55. The Host by Stephanie Meyer

I enjoyed the Twilight series but put off reading this book because the storyline didn't sound appealing to me.  I'm not a sci-fi fan and this book is definitely science fiction.  The whole idea of a body being taken over by an alien who tries to erase that person's mind was kind of creepy to me.  Then the alien falls in love with the man in the actual person's memories.   It just didn't sound like my kind of book.  But when I was able to mooch the book, I did.  And since it is a large book and takes too much room on the book shelves, I decided to read it quickly so I could mooch it forward.  Well, what can I say.  I really liked this book, much better than the Twilight series.  Wanderer, the alien (called a soul), is a fantastic character as is Melanie, the human striving to remain alive in her taken-over body.  They are strong, interesting and not completely perfect.  When they are able to find a small group of human survivors, the conflict between the humans, especially Jared, Melanie's love interest; and the host body of Melanie is intense and intriguing.  Plus the world they have created for themselves in order to survive and hide from the souls is pure creative delight.  It's not an easy world but  believable.  I found this book to be very imaginative and well written.  Even the romance is interesting, not an easy love, but conflicted, twisting and turning, with all kinds of impediments.  While I may never read the Twilight series again, since I found the first movie disappointing and Edward and Bella so far from what I imagined; I plan on keeping this book around for a future reread.  So much for clearing off the shelves.  Of course, when a movie comes out, the casting may be as awful and make it impossible to read the book again with the same enjoyment.  As for my interest in science fiction, I may have to rethink that as well.  I really liked this book and loved Ender's Game and Speaker for the Dead.  What other great sci-fi's am I missing?
Rating:  4.75