Book Review Monday - Week 5 and 6

The Host by Stephenie Meyer
My rating: 5 stars

Summary: Melanie Stryder refuses to fade away. The earth has been invaded by a species that take over the minds of their human hosts while leaving their bodies intact, and most of humanity has succumbed.Wanderer, the invading "soul" who has been given Melanie's body, knew about the challenges of living inside a human: the overwhelming emotions, the too vivid memories. But there was one difficulty Wanderer didn't expect: the former tenant of her body refusing to relinquish possession of her mind.Melanie fills Wanderer's thoughts with visions of the man Melanie loves-Jared, a human who still lives in hiding. Unable to separate herself from her body's desires, Wanderer yearns for a man she's never met. As outside forces make Wanderer and Melanie unwilling allies, they set off to search for the man they both love.

My take: This is such a great book. It's about 600 pages, but for me, it was a fast read (2 days fast). I loved this book just as much as I loved the Twilight series, also by Stephenie Meyer, and that's saying a lot. There are a couple of similarities in the books, but not in the storyline. The storyline isn't like the Body Snatchers type movies. It's similar in that it's an alien invasion, but that's where the similarities end. This book was very well-written, and for those of you not fans of Stephenie Meyers writing in the Twilight series, might be very pleasantly surprised by this book. She is supposed to be coming out with 2 sequels to this book, and I cannot wait to find out what happens next!

The Tenth Circle by Jodi Picoult

My rating: 5 stars

Summary: Fourteen-year-old Trixie Stone is in love for the first time. She's also the light of her father, Daniel's life -- a straight-A student; a pretty, popular freshman in high school; a girl who's always seen her father as a hero. That is, until her world is turned upside down with a single act of violence. Suddenly everything Trixie has believed about her family -- and herself -- seems to be a lie. Could the boyfriend who once made Trixie wild with happiness have been the one to end her childhood forever? She says that he is, and that is all it takes to make Daniel, a seemingly mild-mannered comic book artist with a secret tumultuous past he has hidden even from his family, venture to hell and back to protect his daughter.
With The Tenth Circle, Jodi Picoult offers her most powerful chronicle yet as she explores the unbreakable bond between parent and child, and questions whether you can reinvent yourself in the course of a lifetime -- or if your mistakes are carried forever.

My take: Jodi's books, in my opinion, are always extremely well-written. You can tell she does extensive research while writing. If you didn't catch it, the title of this book is referring to the nine circles of hell as written about by Dante in The Inferno. I remember studying it in English, and as long as you know the gist of what it's about, it helps you understand this book. There is even a graphic novel in it, for those of you who like comics! Overall, it was a very interesting, yet kind of sad, book. As always, there is a bit of a twist at the end, which always keeps me reading.

**I'm a little behind on my reading, so I'll be playing catch-up this week and doing 2 reviews next week as well!!**