Read more about Melanie Stryder at: Wikipedia

Official Site: Stephenie Meyer

The Host is a science fiction/romance novel by Stephenie Meyer. The novel introduces an alien race, called Souls, which takes over the Earth and its inhabitants. The book describes one Soul's predicament when the mind of its human host refuses to cooperate with her takeover. The Host was released on May 6, 2008 with an initial print run of 750,000 copies. An international version of the novel was released on April 2, 2008 in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Indonesia, the Philippines, Australia, and Hong Kong by the UK publishing division. It was translated into Catalan, Chinese, Japanese, Czech, Dutch, Swedish, German, Portuguese, Italian, Spanish, Hungarian, Romanian, Serbian, Hebrew and Danish among others. The prologue and the fourth chapter of the book can be found on Meyer's official website.

Melanie "Mel" Stryder is one of the surviving rebel humans left after humans became extinct from the 'souls', parasitic aliens which take over human bodies, erasing the original occupants. Mel goes on raids to find food for her younger brother Jamie. Another human Jared Howe finds her and chases her as he does not want to be alone and kisses her unexpectedly. Wanderer is a Soul who has lived on eight other planets previously, Mel being her ninth body host. Melanie had thrown herself down an elevator shaft to prevent herself from becoming a host, while being chased by Seekers. Wanderer was inserted into Mel's body under emergency conditions after Melanie survived, with the intent of using her to access any information Melanie might have about other free humans like Mel's brother and boyfriend. This investigation is headed by an individual identified only as "The Seeker", who pressures Wanderer to produce information, and views her with implied contempt for her failure to do so. The Seeker pressure her into to going to Tucson to be removed from Melanie's body as it seemed that Wanderer couldn't access Melanie's memories.

Melanie remains partially conscious despite her infestation and bombards Wanderer with her memories and emotions with her brother and boyfriend, and Wanderer develops emotional connections of her own to both Melanie's former lover and her brother. When enough information arises for her to find them, rather than report it to the Seeker, Wanderer sets out on her own to find them, nearly dying in the desert before Melanie's uncle, Jeb, finds her. He brings her into his hideout, a complex of caves containing more than two dozen free humans who survive by scavenging from distant cities. Jeb is unwilling to kill her because her host body is a relative, so she remains in the caves, where she has to deal with the antagonism and distrust of most of the group who want her dead because she is a parasite, including Jared, Melanie's boyfriend who hits her when Melanie's mind briefly took over her body to try to run up to him. Wanderer eventually develops feelings for several of the humans, in particular Ian O'Shea who becomes a constant protector and friend. Her help and support with a dying member of the group makes the others view her more sympathetically. Soon Wanderer is an accepted presence and begins to be known as "Wanda". Only a few humans maintain their dislike of her, notably Ian's brother Kyle, who tries to kill her until the cave floor collapsed and Wanda saves his life, preventing him from falling into an underground river. Jared eventually believes that Melanie's mind is still alive inside the body that Wanda has taken over. Ian kisses Wanda, but Melanie won't allow it as she is still in love with Jared. Wanda says she is too confused to know if she likes him or not.

Wanderer's peaceful life with the group is disturbed by the realization that the humans have not given up on reclaiming those the Souls have enslaved; by experimenting with ways of removing Souls from their hosts, both beings always die in the process. Severely traumatized upon discovering the remains of extracted Souls, she enters a period of mourning, withdrawing from the group. She screams for Melanie to stay out of her head and Melanie's consciousness disappears. After a talk with Jeb over how the humans couldn't give up fighting for their survival, Wanda is roused by news that Jamie is injured and has developed a serious infection. When Wanderer realizes that Melanie is gone from her mine, Jared and Ian both kiss Wanda to get Melanie to come back and she responds to Jared and punches him without Wanda's control. When Jamie's infection gets worse Wanda and Jared sneak out of the caves together to seek medicine at a Soul-run hospital, using Wanderer's credibility as a Soul to gain access in the city. After this, she becomes a regular participant in scavenging missions. When returning from on of these missions, Wanderer is shocked to discover that the Seeker has returned and found the caves. The group managed to capture her, but not until after she had killed Wes, one of the cave's inhabitants and Wanda's close friend. Feeling remorse for the death, Wanderer finally reveals the method of detaching a Soul without killing the host. This allows them to rescue several friends and family members taken over by the Souls, including Kyle's girlfriend. She reveals the technique to the group's medic, Doc, on the condition that he not harm the Souls after they are removed, and secretly requests of him to remove her from Melanie's body and be buried next to Wes and Walter's bodies, another friend of Wanda's. The latter condition proves controversial, especially with Ian, who confesses his love for her when he finds out that she plans to be removed from her host, though not that she plans to die. Wanderer realizes that she loves Ian back but is undeterred and sneaks away after he falls asleep to complete her plan. She is removed, but the humans decided to go against Wanderer's wishes. Wanderer awakens inside the body of a girl whose personality had faded and did not reappear after the Soul "Pet" was removed. Melanie is restored fully to her body and reunites with her love Jared while Wanderer and Ian officially enter a relationship. Kyle's girlfriend turns out to have been utterly erased in the insertion, and he develops a relationship with the Soul in her body instead. Wanderer's association with the humans continues, and her newer, sweeter host helps win over the remaining humans who still distrusted her. In the final scene the group meets another group of humans who also have a human-sympathizing Soul.

Melanie Stryder has not been a contender in any CBUB matches.