#Thriller Review: 'The Chemist' by Stephenie Meyer

The Chemist by Stephenie Meyer

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is the best book Stephenie Meyer has written so far. I really enjoyed the Twilight series, and I liked most of The Host (although I thought it was quite a bit longer than it needed to be). I know her writing isn't perfect (no one's is), but she is still getting better.

For me, the best thing about Stephenie Meyer's writing is the way she understands those deep moments of connection between two human beings. In the Twilight books, she made me recall the experience of being in love for the first time as a teenager. In The Host, she drew a beautiful portrait of a connection that crossed worlds and species in the romance between Ian and Wanderer.

In this book, the character we generally know as Alex (not her real name) doesn't have any close attachments to anyone in her life. She learns to, through a difficult and painful process. Daniel starts out as the war criminal she's chosen - through an unlikely set of circumstances - to torture for information.

Oh yes, Alex is a difficult women. Meyer doesn't let us go easy on her or warm up to her quickly, but that's okay. This is a suspense novel taking place in the world of elite and highly-trained agents. Elite agents aren't people-people, and Alex is no exception. Getting us to invest emotionally in these characters is difficult, because they are difficult and complex characters.

Meyer pulls it off. Near the end, the unthinkable happens, and it's a heart-wrenching moment.

In the meantime, this is an absolute page-turner. Compared to the slow build of The Host, this book reads lightning-quick. Alex's life is in constant danger, and as a reader I constantly had to know what she was going to do next.

What Meyer can still improve upon is the way she writes relationships between women. This improves a bit toward the end of the novel, when she part-way humanizes a character who had previously been portrayed as Alex's rival. Still, there's the rivalry and the implication that the woman's beauty and sexuality are somehow negatives. Alex also has a few judgmental moments directed at random strangers. But the overall quality of Meyer's writing is moving in the right direction.

Even if you're not necessarily a fan of Meyer based on her previous books, if you're a devourer of suspense and willing to suspend some disbelief at the more unlikely aspects of thriller novels, you should find this enjoyable.

FYI, this may be a tough read if you love dogs. There are dogs, and those dogs are in peril.

I purchased this hardcover book at my local Barnes and Noble. I was not obligated in any way to review it.

The Host book review

The Host movie review

Book Haul + Teaser for Morgan Black's Fireside Series

Nothing as erotic as Morgan Black's Fireside Series appeared in my shopping basket at my local library's used media sale yesterday. These are the things I did get, though:

I love Marta Acosta, and my fondness for Marvel has grown immensely since I first saw The Avengers. I've been wanting this book for over a year now, and here it is!

I don't know anything about this series, and I don't think it has anything to do with Vampire Academy, but if Richelle Mead wrote it then I'm willing to give this graphic novel a chance.

To go with my Twilight collection.

I gave away my copy of Volume 1 a long time ago, but look at how beautiful Edward looks on the cover. Young Kim's artwork is beautiful.

I also got three DVDs. I had hoped to find a bigger selection, including some of the young adult book-to-film adaptations that I've recently missed (The Book Thief, Ender's Game, and The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones). But instead I found these.

This second one is a movie I've already seen. I reviewed it here.

...and finally, another one I've seen before. I reviewed it here.

This was my personal haul. I also got 10 books from my grandmother's handwritten, extensive, alphabetized list. She gets a mix of literary fiction and suspense:

Doughty, Louise. Whatever You Love

Erdrich, Louise. The Round House

Haigh, Jennifer. Faith

Kellerman, Jonathan. Killer

LaPlante, Alice. Turn of Mind

Mathis, Ayana. The Twelve Tribes of Hattie

Meyer, Phillip. The Son

McGrath, M.J. White Heat

Patchett, Ann. State of Wonder

Quinlan, Anna. Still Life with Bread Crumbs

Those should keep her reading for at least six months. What are you reading? 

Movie Review: The Host

When I read Stephenie Meyer's novel The Host (book review here), it didn't quite work for me either as a romance or as a science fiction movie. Still, I consider seeing the movie based on a book something of a reward for having read that book, so I was excited to see the film version of The Host. I missed it in the theater, but I watched it at home last night.

