My Year of Meats by Ruth L. Ozeki (1999-03-01)

Actually, the first half of this book was good, the second half not so good. The first half has some splendid satire; it is funny, biting, and engaging. Ozeki manages to poke a lot of holes in American and Japanese materialistic culture and consumeristic values while throwing in a few thinly-sliced jabs at the meat and marketing industries. The story had "meat," but it was still amusing. Then Ozeki dropped her story on the slaughterhouse floor, so to speak, and from that point on it was a dreary, painful, strident, depressing, bloody mess. There's some redemption and happy-endings at the end, but I think I would have liked it better if she had stuck with the original tone and style. I was getting the message even before Ozeki started using the sledgehammers. The first half is good fiction with a message; the second half is an emotional mockumentary at the expense of story. Still, I will give her second book a try, All Over Creation.

I have not read Japanese modern novels lately. Why? Probably because I feel they are written only for Japanese readers. Ah, Japanese readers, they seem happy when they are freed from the real world; the history of WWII, their discrimination (against Koreans, the Chinese, Okinawaite, handicapped people, old people, gay, etc.), their depression after the high economic growth...
On the other hand, I've read brilliant American novels in 90's whose protagonists are Japanese or Japanese-Americans; <I>Sizuko's Daughter</I> (Kyoko Mori), <I>Snow Falling on Cedars</I> (David Guterson), <I>Audrey Hepburn's Neck</I> (Alan Brown), etc.
And now, Ruth L. Ozeki's <I>My years of Meats</I>! It covers several modern subjects; chemical poisoning (against human beings and beef cattle), racial prejudice and love.
The story is simple. Through Japanese TV series, 'My American Wife!,' whose sponsor is a big American meat company, Jane (director; Asian-American) and Akiko (audience; Japanese housewife) get at the truth of life at last. Its simple situation succeeds in getting reality.
<I>My years of Meats</I> is not only entertaining but also has a keen eye for truth.
From Tokyo.

Written by a very intelligent and probably very cool Japanese-American woman, MY YEAR OF MEAT is about a very intelligent and cool Japanese-American woman named Jane Takagi-Little whom everyone, Japanese and Americans alike, call Takagi. In addition to some ambivalence about her bi-polar ancestry, she's also quite tall and prefers spiky hair. Not, perhaps, a perfect cultural ambassador (or "cultural pimp," as she says), she nevertheless falls into a job coordinating and finally directing a Japanese TV show to be shot in America for the purpose of promoting US beef in Japan.
The show, "My American Wife," is a weekly documentary featuring typical (read white, middle class, wholesome, meat-eating) American families and their favorite meat recipe. Takagi goes along for a while, but then starts to feel that she has a greater mission-to bring the true strength (diversity!) of America into Japanese homes. So she starts filming people like a bayou couple who have adopted eight Korean kids, and an interracial lesbian vegetarian couple. Not exactly what the sponsors and the Japanese agency jerk ("John" Ueno) had in mind. But the meat really hits the fan when she stumbles onto a story about what meat can do to you (and ME and YOU!). This appears to have been well researched, so I'm with you Oprah: no more beef!
With plot tangents involving Takagi's love life, Ueno's persecuted wife (who does indeed have her consciousness raised by the show), and various other engaging characters, all interspersed with quotes from Sei Shonagon's Pillow Book, this is a book that will grab you, hold you, scare you and, with surprising frequency, jab you in the gut so you get a bit short of breath and fluttery eyed. It's a damn good book.

Ruth Ozeki has written a fabulous first novel. Her characterisation, plotting and construction are stunning. The critics who claim the book is PC are missing the point and bringing their own prejudices to the surface. Make no mistake, this is a subversive and important book. The wonderful thing about Ozeki's deft touch is that she uses humor to such devastating effect - yet without a heavy hand. There is a sharp mind at work here and that she sets her sights on the meat industry is to her credit. Ruth Ozeki has just visited Australia and New Zealand where she was like a breath of fresh air blowing through the literary establishment. All power to her pen!

