The Host

The Host by Stephenie Meyer has been my latest book discovery. I have just finished chapter 5 and I couldn't go on until I said something about this one paragraph. It was the kind of paragraph you re-read at least 3 times because it is like "BAM!" it hit home. It truly is the most honest true thing about human lives today in one paragraph I have EVER read.

I haven't read it all the way through and already I am in love with this book. I want to share this one paragraph, but first I think you need a tiny tiny bit of plot. The host is a human body the parasite is an alien. So far this book has touched so much on the value of life itself. I am simply amazed. The paragraph that has amazed me comes from the alien inside this woman's body, it is the alien's thoughts. By the way it's page 47 if you wanted to look for yourself.

"But we were not wasteful. We did make whatever we took better, more peaceful and beautiful. And the humans were brutish and ungovernable. They had killed one another so frequently that murder had been an accepted part of life. The various tortures they devised over the few millennia they'd lasted had been too much for me; I hadn't been able to bear even the dry official overviews. Wars had raged over the face of nearly every continent. Sanctioned murder, ordered and viciously effective. Those who lived in peaceful nations had looked the other way as members of their own species starved on their doorstep. There was no equality to the distribution of the planet's bounteous resources. Most vile yet, their offspring - the next generation, which my mind nearly worshiped for their promise- had all too often been victims of heinous crimes. And not just at the hands of strangers, but at the hands of the caretakers they were entrusted to. Even the huge sphere of the planet had been put into jeopardy through their careless greedy mistakes. No one could compare what had been and what was now and not to admit that Earth was a better place thanks to us."