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I've had this book on my Kindle for a while, and got around to reading it this past week. I had pretty low expectations going in, thanks to Twilight, and I was pleasantly surprised by the improvement in this book over that series. There are some neat concepts in here, as well as likeable main characters with some actual development. I really wish that GR allowed half-star markings, as this is a solid 3.5 star book, but it's better than 3 so I'm rounding up to 4.
As can be gleaned from the book's copy, Melanie is a human whose body has been taken over by a parasite from another species, known as Wanderer. This other species lives many lives inside other bodies on a range of worlds, being bodily installed into the host's brain where they then take over. This led to an interesting concept that caught my brain, even as it was likely a throwaway line, something along the lines of "humans were hard to tell apart, as they had similar skin and eye colors and even kept their features all in the same place." That is a neat concept and I wish it had been more than a single line at the beginning of the book.
The negatives of the book were that it's written from a dual viewpoint of which one is a 17yo girl whose lover is an older man (not again). However, most of the vapid and damaging screed present in Twilight is missing, and the reasoning is relatively sound, so I let it go. The much older viewpoint of Wanderer balances out the young and impetuous Melanie quite nicely, and I found their interactions to be the highlight of the novel.
This is worth the read as a light sci-fi novel with an interesting premise and some great stories about other worlds. It's definitely a step up and improvement from the author's original books, and I enjoyed reading this one a lot although it likely won't be on the re-read list any time soon.
As can be gleaned from the book's copy, Melanie is a human whose body has been taken over by a parasite from another species, known as Wanderer. This other species lives many lives inside other bodies on a range of worlds, being bodily installed into the host's brain where they then take over. This led to an interesting concept that caught my brain, even as it was likely a throwaway line, something along the lines of "humans were hard to tell apart, as they had similar skin and eye colors and even kept their features all in the same place." That is a neat concept and I wish it had been more than a single line at the beginning of the book.
The negatives of the book were that it's written from a dual viewpoint of which one is a 17yo girl whose lover is an older man (not again). However, most of the vapid and damaging screed present in Twilight is missing, and the reasoning is relatively sound, so I let it go. The much older viewpoint of Wanderer balances out the young and impetuous Melanie quite nicely, and I found their interactions to be the highlight of the novel.
This is worth the read as a light sci-fi novel with an interesting premise and some great stories about other worlds. It's definitely a step up and improvement from the author's original books, and I enjoyed reading this one a lot although it likely won't be on the re-read list any time soon.