The Host

title: The Host
author: Stephenie Meyer
how I read it: once from the school library, once before I gave it to my Dad for Christmas, once as an audiobook

Melanie Stryder has done the unthinkable: she has stayed present and conscious in her own body, despite the Soul who controls it. The Host tells a classic “tale of the bodysnatchers” story, with a twist; this time, the story is told through the eyes of Wanderer, the parasitic alien creature who’s doing the snatching. Melanie floods Wanderer with memories of Jared until he is all that either of them can think about. Soul and Host become reluctant allies in their goal to save the man that they both love.

The first few pages of The Host are slow and a bit difficult to understand. I had to push my way through the first chapter in particular and I nearly put the book down. I'm glad that I persevered, because once this book takes off, it's impossible to put down. The story is well-paced and suspenseful. I found myself rereading exciting passages multiple times because I loved the fact that Meyer managed to surprise me.

The love triangle - three people in two bodies - was interesting and fun. While this idea has been explored before (that two-timing Rio in love with both Jem and Jerica, anyone?), Meyer made it seem like a fresh and completely original idea.

This book has some flaws. There are very few shades of gray in the characters. For the most part, they are either "good" or "bad". While a few of the characters do change and grow, they tend to do it in a very sudden and jerky fashion. They flip from "good" to "bad", or from "bad" to "good" quickly and without much personal anguish. Wanderer (renamed Wanda by the humans) was particularly cloying at times. While I really did like her, her goodness bordered on boring. She also never seemed to grapple with the moral issues of being a parasite, despite coming to love the humans.

With Stephenie Meyer's meteoric rise to fame, it's hard not to compare The Host to the Twilight series. In my opinion, The Host is a far more interesting and original book. I know that this is probably going to shock (and possibly annoy) a lot of people, but I didn't really like Twilight. I found the female lead one-dimensional, weak, needy and almost kittenish. Wanda suffers the same fate in many ways; she is submissive and almost too "good". But because of the way that Souls are portrayed - as gentle and nonviolent by nature - it was much more acceptable to me to have a weak female lead. Still, I hope that if Meyers writes any more books, she'll drop the whole "damsel in distress" plot and write a stronger, more independent female character.

This book made me want to: build a bunker and stock it with supplies. Oh, who am I kidding. I've wanted to do that for years.

Verdict: Despite its flaws, this was a good story with strong pacing and likeable characters - well worth reading!

Sequels: none as of yet.

The House of the Scorpion

title: The House of the Scorpion
author: Nancy Farmer
how I read it: in book form, about six times in three different houses – my copy is much-loved, complete with dog ears and chocolate stains.

Clones, opium, betrayal, love, power, slavery...and did I mention clones? Farmer’s tells the story of Matt, a young clone – dehumanized, isolated – and his growing understanding of the world and his role within it. When Matt is a child, locked in a small shack in the middle of vast opium fields, he is discovered by three other children. Matt has never played with other children. He has no mother, father or siblings. His only companion is Celia, who loves him dearly, cares for him, and keeps him hidden during the day while she is away. Matt’s introduction to the wider world is anything but kind, but he must learn to be strong in order to survive.

This is one of my all-time favourite books. You’d think that I’d know it by heart after six or seven reads, but it still surprises and shocks me every single time. It’s a dark, depressing story in many ways, but – as with any good story – there are still glimmers of hope.

Matt is a captivating main character. He is in turn naive and shrewd; kind and cruel; young and wise. I spent most of the book wanting to gather him in my arms, whether he was a small child or an adolescent. Farmer wrote in such a way that six-year-old Matt is a true six-year-old. The vocabulary and voice grow and change along with Matt. This growth was very well-executed and made the story all the more compelling. The suspense builds from the beginning of the book and doesn’t let up.

The future that Farmer has created is dark and frightening. It doesn’t seem all that implausible that some day land controlled by druglords might claim independence from other nations. It doesn’t seem all that impossible that the strong would find a way to enslave the weak using the most horrific form of mind control. It doesn’t seem unbelievable that someday the rich and immoral would twist technological advances to better their own lives at the expense of others.

This book brings up a lot of questions. Which is stronger, nature or nurture? How do we define right and wrong? Is it possible to atone for evil that we’ve done in the past? What makes a person a person? How do we balance ethics with rapid technological advances? How can we stand up for what we believe to be right when the rest of the world disagrees with us?

