Host Family

by Mameve Medwed

Daisy and Henry have been married for 20 years, and for all that time they have served as host families for international students coming to study at Harvard. So Daisy should have seen it coming when Henry dumps her for the extremely French Giselle.

Genres: Fiction, Contemporary

320 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2000

About the author

Mameve Medwed is the author of five novels, Mail, Host Family, The End of an Error, the 2007 Massachusetts Honor Book award-winnin How Elizabeth Browning Saved My Life, and the forthcoming Of Men and Their Mothers, pub date April 22, 2008.

Reviews

[Carol · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mameve Medwed is one of my favorite authors of mid-life relationship fiction, reminding me a bit of Brits Joanna Trollope and Elizabeth Buchan. Her characters ring true, the situations and dysfunctional families are believable and she writes with such humor and pathos. This book didn't disappoint... plus it's set in Cambridge/Somerville, familiar to this reader. The plot moves quickly when in the first chapter or so [SPOILER] Daisy's husband announces he wants to leave their long marriage, ironically on the night they receive an award for being a model host family. Just the beginning of symbolic events (food poisoning/infidelity poisoning a marriage); there's the "meet cute" moment with doctor who's an expert on parasites; how even the "best" families have issues, problems and how we choose to address such issues and problems. That's life and Medwed is spot on.

[Elysabeth · Rating 1 out of 5]

I really have liked Mameve Medwed's other book -- Mail and How Elizabeth Barrett Browning Saved My Life. I WANTED to like Host Family, but by the end of the book, I was ready to throw it across the room. Daisy had no personality except that of a woman so obsessed with her past that she couldn't focus on the love in front of her and so obsessed with being a mother that she looked at her son with feelings of almost romantic-like passion. She's considerably weaker than any other of Medwed's female protagonists, and extremely unlikeable.

I can't give this any more than one star -- and I wouldn't recommend it. It's a bummer too, because I like her others AND I was on such a good streak of books I really liked.

[Meggityb · Rating 1 out of 5]

And why exactly did I finish this? The premise was interesting but it never went anywhere. A big disappointment.

[Les · Rating 3 out of 5]

My Original Thoughts (2000):

A good book, but nothing special. It kept my interest, but was very predictable.

My Current Thoughts:

I have no recollection of this novel or of the author. It's not the sort of book I'd pick up now.

[Michelle · Rating 1 out of 5]

Zero stars

[Suzanne Chapman · Rating 2 out of 5]

Didn't think it was a very good book. Some funny laughable moments but the story was unrealistic unless you took it apart. Yes, husbands tell their wives that the marriage has run its course in restaurants and yes, people get food poisoning and wind up in the hospital and yes, you meet people in many different ways but all of them together was just silly. The most unbelievable thing was that the children of Daisy and the doctor (forgot his name already) were also dating - Really!

[Susan · Rating 4 out of 5]

LOVED THIS BOOK!!! It is a really good read. The author has a delightful, sometimes darker, sense of humor with the main character Daisy Lewis. Who, in one day, has quite a lot thrown at her. Sushi, parasites, a Havard "perfect host family" award (which by the end of the they are everything but) and a french wanna-be wandering eye husband.

[Amplotkin · Rating 3 out of 5]

So far so good, I'm enjoying this. Very local: Harvard.

[Joyce · Rating 2 out of 5]

I've been trying to get through some of my old books and grabbed this one from the stack. Very predictable, slight romance that tries much to hard to view all manner of "hosts."

[Meredith · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mameve Medwed can write comedy in the midst of tragedy. But sometimes it drags a little.

[Ellen]

Panama