Rating: 
Summary: Great Book!
Review: «My Year of Meats» is the satirical story of Jane Takagi-Little, a Japanese-American documentarian and starvingartist living in New York when she gets the call from Tokyo to work on a new TV show, «My American Wife!» which each week chronicles the life of a typical American wife. The show, sponsored by BEEFEX is show in Japan to promote the consumption of meat by Japanese families. Akiko Ueno, who's husband "John" works for BEEFEX, is a typical Japanese housewife trying to get pregnant and please John.I really liked this book and found it very funny, but also very informative in it's look at the meat industry. However, there were a lot of boring parts and the story tended to move along and then stop for awhile. Also, rarely were both Akiko and Jane in the middle of something interesting at the same time; I fould myself struggling to get through one woman's part of the story just to get to the more interesting part that followed. Still, a very good book! I hope to see more from Ruth L. Ozeki.
Rating: 
Summary: "meat" is the message
Review: A novel that exposes the unethical practices of the American meat industry may not necessarily be at the top of your reading list, but Ruth Ozeki's debut novel, My Year of Meats, weaves its message with a mix of romance and delicious sarcasm, resulting in an enjoyably comic novel that never takes itself too seriously. With a point-of-view that shifts between characters intermingled with poetry, faxes, journal entries, and a fantastic mix of fact and fiction, this may mark the beginning of a new literary genre, a "multi-media" novel that engages in multiple levels of communication between writer, reader, and narrator. My Year of Meats is the story of half-Japanese documentary filmmaker Jane Takagi-Little. After landing a job directing My American Wife!, a television show advertising American beef products in Japan for Beef-Ex, she makes some unsavory discoveries about life, love, and the American meat industry. Disagreeing with the image of white suburbia that Beef-Ex requires her to tout, Jane crisscrosses small town America, determined to show her Japanese audience the ethnic diversity of American families. This puts her in a constant battle with Joichi "John" Ueno, the company's sleezy advertising executive, about what it truly means to be American. Jane's call to subvert the message of Beef-Ex leads her to film a show centered on an inter-racial, vegetarian lesbian couple. With their assistance, Jane begins to make some unsavory connections between the meat industry and DES, a dangerous synthetic estrogen given to cattle to speed their weight gain. She ultimately ops to expose the use of DES to the public, risking her health, the film crew, and her paycheck. Meanwhile, in Japan, Akiko, the battered housewife of "John" Ueno, is inspired by the underlying message of American individualism shown on the Saturday morning episodes of My American Wife! and begins cooking up a revolution of her own. Ozeki, a lapsed documentarian, not only tackles the American meat industry, she cleverly unmasks American mass-consumerism and economic colonization while addressing problems of race, gender and identity in Japan and the United States. The novel's political agenda, however, never supercedes the true "meat" of the story: Ozeki's witty voice, flawlessly inter-connected characters, and perfect blend of warmth and wackiness. This is a must read.
Rating:
Summary: I only read for pleasure ...
Review: 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.
Rating:
Summary: Great Book!
Review: «My Year of Meats» is the satirical story of Jane Takagi-Little, a Japanese-American documentarian and starvingartist living in New York when she gets the call from Tokyo to work on a new TV show, «My American Wife!» which each week chronicles the life of a typical American wife. The show, sponsored by BEEFEX is show in Japan to promote the consumption of meat by Japanese families. Akiko Ueno, who's husband "John" works for BEEFEX, is a typical Japanese housewife trying to get pregnant and please John. I really liked this book and found it very funny, but also very informative in it's look at the meat industry. However, there were a lot of boring parts and the story tended to move along and then stop for awhile. Also, rarely were both Akiko and Jane in the middle of something interesting at the same time; I fould myself struggling to get through one woman's part of the story just to get to the more interesting part that followed. Still, a very good book! I hope to see more from Ruth L. Ozeki.
Rating:
Summary: Disturbing, but Entriguing
Review: 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.
Rating: 
Summary: Propaganda with stereotype characters
Review: Let me start off by saying that I agree with every word in this book about American beef. However her presentation is very clumsy, sterotyped and PC. The pro-beef characters are all evil while the anti-beef are all good. The white men are mostly evil, while the third world women (especially lesbians) are all perfect.