Honestly, the fact that I enjoyed reading this book says a great deal, considering how many things there were about it which I deeply disliked. Ozeki's writing style is clever and smooth and she has a good sense of both character development and situational humor.
Where the book went wrong, for me, was in her seeming inability to separate the documentary aspects from the novel. I realize that the main character was a documentary maker, but I think it constitutes an allusive fallacy to think that makes the unvarnished anti-meat politics any less grating. I am not really a meat-eater myself, but I prefer my politics a little better blended into the narrative than she accomplished here.
Furthermore, it seems to me that Ozeki gives in unnecessarily to the desire to make her point clear by making the situations so black and white. The relationship between Akiko and John started off fascinating (as was Akiko herself, an ex-manga artist turned meek housewife) but was much more interesting when the abuse was largely psychological and cultural. Akiko's victimhood felt as strained as her sudden and ultimate rehabilitation. Another track I'd describe as similarly unsatisfying was the Rose story. We'd already gotten the message in spades about meat (Akiko's aversion to it carried it's own message by itself) and we didn't need such a dramatic denoument.
Had this been her third novel, I don't think I'd ever go back to one of her books. However, since this is Ozeki's first book, there were a lot of things about it that I liked enough to make me want to read her second.

I loved everything about this book -- Jane's character (half and half), the foolish t.v. show My American Wife!, the expose on the meat industry. I loved the characters too -- from the lesbian vegetarians to Jane's old-world mother to Bunny and Akiko who, through Jane, find the courage to change their lives. John Ueno (great name) made my skin crawl -- he is so slimy. There are so many things going on here and Oseki pulls it all off without a hitch. The references to Shonagon's Pillow Book piqued my interest so much I went out and bought it. I could go on and on. This book deserves much more acclaim than it has received -- I highly recommend it.

I picked up this book randomly, never having heard of it before. I have the UK paperback, which may be different from the American. On the back it talks about the two women, and the parallels between them. Did I know it was going to slide into an indictment of the American meat industry? No. Did I know what sort of things were going to develop for our protagonists? Of course not. It was a white-knuckle ride. The author draws you in and gets you interested in the characters, and when you're ready for it she begins showing you the darkness. I was shaken by the time I got to the end of the book, but it had a consistent ending that I could be happy with. Thumbs up!

The only word to describe the ending is "trite." Ms. Ozeki leads us through an interesting series of events in the life of a free lance doucumentarian. Jane's "Year of Meats" bounces off a lot of "PC" issues from "good men" to environmental concerns.
What shows here is her potential. She created good charachters and had a sound plot line. For those of us who like first novels it was a good read. I will be looking forward to her next work and truly hope it is in process as I write this. Yes, it could have been better. I'm sure her next work will be.

For some reason this was a featured book in railway bookshops in England a couple of years ago! I bought the book to learn a little more about Japan and the United States and was charmed by it. The "My American Wife!" TV-series device is very clever (and very funny) but it was the story of Akiko that I found especially affecting. The novel provides both a celebration of Western society (in its opportunities for self-expression and personal fulfilment) and a critique (the venal world of international corporatism). The book also led me to other books with a Japanese theme, including The Pillow Book. Thank you Ruth L. Ozeki for widening my world view and for writing such a readable book. ps. I also now know why I have been a vegetarian for the last ten years!

The weird title was what caught my attention. When I started reading, I thought, oh no, another book referring to Shonagon but I was truly suprised by how engaging this book is. I enjoyed every minute of it. Ms. Ozeki writes with a very authentic voice and everything flowed, even if the story involved switching from the U.S. and Japan and vice versa. I would recommend this book to anyone who is concerned about meat production in our country, for anyone who is caught between cultures like Jane Takagi, and for anyone who just wants a slice of Japanese and American culture.

