#frenchie rambles

After a few minutes, I saw a bright, familiar sign in the distance. I took a deep breath and wiped my eyes clear. 

"Ian, could you do me a favor?" 

"Anything you want." 

"I want fast food." 

To me, this was a sort of a last meal - the final gift to the condemned.

Like in the first chapter a lot of Wanda’s thoughts are fairly mechanical, kind of like what you would expect from an alien encountering English for the first time (even as a “native” speaker)

Then we have the big time jump and the way that she talks and thinks changes!! It changes to match the way that most of the souls talk (kind, grammatical, almost overly polite). This is the case even in her internal narration (possibly excepting when she speaks directly to Melanie, if I’m remembering correctly?).

Then she moves in with a bunch of humans and she has ANOTHER big linguistic shift. In the last half of the book we see her saying and thinking things in a way she never said or thought of things in the first half!

This is really encapsulated by the whole “catching on to sarcasm” thing, but I’ve noticed it actually goes down to like a grammatical level!!

I too have a few points of contention with the book. I dislike how nothing is ever addressed, like the dissonance between the Souls being horrified that the living flowers on the Fire World had human-like sentience and then the simultaneous justification of erasing humans when inhabiting their bodies. (No offense to the rebels, but I think Melanie and Lacey were outliers, and it wasn’t because they were particularly strong or stubborn. I think they got lucky and if their Souls had remained with them for longer, they too would have been erased. Also would have added some urgency to separating Melanie and Wanderer IMO.) Whether they’re being erased or eaten, two sentient things are disappearing, so why is one murder and the other isn’t?

What makes Seekers so different? Why was The Seeker able to kill Wes when Wanderer was unable to ‘kill’ Kyle by leaving him behind? I wonder what the difference in compassion was, whether The Seeker’s experience during the occupation made a difference.

I also think it’s so weird that Wanderer was a virgin? Like she’s thousands of years old and I totally get that she’d never fallen in love, but I think it’s wild that it’s implied that Jared and Ian have had sex because they’re grown men but Wanderer hasn’t because she’s Delicate Fragile Woman? Ah, gender roles.

I wish we’d gotten more of Ian’s POV because I want to know how he fell for Wanderer and not Melanie’s body specifically. I believe he did, but I also believed that Edward genuinely fell for Bella, but in Midnight Sun it was revealed that he fell for her bc he could project a personality onto her silent mind. My main complaint is, if all souls are as kind and considerate as Wanderer is, then Ian could have feasibly fallen for any soul. What makes Wanderer special? I wish the book had covered this.

Obligatory more Shannon and Maggie, more of Doc and Shannon, and more of why Jeb is so okay with Jared dating Melanie other than an apocalypse.

I also wanted a bit more of Wanderer’s experiences as other beings. She told the humans in the caves about the planets and the life there, but very little about her own personal history. I fully believe she’s a bad bitch and the Rides the Beast story plus the entirety of The Host confirms this.

In terms of Kyle’s redemption, I really wanted him to examine why he was so kind to Sunny. Maybe it was because he’d gotten to know Wanderer, but I can’t help but feel like it was because she was in Jodi’s body. Some reflection would be nice, is all I’m saying. Like, what if Sunny had showed up to the caves instead of Wanderer? Would he have killed her?

I have more thoughts but these are all I can think of at the moment. Again, sorry if this is too much! I just got excited at seeing your blog.

Literally ALWAYS feel free to message me about the Host!! I love talking about it.

These are super valid imo. Maybe it’s just smeyer’s writing style but I do feel like she occasionally drops interesting lore/character hints that don’t get fleshed out (or, often, that are contradictory. See rant ahead.).

The one that’s the worst for me, personally, is that she establishes Wanda as this character who really values strength and resilience in the traditional sense. Like literally Wanda cares about being perceived as strong and being assertive and self-sustaining, as we see in the entire first half of the novel.