Rating: 
Summary: A bit breathless but a page-turner.
Review: 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!
Rating: 
Summary: A thoroughly entertaining, informative, well-written book
Review: This book had me smiling from the start. I enjoyed the author's perception of the film/documentary business and its relationship to sponsorship, in this case the meat industry. The author's main character,Jane Tagaki-Little, spanning both a Japanese and American heritage, gave the book a unique point of view on everything. While many of the topics were quite serious, the book was nevertheless very funny in so many parts, that the seriousness seemed even more important than had the book been preachy. I highly recommend this book.
Rating:
Summary: The best book I've read this year.
Review: One of the most moving things in this book was not the relationships between the two main female characters, but those between Jane and some of her 'American Wives' as well as some of the descriptions of the American families visited. It made me want to meet people like those in the town that becomes Hope, the town where the whole population is rallied round by a family to cure thier daughter left in a vegetative state after an accident, and in doing so make thier town prosperous again. The description of this family, though taking up very little space in the book is absolutely beautifully written. This novel is a little bit sentimental sometimes, but I found the characters very believable, most of them likeable, and the issues, while not new, were raised in an imaginative way. It is unavoidable that a book looking at the meat industry should include mention of the horrific way meat is both raised and killed in many instances, but I didn't think the point was laboured, it certainly wasn't completely anti-meat but it raised interesting questions about it.
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Summary: American Professor Uses this book at Keio Univ. in Japan
Review: 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
Rating: 
Summary: Two women and the meat industry
Review: Another example of the West saving the savage and uncivilized East. It seems as if those poor non-white women can only be saved by someone with a western education. While I enjoyed the writing, I did not enjoy the tone of arrogance.
Rating:
Summary: Amy Tam meets a conscience
Review: This book is excellent! From a great heroine to interesting and disturbing facts about the meat industry. Funny, adventurous and utterly the most enjoyable read. Can't wait for Ozeki to write more. I loved the characters, especially the American Wives. A must read.
Rating:
Summary: Very fresh and eye opening
Review: 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.
Rating:
Summary: Awesome book--now I'm a vegetarian!
Review: Ozeki manages to pull off a book teaching about the horrors of the meat industry without being preachy. The book has an exciting, interesting plot. It borders on being a chick book, though. Very cool how she juxtaposes strange Japanese businessmen with down-home American culture. I will read anything Ozeki writes.
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Summary: Excellent documentary in a work of fiction
Review: I found this book to be well-written and its environmental, documentary-style was fantastic! The book definitely raised my consciousness about the food we eat and how it gets to the dining table. Also the facets of American families and lives which were "documented" seemed very real. One of the best books I've read this year.
Rating:
Summary: An exceptional book, from an exceptional woman
Review: I loved "My Yeat of Meat" (the Aussie edition uses "meat" in the singular), and I loved meeting Ruth Ozeki when she came to town for the Melbourne Writers Festival. What I'm not so enamored by, though, are some of the reviews below, waxing snide about the heavy-handedness of the issues raised. Is that the acrid stench of sour grapes I smell?What we have here is a first novel of astonishing confidence and complexity - a brilliant balance of issues, mixed and baked with deftness and a huge dose of humour. But where to begin? Perhaps with the feminist slant: the beautifully counter-balanced relationship between Jane and Akiko; Akiko's gradual emergence from submission to self-empowerment; Jane's wonderful and wacky relationship with Sloane (If you ever meet Ruth, ask her to read the Nebraska scene to you). Or perhaps there's the cross-cultural angle: the plodding formality of the Japanese executives, vs the increasingly perplexed Jane, sending surreptitiously sarcastic memos across the seas; poor, startled Akiko studiously note-taking each show, with wide-eyed perplexity. Or of course, there's the meat of the book itself - the terrifying reality of the US meat industry, and its appalling practices. It's rare indeed to find a book which can balance this many themes so beautifully (and I haven't touched on many), and tell a tale with such compassion for characters. It's even rarer to find that such a novel is from a debut writer!! Forget the nonsense below about how PC it is - "My Year of Meat" is very cool and really really clever. It deserves a much bigger audience than it's had. This book is fun. Serious Fun.
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