Like the television documentary My Year of Meats is primarily about, the novel grows from an interesting but trivial dramatization of real life to a poignant and vicious attack against the meat industry in the United States. The author, Ruth L. Ozeki, too, like her dual protagonists Jane Takagi-Little and Akiko Ueno, seems to grow through the novel, from an ambitious but tentative writer to a determined and confident one, who must tell her audience a story that they may not, in fact, want to hear.
Throughout the novel, there are many times and places in the novel where the author's previous experience in filmmaking become evident. The novel shifts in place and in sequence, much as a film is shot out of sequence. But while the film is usually brought together and edited to form a sequential continuum, the novel uses these shifts in time, place, and focus to force the reader to edit and shape the story in his own mind.
Being a Japanese American living in Japan for the past 15 years, I have often felt the cultural barriers and identity confusing matters that affect the lives of the novel's characters. The many factors, including cultural and racial predjudice, that affect the business matters in the story, too, have, likewise, affected my life. The novel does justice to both the American and Japanese sides of the cultural barrier, making an effort to foster a better understanding on both sides.
My Year of Meat is also partly about television, and the seedy and slimy agency reps that often determine its content. The novel shows, at first, how incapable the format is to tell the more important stories underlying the authentic programming. Yet, in the end, it is the news programs and the networks - on both sides of the Pacific - that eventually purchase and present the startling story uncovered by Jane Takagi-Little.
But despite the cultural, ethnic, and linguistic matters and conflct of interest between the public good and advertising interests that underly the story, My Year of Meat is mostly about the author's "beef" with beef. The true stories about hormone injections, foul breeding practices, despicable slaughter methods, and other issues that affect the cattle industry are documented beautifully and in an entertaining way.
The novel is definitely one that will nausiate the weak-stomached. But for most, it should be one that brings in equal parts tears in the eyes, laughter in the gut, and food for thought. A brilliant first effort. I am anxious to see Ms. Ozeki's films and her next novel!

This book is fantastic. It covers relevant political issues like spousal abuse, cancer causing drugs in the medical and beef industries, sexism and racism without being heavy handed or losing its seriousness. The main character is an intelligent woman with a conscience trying to make a living in this world, but not willing to give up what makes her-her: her mixed race, her politics, her womanhood.
For anyone who was/is politically involved/concerned and wonders where everyone else has gone, this book was like water to a man in the desert. I recommend it highly.

(Trigger warning for violence against women and animals, including sexual assault and rape.)

I was surprised by how much I enjoyed Ruth Ozeki’s MY YEAR OF MEATS. On impulse, I picked up a copy of the original hardcover edition at the dollar store. That was nearly a decade ago; in the intervening years I hemmed and hawed and wondered whether I really wanted to read a fictionalized account of a documentarian hired to promote meat – feed lots, kill floors, and all – after all. (I’m a vegan, and have devoured my fair share of nonfiction books about the animal agriculture industry already. Enough is enough.)

Thankfully, MY YEAR OF MEATS isn’t nearly as grisly or gruesome as I expected. The bulk of animal exploitation involves the final product: cows (“Beef is Best!”), pigs (“Pork is Possible!”), and lambs (“Lamb is”…what? Lovely? I forget that particular slogan.), killed, dismembered, sanitized, and objectified for mass consumption. It’s easier to forget that your dinner once was a living, breathing, feeling being when it’s been stripped down and robbed of any semblance to the original owner/inhabitant of those thighs/breasts/drumsticks/etc. Like all functioning vegans, I’ve learned to compartmentalize and dissociate from this basic, everyday form of abuse. You have to, right? How else to live in this world without going mad?

But. As the months flip by on Jane Takagi-Little’s production calendar and she begins to delve deeper and deeper into the unseemly underbelly of animal ag. (as if there’s anything else!), she goes out of her way to document the process of meat production, rather than simply celebrating the finished product. The story’s climax arrives in a trip to a slaughterhouse, which is blessedly brief, but does touch upon the final few moments of an unnamed (beef? dairy?) cow’s short, sad life. The scene ends with a bloody mishap, and the participants – Jane; her cameramen, Suzuki and Oh; and the owners of the plant, John Dunn; his much-younger wife, Bunny; their five-year-old daughter, Rosie; and John’s adult son Gale – will never be the same.

Ozeki’s writing is captivating. She masterfully weaves together the narratives of a dozen or so characters (with Jane and Akiko dominating the story); gradually, the reader begins to identify similarities in their paths, and slowly the various threads come together, piece by piece, until they converge, intersecting in ways both unexpected and subversive.

My favorite example is Akiko: forced to watch and rate each episode of MY AMERICAN WIFE! by her husband Joichi “John” Ueno (“Like John Wayne! Get it?”), she finds herself drawn to the more authentic episodes – those that reflect Jane’s desire for truth-telling over that of John, her boss at BEEF-EX, whose only goal is to sell meat. (His episodes play like a half-hour infomercial. Well, they all kind of do, but at least Jane’s attempts feature a diverse cast of Americans instead of pretty, white, middle-class heterosexual couples.) Fueled by both the television show and his brutish behavior, Akiko grows increasingly alienated; she deliberately starts throwing up in order to bring on amenorrhea, so that she need not worry about bringing children into her unhappy, abusive home. When she watches the episode starring Dyann and Lara, an interracial pair of vegetarian lesbians, Akiko begins to dream of a different life when where dared not before.