This is one of those rare cases where a movie is better than the book. All the scenes of waiting around for some action to happen are neatly condensed into a scifi movie that isn't boring. It's a good-looking movie, pretty much the way it looked inside my head (except I thought that Healer Fords was an American Indian man), and the musical score by Antonio Pinto is gorgeous. If you're not familiar with the plot, here's a brief summary: the Earth has been conquered by a species that calls itself the Souls. They're symbiotic, living inside human bodies. The human personality disappears - usually. 

When Wanderer arrives on Earth, she finds herself bonded to the body of a young woman named Melanie, but Melanie refuses to disappear without a fight. The two share a body, and Melanie leads Wanderer to a small surviving group of symbiote-free humans, including Melanie's Uncle Jeb and Aunt Maggie, her younger brother Jamie, and Melanie's lover Jared. Because Wanderer shares her body, Melanie's relationship with the other humans is complicated. One man, Ian, attempts to kill Wanderer, but then ends up having feelings for her (which makes Melanie jealous). 

Wanderer uses the Souls' advanced medical knowledge to heal Jamie when he almost dies from an infection, then teaches the humans to nonviolently remove Souls from their human hosts, leading to increased peace between the band of humans and some of the Souls. Melanie Stryder and Wanderer are played by Saiorse Ronan. The last thing I saw her in was Hanna, in which she played a modern young warrior woman, which was pretty awesome. I've also seen her in two literary adaptations, both of books I haven't read - Atonement (the love story you watch when you want to weep your eyes out) and The Lovely Bones. Ronan was born in 1994, so she's still only 19, but she's grown into a very beautiful woman. I guarantee you that by 30 she will be a legendary red carpet beauty. Jared is played by Max Irons, who was in Red Riding Hood (loosely connected to Twilight in that it was directed by Catherine Hardwicke like the first Twilight film, and it featured Billy "Charlie Swan" Burke) and who is the son of Jeremy Irons. (Anagrams of Max Irons that might describe his personality include Arson Mix, Soar Minx, As In Mr Ox, and Ram In Sox.) 

I have the same problem with Melanie and Jared's romance in the movie as I had in the book - I just don't feel that there's a lot of passion or heat there, except in one brief scene in which Jared remembers kissing Melanie and sees his memory in a dream. Max Irons is very pretty to look at, though. He is an English model as well as an actor, so think young Rupert Everett. (I say this knowing full well that Rupert Everett has aged extremely well and is, in fact, sexier now than he was at 25.) My feels reside more with Ian and Wanderer - he falls in love with her personality, not her physical body, although he does find her silvery, wispy natural form to be beautiful. (It's one of the most touching scenes of the book; in the movie, Ian is depicted holding another Soul, not Wanderer.) 

Ian is played by Jake Abel, who was in I Am Number Four (with Teresa Palmer from Warm Bodies) and the Percy Jackson movies as well as appearing in The Lovely Bones. It would be a nice symmetry if Abel and Ronan had played love interests in that movie, but while Ronan played the main character Susie, Abel had a small role as Susie's best friend's boyfriend. (He has one major scene - mistakenly thinking Susie's dad is attacking his girlfriend and beating Susie's dad with a baseball bat, badly injuring the dad's knee.) 

The stubborn Seeker who pursues Wanderer beyond what is normal for the cooperative-minded, peaceful Souls is played by German actress Diane Kruger. I may remember her from such films as Troy (in which she played Helen), the two National Treasure movies, and Inglourious Basterds (the film in which I discovered the beauty that is Michael Fassbender). She's a character you love to hate, but Kruger plays this character beautifully. The Seeker has a secret - she's fighting a losing battle with the human whose body she inhabits, and she can't stand her own perceived weakness for not being able to conquer the supposedly inferior human mind. She gets her interplanetary comeuppance. I was a little disappointed in the book - I gave it three out of five stars - but the movie was better than I expected it to be. Unless you're a hardcore Stephenie Meyer fan, you can probably skip the book safely and see the movie. It doesn't suck. Four out of five stars.

