The Host by Stephanie Meyer

I actually read this book when it first came out and really liked it.  I did't do a review on it since I started this blog a while after reading it.  I got a third of the way through A Tale of Two Cities and just couldn' concentrate on it enough with all the distractions around the house.  So I will pick it up here and there on nights that I'm not grading/filing papers or taking care of kids/dogs.  I have been wanting to reread The Host for a while and finally decided to to pick it up.  It is an incredibly quick read and I actually skimmed through a lot of it since I've read it before.  I really like this book.  It was creative and makes you sympathize with Wanda, the Host race, and humans.

Wanda is part of the Host race, or aliens for Earth, that are worm-like creatures that take control of the host body and become that person.  On other planets they take over plants or other creatures as well.  They tend to take over things that seem to not be able to control themselves and cause more harm than good.  They take over in order to better utilize the host's abilities and have a more positive affect on the environment.  Humans are seen as too harmful and wasteful so these aliens start to take over.  We are introduced to the story when almost all humans have been occupied and there are just a few rogue humans left.  Wanda is put into one of the rogue humans that were captured in hopes that she can find the rest of the human group.  Unfortunately for Wanda, her human soul does not disappear and talks to her in her mind.  She finds herself in love with Melanie's boyfriend and her younger brother that she follows Melanie's instructions to find Melanie's uncle's hideout.

You can imagine the reception Wanda gets when they arrive at the hidden human camp.  It takes a lot of convincing to get them to believe the Melanie is still alive inside her.  Wanda has to get used to being around humans and vice a versa.  There are a lot of hard feelings to overcome and hurt feelings since everyone has had someone taken from them.  I'll let you read the book to see how it ends and what kind of agreement it made to make everyone happy.