration in extreme detail, lazily telling a story where the main conflict isn't even hinted at until several hundred pages have passed. I just wish she could have waited until after she finished the Twilight series to write it.

"The Host" takes place in the not-so-distant future, following an invasion of small, silvery aliens called "souls" who attach themselves to humans' brains and then take over their bodies, their memories and their lives. Within years after the first soul was implanted, nearly every human on Earth has been taken.

When a soul named Wanderer is implanted into the body of 20-year-old Melanie Stryder, one of the few remaining "wild" humans, Wanderer expects to enjoy her time on Earth and her new body, just as she had enjoyed the lives she took over on eight other planets. However, Wanderer has a problem. Melanie refuses to fade away like she should. Instead, she stays on as an ever-watching voice in the back of Wanderer's new mind, complaining to and insulting Wanderer.

Wanderer's problems worsen as, through Melanie's memories, she begins to love Melanie's boyfriend, Jared, and care for her brother, Jaime, both of whom are wild humans. Wanderer's Seeker, whose job it is to find all wild humans and implant souls into them, insists that Wanderer use Melanie's memories to locate Jared and Jaime, something Wanderer cannot do because she cares too much for them.

Melanie convinces Wanderer to find Jaime and Jared on her own, and the two follow a set of clues to a secret underground hideaway created by Melanie's uncle. When they get there, Wanderer and Melanie agree that no one will believe Melanie still lives in Wanderer's head, so Wanderer says nothing.

Numerous problems ensue. Jared hates Wanderer for what he thinks she did to Melanie. Melanie gets angry at Wanderer for being able to speak to Jared and Jaime. A young man named Ian (one of the 35 people hiding in the cavern) falls in love with Wanderer. Ian's brother tries to kill Wanderer because she is one of "the parasites." But in the end, somehow, Meyer ensures that all of the characters get fairy-tale endings.

"The Host" is an enjoyable read, a page-turner that, like all of Meyer's books, lacks a classic plot and villain. The main conflict of the story isn't really introduced until the reader is 500 pages into the more than 600-page book -- far enough that I can't write about it without giving away spoilers (just like with the books in the Twilight series). And, while the seeker might seem like a bad guy in the story, Wanderer manages to get rid of that problem without a battle scene.

Instead of using one major conflict to force the reader to keep reading, Meyer tells the story of Wanderer and Melanie on an almost day-to-day basis, describing the triumphs and failures of life within the cavern.

Meyer's storytelling skills already have brought her J.K. Rowling-like fame among teenage girls. Students spend whole class periods arguing about which of the two main suitors in Meyer's Twilight series (the vampire or the werewolf) is best for the heroine, and which one they would prefer, in her shoes. They complain about the choice of actors for December's upcoming Twilight movie. They speculate on what will occur in the next book in the Twilight series, "Breaking Dawn," which will be released Aug. 2.

"The Host" promises to be a successful book as well. It has an entertaining and thought-provoking story line and the sort of romance that, while clean compared to many teen novels (Meyer's characters seldom go farther than kissing), is descriptive enough to keep teen readers entertained.

Perhaps the only real problem with "The Host" is that most of the souls (the exception being the Seeker) are just too nice to seem like evil alien invaders. Wanderer herself never tries to hurt anyone, not even when they try to hurt her. It makes the souls too perfect to be entirely believable. But I guess that's why they're aliens.