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Guest Post: Book To Film ~ When They Get It Right!!

Having always been an avid reader and very much a massive movie fan, the concept of turning some of my favourite books to movies has been a somewhat tricky subject. How many times have we sat with our friends, neighbours or family and debated the subject of “Yeah it was good, But did you read the book”? Often it can prove to be a swift kick to the nether regions when you watch the absolute nonsense that passes for an adaptation. Then other times they go way too far and make about 9 films that, to be fair, even the trailers looked boring as hell *cough* The Lord Of The Rings *cough*. Don’t get me wrong, they were decent enough films but my god boooooring. I think Peter Jackson was just way too anal when it came to getting that right.

Every now and then however, you get a movie adaptation that just embodies everything the writer strived to convey and the movie encapsulates the complete spirit of the words. Today I would like to talk about one such example that, in my eyes, does the book justice. The book that sprang immediately to mind would have to be Fight Club from Chuck Palahniuk. This man is a great writer and I seriously love his stuff; it is dark, dirty and holds a mirror up to society. He shows us in no uncertain terms who we are right now and where we are headed. Fight Club is no exception.

“If our Fathers are our models for God and our Fathers have bailed then what does that tell us about God” – Tyler Durden

The book tells us the story of Jack or The Narrator. Jack seems to have lost his way and is feeling like he is simply existing; never really awake and never really asleep. He travels from state to state, never really taking a moment and hoping that there will be a mid air collision just to end the numbness of it all plus “Life insurance pays triple if you die in a plane crash.” Until he meets Tyler Durden. 

Tyler is everything that our humble Narrator is not; cool, cocky, confident and above all else…. FREE. Through him Jack learns how to let go. The two men quickly bond and inadvertently start a car park Fight Club: a group session for men if you will. Here you can forget everything you were supposed to be and become everything you want to be.… A MAN. The basement where they stage their “group therapy sessions” soon re-locates to a house and there the Fight Club evolves into Project Mayhem. The intention being to show the world that no longer will they sit back and eat the crap forced upon them. 

Palahniuk has stated that this story is for the lonely soul, showing that as a society in 1996 we had become scared of confrontation of any kind. We had become victim to the perfection we as humans strived for. As far as I’m concerned this is truer today than back then.

"We're designed to be hunters and we're in a society of shopping. There's nothing to kill anymore, there's nothing to fight, nothing to overcome, nothing to explore. In that societal emasculation this everyman [The Narrator] is created."

^—               David Fincher^[3]

In 1999 visionary director David Fincher was man enough to take this book and adapt it to the screen and my Christ what a job the man did! The movie had that same dark and gritty feel to it and served the book incredibly well. He changed only a couple of key scenes from the book and managed to say everything Palahniuk intended with his book. Edward Norton took on the role of The Narrator. Doing so he delivered one hell of a voice over throughout the movie, telling us his tale and his acting was superb as Ed Norton always is. Brad Pitt put in, what I consider to be, the best role he has ever played as Tyler Durden; this guy was cooler than cool. He is one of my all time favourite movie characters, from start to finish and Pitt is excellent. Both of these men play their respective roles so well that when you come to the almost unbelievable twist in the third act you genuinely buy it as realistic.

Combining both of these actors and Fincher at the helm made this one of my all time top 10 movies and it is perfectly accompanied by one hell of a book. Commercially this movie was considered a flop. Maybe due to the harsh criticism that the movie was nothing more than a “violent portrayal of man’s urge to destroy things.” In my opinion this is completely wrong however; there is so much more to Fight Club than that. Critically it put these three men on the map. Unfortunately the same cannot be said for one of Palahniuk’s other books, Choke, when it was adapted into a Sam Rockwell movie.

This is just one example of many movies that totally got it right but for me. It is the one movie that, upon getting it right, really hit a note inside me and almost every male. It shone a light on what we, as a society, had become: an angry generation. Case and point: the London Riots of 2011. As I said, “still completely relevant.”

Other Chuck Palahniuk books I would recommend are Survivor, Choke and Lullaby. As for Fincher, you have to check out Panic Room, Se7en and The Game.

