Book Review
Sep. 29th, 2009 08:37 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
vdanskIt is fashionable, among my friends and acquaintances, to disdain Stephanie Meyer. After all, her _Twilight_ series appeals to the hoi poloi, the common masses, that "less than us" segment of the population. We are above that, above them.
An interesting prejudice, particularly given the nature of her stand-alone novel, _The Host_.
The basic idea has been done before, by Heinlein and myriad imitators, and by Hollywood as well. Aliens take humanity over from within, wearing us like clothing. If that concept were all that this novel had going for it, it would be a pale and paltry thing. This concept, however, is only the premise, the background, for a novel about identity, about love, and choices, about memory, about the essense of humanity and conscience. She blurs the line between hero and villain, between protagonist and monster, and mixes cruelty and kindness, beauty and pain into an alchemical brew that is more than captivating.
It is not flawless; the heroine, being who she is, is perhaps too good a soul for us to fully identify with. The human characters are perhaps too realistically human, and flawed, for comfort. Still, picking up the book, now read twice, at any point, I am easily captured for an hour at a time, re-reading, re-empathizing.
I want to write like this.
An interesting prejudice, particularly given the nature of her stand-alone novel, _The Host_.
The basic idea has been done before, by Heinlein and myriad imitators, and by Hollywood as well. Aliens take humanity over from within, wearing us like clothing. If that concept were all that this novel had going for it, it would be a pale and paltry thing. This concept, however, is only the premise, the background, for a novel about identity, about love, and choices, about memory, about the essense of humanity and conscience. She blurs the line between hero and villain, between protagonist and monster, and mixes cruelty and kindness, beauty and pain into an alchemical brew that is more than captivating.
It is not flawless; the heroine, being who she is, is perhaps too good a soul for us to fully identify with. The human characters are perhaps too realistically human, and flawed, for comfort. Still, picking up the book, now read twice, at any point, I am easily captured for an hour at a time, re-reading, re-empathizing.
I want to write like this.
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Date: 2009-10-04 05:13 pm (UTC)Lackey at least makes the people earn it as part of the journey - Tara and Vanyel must master their gifts, and generally speaking pay a price for them. In Twilight, the heroine simply *is* (and is lovely and talented, and therefore shunned by all without the background to make that believable), but doesn't do anything but be his mate. I'm not sure that's a tale worth recommending for our children. The measure of a story's appeal to me is whether the central characters earn the reader's respect. It lies in their action, and not the passive acceptance of a "destiny".
Anyway, a well-written tale that catches at your emotion can be a pleasure to read, even if it's a guilty one.
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Date: 2009-10-04 08:29 pm (UTC)