Oh, my brain hurts.

This book made me want to: read it again. And also say no to drugs.

Verdict: one of the best books that I’ve ever read...and I’ve read a lot of books.

Sequels: nada. This is the second standalone book that I’ve reviewed in a row. What a shocker!

Feed

title: Feed
author: M.T. Anderson
how I read it: printed book from the public library (first time), audiobook read by David Aaron Baker (second time)

Imagine pop-up ads drowning out your own thoughts. Imagine instant messaging your friends from inside your mind. Imagine being tracked, followed, targeted by advertisers without being able to turn off the ads. Imagine living your life to a neverending soundtrack of mindless TV soaps and inane pop music that is always on. Inside your brain.

Are you shuddering yet?

Now imagine that the vast majority of people willingly have chips ("feeds") implanted so that they can live in this constant stream of noise, ads, apps and useless information. On purpose.

From the first line of Feed ("We went to the moon to have fun, but the moon turned out to completely suck."), M.T. Anderson crafts a world that is coloured by disconnection, boredom, mindless consumerism, corporate branding, conformity, environmental degradation and utter indifference. Titus and his friends jump from activity to party to purchase, always looking for something that will hold their attention. When Titus meets Violet, a girl who wants to fight the feed, his world is turned upside down. Feed is a brilliant satire and social commentary that tackles some frighteningly real and timely issues.

I'm going to make a confession here: the first time that I read Feed, I thought that it was an okay book. I enjoyed it, but I don't think that I fully appreciated it until I listened to David Aaron Baker read it aloud.

Audiobooks force me to slow down and think about every word. Whereas in a print book it's not unusual for me to skim over long descriptions or flip back and forth to re-read favourite parts, in an audiobook I give up control. The reader controls the pace, the emphasis and the tone. David Aaron Baker's reading left me reeling. His voice, his inflections, his expression brought that book to life for me in a way that my own internal voice could not. He is masterful at voicing the book's different characters. And the advertising, jingles, songs and clips that punctuate the audiobook? Brilliant!

Until I listened to this book read for me, I hadn't realized just how funny it was. I was also able to more deeply appreciate Anderson's ability to "show not tell". Anderson doesn't tell me what life is like in Feed's world. Instead, he slowly reveals how people live, sentence by sentence and page by page. His is a rare gift.

The language and author voice in this book are very strong. Invented slang sometimes falls flat in fiction; that is not the case in Feed. The slang used in this book is believable and helps to further flesh out a world in which language and vocabulary are no longer terribly important. I was struck in particular by scenes with parents and doctors, with these educated adults struggling to express themselves as they stumble over "like"s, "so"s and "dude"s.

While I did empathize with the two main characters, the supporting characters are neither terribly likeable nor relateable. They are shallow, frivolous and ultimately interchangeable. While in another book this might be a flaw, in this book it worked perfectly. These kids live in a bleak and disconnected world; this was made all the more powerful by the fact that I didn't really care about many of them.

Feed is a frightening book, in large part because it paints a future that doesn't seem all that implausible.

This book made me want to: Turn off my computer and have a conversation with a real live person.

Verdict: Read this. No, listen to it. David Aaron Baker is a phenomenal reader and his voice combined with Anderson's words will leave you reeling.

Sequels: None! A stand-alone young adult dystopian novel? Is that even allowed?

The Knife of Never Letting Go

title: The Knife of Never Letting Go
author: Patrick Ness
how I read it: epub from the public library

Young Todd Hewitt lives in Prentisstown, a small settlement on New World. He was born there, and he knows nothing other than the world he lives in: a world where a Noise germ has infected people so that animals can speak and men hear each others' every thought. Todd is a lonely boy on the brink of manhood in a mysterious and aggressive village.

(Please don't be dissuaded by the talking animals. These animals "talk" the way that real animals might, words and pictures about whatever it is that they happen to be doing. Imagine a predator breathing "flesh" and "teeth" and "eat" while it watches you from beneath the water. These are not the whimsical talking animals found far too often in children's picture books.)

I will tell you no more than this. I started reading this book knowing nothing about it, and I'm convinced that it's best to go into this book with very little prior knowledge. As Todd learned more about his world, I learned alongside him; I believe that this made the book even more intriguing and fascinating. While many of the mysteries were really not all that surprising to me once they were revealed, I was still engaged and invested in Todd's sense of shock at all that he learned.