My chief complaint is almost tediously common to books written about nonhuman animals by non-vegans: namely, speciesism. Though we confine, torture, and kill animals to the tune of ten billion a year (that’s just in the animal ag. industry, and accounts for the United States alone), the concerns of nonhumans take a backseat. Jane’s investigation focuses on the effects of meat production on human health, almost to the exclusion of the animals themselves. (Environmental effects, such as desertification and the loss of the rainforest, merit about as much attention.) Yes, the unchecked use of antibiotics is eroding the effectiveness of antibiotics in humans, and sure, hormones contribute to cancer and decreased fertility; and while these issues are worthy of both outrage and action, it all kind of pales in comparison to what happens to those ten billion land animals, who are routinely enslaved, forcibly impregnated (only to have their babies stolen from them), otherwise tortured, and ultimately killed, simply because their co-earthlings like the way they and their bodily secretions taste.

To be fair, by story’s end, it seems as though Jane is making an effort to align her diet with her conscience – and with a mind for the “meat” as well as its consumers. For months after her visit to the Dunn slaughterhouse, Jane is haunted by the image of the dying cow: stunned (but not properly), shackled by one kicking leg, and hoisted upside-down, only to bleed out from a cut to the neck. Her face was the last thing Jane saw before she was knocked unconscious; when she came to some 18 hours later, it was only to find that her own world had come undone. Perhaps she felt a sense of kinship with the cow because they both lost something on that kill room floor. Whatever the reason, Jane begins to see her as an individual, instead of a conglomeration of meaty parts:

“Eventually, I slept again, and I dreamed about the slaughtered cow, hanging upside down, her life ebbing out of her as she rotated slowly. In my dream I saw her legs move in tandem, like she was running, and I realized she was dreaming of an endless green pasture at the edge of death, where she could gallop and graze forever.” (page 297)

Additionally, vegans, feminists, and (especially) vegan feminists will get a satisfied snort or two from the “sexy meat” / “women as meat” breadcrumbs Ozeki sprinkles throughout the set of MY AMERICAN WIFE! At the overt behest of the BEEF-EX brass, the wives serve as stand-ins for the meat – delicious, sumptuous, and ripe for consumption – while eating meat is equated with masculinity and virility. Over at the Dunn ranch, little Rosie runs around wearing a “Babes for Beef!” t-shirt from the local Cowbelles Auxiliary. Sex and violence, all wrapped up in one tidy little package.

I enjoyed this book, somewhat against my will; a friend gave it to me. Perhaps it was because I am a vegetarian, as if this book would validate my preference. It did, but with all the "organic" meat around, I don't think it will change too many other minds about their dietary habits. It was a good story, well told, an interesting plot and plenty of sub-plots to keep me reading. The book is written like a TV series, which follows since the subject of the book is the making of a TV series. The reader is taken across the country from one household to another and every couple chapters we are introduced to new guest star. The main stars remain the same and their characters develop with respect to their new surroundings. Or, at least, I expected them to develop. Ozeki's female characters dominate the book; they are sympathetic characters and exhibit strong sensitivity and compassion. The male characters are not so deftly drawn; of the two main male characters one is a malicious creep and the other a white knight. Perhaps the only two real men in the book are two minor characters who serve as assistants to the female protagonist.
Interesting for a women's novel, the book touches on the theme of estrogen poisoning. Although the author gives us plenty of physical effects of this malady, she never goes into the psychological effects. On the contrary, the men stricken with the hormone seem as testosterone laded as ever.
This book does offer insights into the Japanese family and culture, the differences and similarities between Japan and the U.S. Despite the social conventions, the author suggests, both cultures seek to find, and redefine, the family structure.

A wonderful novel. The characters are compelling and the two intertwined plot lines are fascinating. Ozeki offers the stories of two women, one American, one Japanese, and how they are inadvertantly brought together through a Japanese tv show about meat. I couldn't put this book down. Also--I found very little to be truly gruesome or gross in this book; Ozeki is honest in her description of what goes on in a slaughterhouse, and I don't think what she writes is at all shocking. Anyone who buys meat at a supermarket should be aware of how it gets there.

