Rating: 
Summary: "Surprising and distressing things"
Review: Ruth Ozeki's "My Year of Meats" is an original, amusing, fun, fascinating, at times didactic, and enjoyable book. The American documentary filmmaker Jane Takagi-Little is faced with a personal dilemma: her job directing a Japanese TV show promoting meat and 'American-values' and her own personal values, which she discovers are at odds with the show. An interesting idea, nicely written. A good read.
Rating: 
Summary: Shocked and impressed!
Review: I was completely amazed by Ms. Ozeki's book. It confirmed my opinion about the US meat industry and opened my eyes wider to the roles of both American and Asian women. I commend her ability to present such tough topics with humor and intelligent wit. I would reccomend this book to anyone, especially those who are considering a "diet" change. This book will certainly help you make up your mind one way or another.
Rating:
Summary: Fascinating and funny but also disturbing
Review: Generally, I thought that this book was excellent. Especcially the first half of the book had a nice blend of humor and real emotion. However, in the second half of the book the male characters started to be a little one-dimentional. Nonetheless, I almost missed an interview because I could not put it down. If you are squimish you might want to skip the book as it has some very difficult parts. Otherwise, don't miss it.
Rating:
Summary: Stunning roller-coaster ride. Could't put it down!
Review: So very mush more than I expected. Not just beef and meat, but love, DES, hormones, family relations... I'm a 39 year old man, who is a typical American omnivore, but this book touched my soul, made me laugh and cry, opened up emotions I had walled off behind callouses. It is written by a woman, and deals with many woman's issues, but also has so much more to offer.
Rating:
Summary: utterly relatable
Review: this summer i've just been on an asian-american kick for fiction, and this has so far been the best of them.. the characters are imperfectly perfect. i admire the bit of research ozeki put in to be able to make the parts about the meat industry authentic. but most touching of all is the relationships between jane and akiko, and the contrasts and comparisons between the two women. i highly recommend this book for anyone looking for something different and meaningful
Rating: 
Summary: Way too heavyhanded
Review: This novel is part of a disturbing trend in recent fiction, in which the characters are nothing but cardboard cutouts groaning under the weight of the political (in some cases, theoretical) issues they represent. I'm sorry, but Jane Takagi-Little is nothing more than a collage of positions on an ethnic and political spectrum. She just never comes alive. I agree with the criticisms of the meat industry here (and yes, wife beating is bad... not too challenging a conclusion there), but without the convincing characters (or comic relief of any kind) to engage skeptical readers, books like this are just taking easy potshots for the pleasure of the converted. A shame... this book could have been really good.
Rating:
Summary: soul grabbing
Review: I chose this for the author's name and the title-- I am married to a Japanese and I liked the name Jane Takagi-Little, thinking it was a foreign wife of a Japanese. I was wrong-- but it didn't matter. The book caught my full attention from the first page. I felt such sorrow for Akiko, the wife of the Japanese "typical" salaryman, and as I was reading the book on a crowded train being elbowed, pushed, grabbed and shoved by real life "polite" salarymen, I hated John even more. All the characters evoked emotional responses from me. They were real, authentic, and unique. I laughed out loud in some parts of the book, cried in others. I wait for the next novel by Ruth Ozeki.
Rating:
Summary: I read it.
Review: I came to the book by accident, being stuck in a stranger's house for an hour, and this on the bookshelf. So I came to it with innocence, and was pulled in enough so that I had to order it for myself. Well, I read a lot of books but usually do not finish, as I become bored or life intrudes. This was different. It's not a page turner in the traditional sense, but I stayed up late at night with it, anyway. It became important to me to find out where Ozeki was going with the several intertwined stories. Sunday, I came away satisfied. In the end its a funny read of several women, all of whom I wanted to see more of.I especially wanted to know more of Akiko Ueno's life. But I wanted also to see some of the professional pressures that made John Ueno such a brute, and I wondered why none of the characters who used airplanes for personal business stopped to think about the high cost of flying. Small points, but a testament to how the story still rattles around in my thinking. And I don't eat meat so much anymore. PS -- Just yesterday Ireland confirmed a new human instance of "mad cow disease" infection.
Rating:
Summary: Shocked and surprised by book!
Review: 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!
Rating:
Summary: great story, good writing
Review: What a feat. The reader learns a lot about the meat industry, but is thoroughly entertained. Kind of gooey/sentimental in parts, but I can't wait to read another by Ms. Ozeki. If this is her first novel, it's AMAZING that she pulled this off.
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