The Host by Stephenie Meyer - 3 stars

[Jen]

This had been sitting on my Kindle forever and I finally decided it was time to get it read. I ended up having struggles at both the beginning and the end—one story-related, one formatting-related—that made the experience a bit uneven.

On the story side, I was pretty icked out by the age of our main character and her relationships with the men she encounters. Without getting spoilery, the whole “barely legal girl involved with men a decade older” thing (twice!) was a big yuck for me and really took me out of the story when it would come up.

Semi-related: I started on Kindle, but the formatting choices made the “inner language” dialogue teeny tiny, so I switched to the audiobook. The narrator is talented, but she sounds noticeably older than the character, which added another layer of disconnect—especially whenever ages or timelines were mentioned. This faded a bit during the more intense middle section, but it still never fully disappeared.

That said, the middle of the book was genuinely interesting. I liked the relationship-building, the tension, the discoveries, and the whole navigating-new-realities vibe. It’s just that the bookends were unpleasant enough for me that they pulled the overall rating down.

Apparently this might be part of a series? If so, I’m good stopping here.