I've just read the previous 71 reader reviews, and they make a lot of good points. The book is PC, yet funny and hard to put down. Some of the characters are two-dimensional, yet others are so believable that I wish I could sit down to lunch with them. The picture of Japanese society is narrow and basically negative, yet the picture of American society shows lots of variety, love, ignorance, intelligence, warts and all. Etc.
One theme nobody seems to have brought out yet is the leitmotif of fertility. The two central female characters have fertility problems for complementary reasons; many of the "American Families" have physical, moral, or political issues related to reproduction; Ueno needs offspring to prove his manhood; a pre-school girl and a middle-aged man are both well on the way to womanhood with a little help from the meat industry; and of course the industry itself has a critical interest in the fertility of its animals, and spends enormous sums on ways to control it. Indeed, most of these examples are about an impersonal, mechanical consumer culture controlling (or trying to) the deeply personal, organic life impulse. A PC message, perhaps, but told in such a wonderfully engaging way that I didn't mind at all.

I loved this book. I thought Ozeki did a marvelous job displaying an industry so crucial to American culture in a way that would neither offend, nor be easily forgotten. The depth the main character, Jane Takagi-Little, a documentarian, goes to in order to present an effective view of the meat industry is fascinating. Jane spends an entire year, from the time she begins work on a Japanese tv cooking show, until her documentary is viewed by the public, researching the meat industry and the drugs which are used in beef production, resulting in the eventual discovery of ailments caused specifically by these drugs. The cooking show is sponsored by an American-based beef company, which is how Jane is exposed to the "nasty side" of meat in the first place.
This book, however, is not all about the meat industry, and by no means does it suggest boycotting meat or anything equally as drastic. Ozeki's book follows the lives of two women; Jane, and a Japanese woman, the wife of the beef company's Japanese manager, Akiko Ueno. These women lead very different lives, but experience many of the same emotions; for instance, Jane suffers a miscarriage just as Akiko realizes she is pregnant. Jane interacts with Akiko's husband while making the show, and so the womens' lives are intertwined without them being aware. The story follows these two women through an entire year of their lives, leaving them in completely opposite situations than they began in.
I would recommend this book to anyone who enjoys a good read, or anyone who wishes to get rid of their taste for meat for a while.

A great reading experience ! Emotional, educational, compelling ! I can't imagine anyone looking at, let alone eating, a piece of beef after reading this book. (Some might find the message too heavy-handed, but I accepted this as part of the progression of the story.)

A promising debut from writer/filmmaker Ruth L. Ozeki. The novel is broadly themed in that the author attempts to deal with the meat industry, bi-racial identity, the evolving definition of 'family', and a plethora of contemporary issues; nonetheless, her narrative structure is sound enough to keep the reader engrossed in the story.
Of particular note is Ozeki's approach to storytelling. Documentary film (especially as presented in 'My Year of Meats') is praxis-centric. Through presentation of compelling ideas, the viewer might be moved toward (hopefully) positive action. This is a strong-point of the novel, but also exposes one glaring weakness. Ozeki's characters occasionally become mere 'talking heads' in order to provide empirical proof of the injurious nature of large scale meat production. The usage of empirically presented evidence (source material listed in bibliography) is an admirable attempt at transforming narrative fiction into action; however, it may prove jarring to certain readers expecting a 'mere' story.
I thoroughly enjoyed reading 'My Year of Meats' and look forward to whatever project Ruth Ozeki next turns to.

More Japanese women should go to Smith College. If so, perhaps Japan would be full of self-confident young women writers who can be different, entertaining and thought-provoking. Ruth Ozeki manages to capture Japanese ideas about work, home, and the role of women (which has been done before) and western themes about self-expression of women (which has been done before) and manages to combine them in one book well, which has not often been accomplished. She has chosen a lively motif of meat, which is a totem in both the Japanese and American cultures she combines.
The prose is spare and the pace quick. Ms. Ozeki draws us into the life of her heroine and lets us laugh and ache with her on her year of producing meat stories for a Japanese cooking program. The book moves to an unpredictable, yet fulfilling resolution. We are left with hope for Ms. Ozeki's heroine and for Ms. Ozeki herself - that she will bring us another book as funny, moving and original as this one.

Ozeki is a wonderful novelist, innovative, unusual and daring. This book is as good as "A Tale for the Time Being," which I read first. There are similar elements in the two books, yet each is unique. I bought it used, listed as in "good" condition, and I found it to be in excellent condition.

