The Host
Tags
Summary
The protagonist is a soul who has already lived eight lives across other planets; she is implanted into the body of a young woman, Melanie. By convention the host's consciousness should quickly fade, but Melanie refuses to yield her mind—she is consumed with thoughts of her lover Jared and her brother Jamie, both in hiding. Two consciousnesses share one body, confronting each other yet forced to converse: Melanie's memories and emotions keep seeping into the parasite's thoughts, and the parasite finds herself falling in love with a man she has never met. To find the people Melanie loves, they reluctantly begin to cooperate, setting out on a journey of flight and search, and confronting hostility, suspicion and judgment at the secret hideout of the human resistance.
The work continues Meyer's familiar themes: impossible love, the cost of choice, and the question of "who am I." The author turns a science-fiction premise into an emotion-driven adventure story, balancing action and lyricism, and the ending leaves room for what follows. Meyer herself described it as "a science fiction novel for people who don't read science fiction."
Editor's review
Who it's for
A good fit for
- 读过《暮光之城》，想看看梅尔写科幻会是什么样子的读者
- 喜欢“共存”“身份认同”类设定，乐于看两个意识对话的读者
- 偏爱以感情线推动情节、不介意科幻设定偏软的读者
- 习惯慢热长篇、愿意花时间陪伴人物成长的故事爱好者
Not a good fit for
- 追求硬核科幻、期待严密世界观与技术推演的读者
- 不喜欢三角恋、多角情感纠葛与大量内心独白的人
- 希望节奏紧凑、一开篇就爆发冲突的读者
Reading tips
- 先接受“灵魂寄生”的设定前提，不必用现实生物学去衡量它，重点看人物关系。
- 留意两个意识的对话方式：谁在说话、谁在听，是理解全书情感变化的关键。
- 中段进入人类藏匿点后人物与立场增多，建议连着读几章，避免被众多名字打断。
- 读完后可以对照2013年改编电影，看看电影如何处理“同一身体两个声音”的难题。
About the publisher
Jieli Publishing House is a publisher focusing on young people's reading, with a distinctive strength in making classical literature and classic works accessible to a broad readership. Its catalogue contains 224 titles, with common categories including classical literature, classic works, history books and science fiction. Representative books include the Chinese classics series such as Dream of the Red Chamber: An Appreciation Edition, Romance of the Three Kingdoms and Journey to the West, illustrated editions of foreign classics such as Eugénie Grandet and Around the World in Eighty Days, and history titles such as Records of the Grand Historian: An Appreciation Edition. Its authors and editors include classical writers Cao Xueqin, Gao E, Luo Guanzhong and Wu Cheng'en, editors Zhao Huaxia, Wang Yiqing and Chen Xiaohui, and foreign writers such as Balzac. The press uses appreciation and illustrated editions to lower the threshold for reading classics, serving both exam-related and extracurricular reading needs; as public information is limited, other publishing features are not discussed here.
Contents
- Copyright Page
- Prologue
- Remembrance
- Eavesdropping
- Resistance
- Dream
- Realization
- Following
- Facing
- Falling in Love
- Discovery
- Transformation
- Dehydration
- Failure
- Sentence
- Controversy
- Guardianship
- Mission
- Visit
- Warning
- Abandonment
- Release
- Names
- Breaking the Ice
- Confession
- Tolerance
- Guilt
- Return
- Hesitation
- Ignorance
- Betrayal
- Simplification
- Need
- Ambush
- Doubt
- Burial
- Trial
- Belief
- Longing
- Touch
FAQ
《宿主》和《暮光之城》有关系吗？
这本书属于硬科幻吗？
两个意识共用一个身体，会不会很难读？
《宿主》是系列第一部吗？有没有第二部？
这个版本是否全译、有无删节？
Comments
Find this book
This site is an index: you start “Search all sources” in your browser, and the entries it lists all point to third-party sites; please judge their availability yourself.
About the author
Stephenie Meyer, born in 1973, is an American novelist. A graduate of Brigham Young University in English literature, she spent her early years mainly in Connecticut and Arizona. Meyer rose to fame with the vampire romance series Twilight, which includes Twilight, New Moon, Eclipse, Breaking Dawn, and the later Midnight Sun, and is categorized as popular fiction and foreign literature. Her works often center on adolescent emotions, weaving romantic entanglements into fantasy settings with direct narration and intense atmosphere, giving her wide influence among young readers. The library holds seven of her works, all different editions or collections of the Twilight series. Beyond this series, public sources note that she has also written adult novels such as The Host and The Chemist.