I am currently reading Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, a movie I refuse to watch until I have finished the book.  My god it’s one of the most intense reading experiences I have ever had. Gripping like you wouldn’t believe!

- Haldon365


I suppose I little about me…. What is there to say, I am a work to pay the bills by day and as of late outside my work I am working hard at becoming a Mark Kermode type (with more integrity). My site is still in its baby stages but the three of us just love doing what we doing. Feel free to stop by and see what we are about. 

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For the Fanboys From A Fanboy


Haldon365's Walking Dead/Game of Thrones post

Haldon365's Silver Linings Playbook post

Haldon 365's Zathura review

The Host movie review by CHUNK at 365flicks.com

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Another essential book for a film buff's library, this one is packed with information and reviews. Some of the entries are quite extensive. JHR provides all the information you need, including complete cast and production staff. I find JHR's information invaluable. I like to read not only who acted in a movie, but who made it, both top-billed and lesser mortals. -- Ross Adams in DRESS CIRCLE mag.

Book Review: The Host by Stephenie Meyer

Yep, I jumped on the bandwagon. I read The Host by Stephenie Meyer

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The concept behind this novel is an interesting one, but the execution falls short for a few reasons. First, there isn't enough action to justify the book's 619 pages.

Second, the best thing about the Twilight series - the way it captures the unreasoning, headlong way young people fall in love - is absent from The Host. There's a love triangle of sorts (technically it's a love quadrilateral), but during very few passages of the entire novel did I get the sense there was very much real passion or intensity of feeling on the parts of any of the alleged lovers.

To me, Ian's feelings toward Wanderer seemed the most romantic, since he loved her purely for her personality and her mind, completely divorced from her human host body. The one time I choked up at all was when Ian described holding Wanderer in her true form. Wanderer, as narrator, kept telling me that Jared loved Melanie, but I didn't really FEEL it.





Third, since the novel failed to be particularly romantic, I hoped it would at least be really interesting science fiction - but it isn't. This is related to point one - numerous scenes of waiting and deliberating rather than scenes of action - but apart from that, Meyer saves the best off-planet alien action (the claw beast story) for the last fifth of the novel. There isn't enough science to qualify this as true science fiction; instead it comes off as second-rate scifi.

One thing I did like about the writing was Meyer's description of Wanderer's willingness to give up her life to be a mother to new souls. I must have seen or read some interview with Meyer in which she described herself as a mother first (she has three sons) and a writer second. I'm a writer first and a mother never, and even though her experience is different than mine, I really admire and enjoy the way Meyer's books show the beauty and value of motherhood - or at least of parenthood, because even though Wanderer considers herself a female soul, her species seems to reproduce asexually. At least, it wasn't clear that she was going to need a male soul's DNA to split herself into many smaller souls.

The point is, Wanderer was willing to die so that the next generation could be born. Her entire personality is peaceful, cooperative, and empathetic, and it's completely in character for her to be willing to make the ultimate self-sacrifice so that life could continue. That's what good parents do, isn't it? They don't have to literally die - usually, hopefully - but they do have to sacrifice some of the things that they like and want to invest enough time and attention into their young ones. If you choose to be a parent, you're making a very admirable sacrifice.

I really did like Wanderer as a character, and the personality contrast between Wanderer and Melanie.

Overall, this novel was worth exactly one read, but I have nowhere near the attachment to it that I have to the Twilight series.

View all my reviews

Previous Stephenie Meyer posts

Book Review: The Gospel According to Twilight by Elaine Heath

The Silver Kiss by Annette Curtis Klause v. Twilight

The Ultimate Twilight Fan LinkUp Post

Twilight of the Goddesses - comparison of the women in Twilight to classical Greek goddesses

The Best Parts of Breaking Dawn Pt. 1

BD Pt. 2 Countdown - Twilight
BD Pt. 2 Countdown - New Moon
BD Pt. 2 Countdown - Eclipse
BD Pt. 2 Countdown - Breaking Dawn Pt. 1

Is St. Marcus Day Real?