So it appears that Ms. Meyer, of Twilight fame, has also written a science fiction novel for adults. Titled The Host, it appears to be another entry in The Puppet Masters vein.
Has anyone read this? What’s the reaction been?
I have no intention to actually read it for real, mind you, but after following the Twilight threads I find myself awash in morbid curiosity about it.
I actually went so far as to briefly page through it at the bookstore the other day, and my initial take was “mediocre first novel with lousy editing, written by someone with no knowledge of the domain, aimed at less-than-discerning readers with no knowledge of the domain.”
I was going to ask about this myself.
I actually quite enjoyed it. I didn’t especially notice the bad editing, and if by domain you mean science fiction, I saw nothing wrong with that either. It had interesting concepts, and it was a pretty engaging read. But then, I found The DaVinci Code engaging at the time I read it, and it obviously doesn’t hold up to further examination, so take my opinion with a grain of salt.
For what it’s worth, though, my roommate who adores The Host said she attempted to look at Twilight afterward and couldn’t get past the first couple of pages before gagging, and the clip of the Twilight movie I saw was absolutely horrific in itself. But we both enjoyed The Host, thought it had an interesting concept behind it, and if the book was mostly focused on romantic relationships, it at least didn’t overflow with the godawful silly emo present in Twilight.
I wouldn’t characterize it as a hard science fiction book by any means, but it was an interesting read.
My husband read it, because he was told that a person who liked Twilight wouldn’t like the Host, so he figured the reverse might apply too. His summary was that it was an interesting set up, the first 100 pages and the last 100 pages were OK, but the middle several hundred really dragged on and on and should also have been 100 pages long. When he was reading it, he kept looking at me and complaining, “This is so girly! All they do is talk about their feeeelings!”
It sounded to me like she made several beginner-SF-writer errors, like happily explaining her clever idea at length instead of making the reader figure it out.
…Yeeah, that about sums it up, but I didn’t want to sound, y’know, sexist. 
Read it, liked it very much… FWIW, I also read the Twilight series and found them sophomoric and vapid.
Better than Twilight (that’s not saying much) but had one very annoying similarity: an angsty love triangle that is resolved in a pat but creepy way.
Hint 1: 624 pages. There are very few writers who can maintain quality at that length.
Anyhoo, thanks for the responses. Like I said, I have no intention to actually read the book, but I guess it’s evidence that Meyer is developing her skills.