The author made some stylistic choices that I didn't love at first. I'm not a huge fan of books written in dialect, and although I was able to stop noticing the "yer"s and "tho"s after the first chapter, words like "attenshun" grated on me each time I read them. Maybe it's my own accent - but I really don't see that "attenshun" sounds all that different from "attention".

Still, other stylistic choices worked extremely well. This story is told in the first person, and Todd's voice is very strong. He is uneducated, innocent, stubborn, far less sure than he claims to be and utterly, utterly believable. The run-on sentences read like well-constructed streams of consciousness when Todd is confused or frightened. The cut-off sentences during action sequences added to the tension and suspense; I found myself breathless, my eyes skipping over each cut-off line to find out what would happen.

Overall, this is a fantastic book. It is very well-paced and the author is a gifted wordsmith. The story is original and thought-provoking. The themes that this book grapples with are huge: gender politics, individualism, privacy, religious fundamentalism, the atrocities of war. At its heart, this book is a strong and true coming of age story, with likable characters and an exciting plot that keeps you guessing.

Unfortunately, the last few pages of this book soured my reading experience a bit. Like many other young adult science fiction books, this book is the first installment in a trilogy (Chaos Walking Trilogy). While I am thrilled to know that there are two more books waiting for me, that doesn't lessen my disappointment in the utter lack of closure at the end of this book. The book doesn't end. It stops suddenly on a cliffhanger, one of my pet peeves in young adult speculative fiction. As I've mentioned before, I like to decide for myself to read a sequel, not feel manipulated by a story that doesn't even hint at an end. And to be honest, this ending felt a bit like a new TV series that ends on a cliffhanger in hopes that the series will be picked up for another year.

That said, I will absolutely read the next book. I became very emotionally invested in this book. My heart pounded at the scary parts, I laughed out loud a few times, and I actually cried - a true rarity for me. I have to find out what's going to happen to Todd and his friend!

This book made me want to: hug my dog. And my Mom.

Verdict: Original and compelling story. Had it ended, I would have said that I highly recommend this book to any and all. As it stands, I recommend it, but only after making clear my disappointment with the lack of closure.

Sequels: The Ask and the Answer, Monsters of Men

Peeps

title: Peeps
author: Scott Westerfield
how I read it: once in print before giving it as a gift (what? I didn't break the spine) and once in ebook form

Cal is a Peep - a parasite positive. He's been infected by a parasite that alters human behaviour. The infected become light sensitive, strong and fast, phobic of the things and people they once loved, sex-starved, and very, very hungry for meat - human or otherwise. Luckily for Cal, he's a rare carrier rather than a full-blown Peep. Yeah, he's hungry and horny, but at least he's still mostly himself.

Peeps is a vampire book, except that there's nothing supernatural about it. This is no love story about a sweet young girl drawn towards a dark, brooding vampire. This is about garbage and rats and instinctive needs and infection and things that rumble deep in the Earth.

Peeps is suspenseful, fast-paced and easy to read. The tension mounts as the rats and garbage gather in the alleyways. There were a few scenes that made my heart pound, particularly when Cal found himself deep underground and close to a primal something that both terrified him and called to him.

Cal's voice - ironic, self-deprecating, funny, kind of nerdy - is strong and believable. Lace (Cal's new lady friend and partner in peep-hunting) is also likeable and funny, although it's a bit hard to believe that a woman in her twenties would preface every sentence with the word "dude".

Westerfield's take on vampirism is original and shockingly plausible, made all the moreso by detailed descriptions of actual existing parasites. This book is not for the squeamish. It hops back and forth between Cal's story and descriptions of parasite life cycles that are almost too graphic at times. (Well, too graphic for some. Personally, I love a good dose of gross.) These parallel parasite stories really creeped me out and helped me sink even more deeply into the story; if a parasite can make an ant climb the highest blade of grass and wait to be eaten by a cow, then who's to say that it couldn't change humans into mindless cannabilistic creatures?

Hey, it could happen.

There's an apocalyptic vibe to the book; you sense that the end is imminent, although the book doesn't fully go there. Peeps is a strong stand-alone book. While there are questions at the end that definitely leave you feeling that there's more to come, this book doesn't end on a cliffhanger designed to force you into buying another book. I love well-written sequals; I don't love being manipulated.

this book made me want to: study parasitology

verdict: I loved it! I highly recommend this book.

sequel: The Last Days