Pride and prejudice

Right now, what with the season of goodwill approaching and my social life going into overdrive, probably the first word that springs to mind regarding this blog (and also my reading habits) is neglect. However, approaching the next title, the words that sprang most to mind were those two Ps: pride and prejudice. The former is not something I possess in abundance, I'm happy to try new things and willing to speak my mind and stick my neck out and not worry about embarrassing myself. The latter is something I try to avoid too, preferring to judge and to speak from a position where I am qualified to do so.

And on that note, while I'm happy to pour scorn on Twilight (and a large number of people who I usually believe to have good taste have fallen foul of this one), I have never read it, though I will admit that a lot of what I've heard isn't positive. Anyway, I no doubt will eventually grapple with it (or maybe life's just too short), but I have just finshed reading Stephenie Meyer's other book, The Host. I'd been told a variety of things about this, from "It's actually quite good" to "A good idea, terribly executed" and now I can actually put some thoughts together on this one.

Where to begin? Well, a great writer she ain't. More disappointing is the fact that there was a lot of potential for it, but sadly very little of it was realised. In terms of the story, well, it was only twice as long as it needed to be to tell, well, not very much. A quarter of the way in, having been pleasantly surprised by the growing relationship between the two protagonists (human and soul) and the fact I assumed it would be a quest novel and had been proved wrong, I had reasonably high hopes that it could go in a few different interesting ways. Sadly, having shared these ideas at this stage, I was told I was going to be disappointed. I was. At this point, very little happened both in terms of story progression and character development and the potentially kick-ass dystopian fight for freedom or internal conflict never happened. There wasn't even any freaky alien sex – Meyer, you clearly have some very fucked up fantasies – to chuckle at.

So perhaps it was what I was told, a good idea badly executed. The concept was an interesting one but instead of something interesting, all I got was a bizarre love triangle (square?) and a lukewarm relationship drama from the back of a cereal box. It could have been so much more and I think it's that which disappointed me the most.

Book number: 91
Title: The Host
Author: Stephenie Meyer
Category: Charlotte's choice