Really enjoyable fiction. Had I known the subject matter of the book, I likely wouldn't have read. I only read for pleasure and dislike being in any way preached at or lectured. Ozeki's book does a great job of being excellent fiction, whilst still carrying an important message. I am already anti-beef, due to environmental issues, rain forest destruction, and animal cruelty issues. I wish all of my beef-eating Atkins friends would read this book.

In the course I taught at Keio University (Mita) last Fall I used this book as an example of American fiction. The Japanese students thought Ms. Ozeki was too hard on the Japanese but I think her satire hit the mark (she was no easier on some of the Americans). Besides being a wonderfully, darkly humorous story, this book sheds real light on how the Japanese view United States "culture." I anxiously await more from Ms. Ozeki. Jon H. Appleton Arthur R. Virgin Professor of Music Dartmouth College Hanover, NH 03755 USA

As fleshy and tender as the name implies, with diverse characters and several complex intertwining messages. To say they are "PC" is to be a true victim of the term. Does being a lesbian make you PC? A vegetarian? These are real choices that real people make for good reasons, and this book touches on just a few. This book also has balls (literally. read it, you'll see...) for touching on a myriad of subjects such as adoption, slaughter, abuse, infidelity, love and many more in a single plotline and doing it well. Ozeki's use of Shonagon within the narrative is fabulous. As a fan of the timeless Shonagon myself, it was a nice surprise to see her in a modern, American story and how she continues to touch the lives of the women who read her thousand year old text. In her debut novel Ozeki has produced an emotional, exceptional work not to be missed.

Ruth Ozeki will make you very thankful that you have sworn off meat if you have adopted a vegetarian lifestyle. Personally, I have done this, and if I felt I was not missing meat at all before I read this delightful book, now I know that I definitely am not missing it! Apart from these items, the book deserves a lot of praise for the interesting way it brings together the stories of two women, one Japanese, one Japanese-American.

Fabulous cynical fictional look at the world of advertising and food. Protagonist Jane is invited to produce a corporate-sponsored documentary on the use of meat in America for Japanese television. Cross back and forth to Japanese housewife Akiko, whose husband works on the Japanese side of the deal. Hilarious, pretty biting and reasonably unpleasant - honest? - about the meat industry. One of the best food-related books I've seen, and I've seen a lot.

Like the anti-Japan WWII propaganda films made in Hollywood, that had a platoon of beseiged Americans bonding despite the presence of an Italian-American from Brooklyn, a Jew from New York, a "Negro" from Tennessee, etc., "My Year Of Meats" touches battered women, lesbians, blacks, and adopted Asian kids before turning on the enemies, the American meat industry, commercial television, and advertising agencies. It's a neat plot, and it has a happy ending (which the author, in an interview in the back of the book, later discusses). She demonizes the meat industry with that most dangerous of weapons: a little bit of knowledge. But hey, the author's a kid. She'll grow up and write even meatier books, I hope. Hai!

Ozeki has incredible talent. I found the book funny, yet poignant. Her ability to develop several stories and make the reader care about all of them was amazing. I wanted to meet Jane by the end of the story. I complement Ozeki for tackling two tough subjects. (Has Oprah seen this book?!)Abuse & America's addiction to meat. She led me down the path with humor and then packs in the drama (not recommended for any pregnant readers). I found myself horrified but not able to put down the book. As one who has at times defended the small cattle producer, naievely, I plan to change my tune. Thanks for entertainment and education.

I really enjoyed this book. It was funny and informative and it made one look at the issues that the meat industry has made us look at. I found the writing to be very good and kept me involved and interested all the way through. One of my favorites for the year.

I have just recently finished reading this book, and it appealed to me like no other.
The story is well organized, filled with touching stories, which almost come to life (and who's to say they are not?).
This book made me cry, but also made me laugh and the jokes were not the kind that are made just to make people laugh. I felt like there was more to them. They were "real."

Well written, touching, believable.

It was itneresting to see two women on opposite sides of the globe battle with issues that seem important to everyday life. Adding to that, the plot traverses the US and shows how different women and their values are across the country, and how very different life really is, but how, underneath it all, we're just women.

Certain parts of the book were so descriptive, that I really considered vegetarianism fo a while, if this novel is based on what is really going on in American farms today. Quite disgusting.

