Stephanie Meyer: The Host by: Laurel Oldach Readers familiar with Stephanie Meyer's previous work may wonder how she distinguishes The Host, advertised on its dust jacket as her "first novel for adults," from her wildly popular Twilight franchise (er, series) for teenagers. Despite a minor shift in genre from straight-up fantasy to light-on-the-science sci-fi; and location, from rainy Wasshington to arid Arizona, The Host is narrated in a voice similar to Twilight's, and is occupied by the same questions of identity that plague and fascinate teenage audiences. Wanderer, the book's main character, is a parasitic alien living inside a human host-body, in a world almost completely inhabited by other pod-people. "Wild" (uninhabited) humans are rare and dangerous, and it troubles Wanderer that she can still hear the mental voice of her host; over time, her host's memories, curiosity and transposed affections lead her to seek out the few humans who remain. Meyer's choice of adults as target audience becomes clearer about halfway through the novel, in an extended episode of what even the Bush Administration would have to classify as torture physical and psychological. This is described in chilling and completely consuming detail—but more horrifying still is Wanderer's apologetic acceptance of her inhumane treatment at human hands. She attempts to ingratiate herself with the man her host body loved, even as he beats and distrusts her. Meyer's protagonist (who speaks in an adolescent girl's voice and lives in a girl's body) sacrifices herself, physically and emotionally, again and again, for this quasi-boyfriend, who treats her abominably. The only character who expresses any concern for her well-being is dismissed by other humans as a fool; Wanderer herself doesn't listen to him. Yet by the end of the novel, thanks in large part to her selflessness, she is hailed as a heroine. The problem is that, no matter what the dust jacket says, the adolescent girls who swooned over Twilight will read The Host as well. Presenting Wanderer's path as a laudable one, presenting self-sacrifice as strength, do a disservice to these young women and to the protagonist herself, who deserves better.