The Host: Love, Sacrifice, and Kissing Two Hot Guys
I finished Stephenie Meyer’s new book, The Host, last night. I stayed up until 11:30pm reading. I was amazed at how much I loved this book. I’m not a science fiction geek by any standard, but I loved this book. I tried to narrow it down to 3 reasons which I have already listed in the title: first the theme of love, the theme of sacrifice and the great scene where she gets to kiss two ridiculously attractive men (just remember I’m a 25 year old single woman. I haven’t been kissed in —- years. I’m allowed my fantasies, no?).
PS–Stop RIGHT NOW! If you haven’t read the book. This is not a spoiler free zone. Go and read it. But read it slowly. Analyze your thoughts and feelings. It’s very deep book if you want it to be. And I recommend you make it so!
Love.
Love is such a crazy emotion. I love that it’s the one thing that the alien’s can’t really explain or understand either. It’s this prevailing god-like quality of which comprehension alludes us all. I love at the end when Wanda has decided to forsake herself to save Melanie and Ian is trying to understand her decision. He finally confesses his feelings–that he loves her and she explains that her love for Melanie is greater than her love for Ian.
“I–I love you, too. Me, the little silver worm in the back of her head. But my body doesn’t love you. It can’t love you. I can never love you in this body, Ian. It pulls me in two. It’s unbearable.”
What would it be like to be able to love with your soul, but not with your body? I mean isn’t lust loving with your body what you don’t love with your soul? I love that definition that is kind of given by Stephenie Meyer–true love requires body and soul, in harmony. They are interconnected.
Sacrifice.
Wanda, in the end, forsakes her species, her greatest secrets, to save the life of those she loves. She truly encapsulates the scripture, “Greater love has no man than this, that he lay his life down for his friends.” (John 15:13). Wanda becomes a Christ figure in the book. She was despised and rejected of those who she would save. I’m sure that was not what Stephenie Meyer intended to write, but that’s what she did. And my favorite part is that her friends resurrected her. They could not be without her. And so they choose a beautiful new body to give her. They sacrificed for her, in return for her great sacrifice that saved them. I have come to learn that love and sacrifice are essential to any relationship surviving time. While some sacrifices are greater, when we give up something for someone else, that relationship is strengthened. We see another’s worth in such a greater capacity.
Kissing two hot guys.
Who doesn’t want that? And that fact that we can imagine that? Oh, THANK YOU, Stephenie Meyer! I can’t tell you how that made me feel. It wasn’t a sad thing, like in Eclipse when Bella kissed Jacob for the second time. No, that made me sad and a little bit angry. But in this book? I liked both Jared and Ian. Well, I liked Melanie’s memory of Jared and who he was and what he was trying to do. It was sad that Wanda had to choose because she couldn’t love Ian in that way. But those two guys? Man, what I wouldn’t give to not only have one guy like me, but two? Yeah. That would hit the spot. ha ha!
Did anyone notice the Office reference? I love that Stephenie and I have the same likes and dislikes! Go to page 218, third paragraph. She mentions “Pams and Jims”. That’s right–our favorite Jam! I love the Office. I understand it more because I have worked in offices, but yeah. Thanks for that shout-out. Now if only John Krasinski would read The Host and I could meet him, and discuss it with him over a romantic dinner and then…
Well, in truth I would probably wake up. But yes. Go! Go read The Host. And then dream!
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