Ozeki has a talent for splendidly reeling in all the elements of the story towards the end of the story that she's thrown into it throughout the course of the novel. I know that this is one of the oldest methods of telling a story, but my point is is that she is exceptionally good at it. There are elements in the book where, at first one would think at its utterly useless or pointless, but as the story progresses she makes it fit into so well that it becomes an integral part of the story.

Ah, thats all I have to say. I don't feel like typing anymore.

I surprised myself at how well I enjoyed this book about the production of a television program bringing American culture, values and, yes, meat into Japanese households. Although it is a work of fiction, if even a fraction of the information presented about the US beef industry in the book is true, we should be terrified.

My year of meats is certainly spell bouding. I have read many books but what message brought to live are so true yet hidden so deeply under our very eyes. Her novel not only focus on the changing lives of Jane and Akiko but also human values and beefy business. All her work of research I think was really worth it. She shows a work of her interest in the field of writting and as it is only her debut novel, more expected better.

"My Year of Meats" is an entertaining novel, written in the style of a video documentary, adeptly translating video techniques to written form. The style and writing are new, different, and interesting and are not at all unclear. Jane, the main narrator, has a great sense of humor. She had me laughing out loud throughout the book. Beyond bringing me the enjoyment of reading the work of such a talented, funny, artistic author, "My Year of Meats" provided me with a new and different perspective on the discourse on race, gender and globalization in America. I highly recommend this book.

I have literally swallowed this book whole. I bought it for my book club's february meeting, and couldn't put it down. I've told nearly everyone about this book: my coffee barista, close friends, family, co-workers. Ozeki is a very talented writer, brilliant compilist who knows how to merge all the necessary ingredients to make a complete and wholesome novel. I look forward to reading many more of her works.

This book was amazing - I've never read anything like it! (I've been recommending it to EVERYONE) Ozeki packs a lot of plots and subplots into this book but manages to keep things cohesive and compelling throughout. Ozeki's got a great sense of humor and taught me a few things about the meat-industry (I'm glad I'm a vegetarian!) Anyway I had an opportunity to meet Ozeki briefly and she's a wonderfully down to earth and friendly person - can't wait to read her next book!

This book is funny, sexy, informative, and touching. I resisted reading it for a long time because I thought it was just going to be anti-meat propaganda, filled with info I already knew about, but in reality, it's a great read, regardless of what your feelings about consuming animal-based products may be.

Well-written, intellectually stimulating, and thoroughly entertaining. Ruth Ozeki is one of my favorite writers. You should definitely read something by her (she has two more books that I've been able to find - have read and loved them both).

This book had me laughing, thinking, unable to put it down and dreading the end of the ride. My Year of Meats is easily one of the best books I've read. Ozeki creates 3 dimensional characters that live, breathe, and grow. I have recommended this book to many people and each one raves about it. This is a special book.

Simply superb first novel! I literally stayed up all night just to get this finished. Laugh out loud funny, and incredily horrifying at the same time. If this is an accurate rendering of the meat industry in the US, all I can say is "I'm with Oprah"!

This is a really brilliant novel.
it is funny, smart, sad, and extremely poigniant. I don't generally laugh out loud at books but this one had me rolling in the aisles (I read it on a train). I read the book last summer, and I still remember many scenes very vividly.
the book even made me a vegetarian (for a week).

A simple structuralist review of My Year of Meats, or The Enduring (In)Significance of Amy Tan
white man: sacred; good; complex; sophisticated; cool and rational; jazz like fingers and all
Asian man: profane; bad; simple; mad really; inscrutable; oriental yes men in need of Western pacification; false simulations of Western icons

This book was difficult to finish reading. The most interesting parts of the book were the parts intended to disgust. I found the main character to be self-righteous and extremely unsympathetic to Asians. Instead, every line of the book seemed to scream, "I am cooler and better than you, you uneducated mysogynists. Listen to my wisdom because I live in the USA and you don't know any better." I am sorry that I have to give this book even one star because I found no redeeming characteristics with this work. I wish I could get a refund...for the money I paid to buy this drivel.

The woman protagonist is a writer who finds herself promoting a product that she learns is not healthy. What makes this book great is the authors ability to make you care about the characters and the story while simultaneously educating the reader about dangerous beaf industry practices. Easy to read and informative ... what more could you want. I recommend this book.