It's too bad because she obviously knows how to write.
Rating:
Summary: My Year of Ozeki
Review: I've just discovered Ruth Ozeki, thanks to Mad Cow Disease! (I read about her book in a recent article about Mad Cow Disease.) Having lived in Japan for 3 years myself, I am already drawn to stories about Japanese or Japanese-American women. This book intertwines the stories of two women: one, a Japanese-American film maker, who is producing a series of TV shows that promote the American meat industry, and the other, a Japanese housewife who watches these propoganda shows. Ozeki does a masterful job making a parody of the Japanese fascination with stereotypical American life. At the same time she gives us a wonderful insight into what it is like to be a Japanese housewife. And last but not least, she exposes the American meat industry for what it is. If you like eating hamburgers and do not want to change your eating habits, do not read this book. If you want to be healthier and be entertained at the same time, rush out and buy it! I had already given up beef after reading Fast Food Nation, but this book sealed my commitment.
Rating:
Summary: Book that crosses culture gap of East and West
Review: 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.
Rating:
Summary: A Must-read, especially now!
Review: I picked this book up after I told a colleague I was thinking about becoming a vegetarian and she said if I read it I would most certainly stop eating meat. I read it out of curiousity, and am still eating meat, but recommending the book to everyone I know. It is the most original fiction I have read in years, and I can't remember ever reading a book that made me laugh so much and care so much for the characters. I love the way she combines genres and refuses to be categorized. I thought it ironic (and perhaps a sign?) that the mad-cow story broke just as I was reading the book. We all need to wake up and smell the coffee, and Ruth Ozeki is out to help us.
Rating:
Summary: Great book in spite of soap opera kind of ending
Review: This book is so rich in content, story line, facts, ideas, human tales and culture that its reading becomes an extraordinary experience. I will even dare say that you will end the reading having been slightly changed...at least you are bound to become more aware regarding the meat you bring into your body and the meat industry in general,regarding the connection (on which we do not like to think about) between the beef health and our health...
This total experience (which is quite hard at times, especially for a meat lover like myself), and the time I spent thinking about this book are the reason I gave it 5 points. This, I have to say is in spite of the fact that the book does have its problems, mainly the last part which suddenly withdraws to some kind of banality and a soap opera kind of development... This flaw however is minor compared to the total reading experience. Not only is the tale surprising and unique, consuming from moment one and throwing you into the story - it is also quite educating in many levels. You receive a very close look at the American and Japanese cultures in ways I have never met before - maybe because you go right into the kitchens of people...right into their soft bellies. Also educating in the sense that the reader accompanies the narrator in her discovery search learning more facts about the meat industry as the book proceeds. This by the way, also means that there are no hidden messages in the story. Everything is presented right to your face in a very explicit, straight forward, bluntly intended way.
All in all, this is first of all a truly good story. This is a book that keeps you hooked, wanting to find out what happens to the two main characters which immediately gain your sympathy, each one in her own world with her different struggles.
This is the story of Jane Takagi Little, a Japanese American hired by the American Beef Industry ("Beef Ex") to help in the promotion of American Meat to the Japanese Market. This is done by the creation of a weekly Television show called "My American Wife" which presents a different American Wife every week, shows her family and self and brings, in a step by step way, her recipe for a favorite meaty dish. Jane is supposed to locate these American wives who need to comply with Japanese standards of attractiveness, wholesomeness, etc. Jane not only discovers back yard America, so different from the NY way of life Jane was familiar with, but also Japanese taste and customs which she was not aware of. This is also a very hard search into her past and present and her role, meaning and wants in life. This is also the story of Akiko, the Japanese wife of the Advertising manager in charge of the show and how her life changes due to the program. This is also the story of several families which Jane meets and films during her "year of meat" and which she and the readers are not about to forget.
I was a little disappointed to read from other reviews that the writer was indeed a documentary film maker who dealt with the beef industry herself. This in a way mellowed down my admiration for the writer's genuine creative idea... The truth as always, can be more interesting or unbeliveable then any fiction.
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