My Year of Meats

Author - Ruth L. Ozeki ... [Goo?] [Posters]

This Paperback Book item from Penguin (Non-Classics) was reviewed on 13-Sep-2008.

Search ISBN:0140280464 offer from Abebooks or used books from Alibris. My Year of Meats Reference Book. Classifications : Contemporary Literature & Fiction Subjects Books Literary Literature & Fiction Subjects Books United States Short Stories Literature & Fiction Subjects Books Paperback Mass Market Trade Binding (bindi . Click the following link to view the cover of My Year of Meats.

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1) Paperback Book My Year of Meats by Penguin (Non-Classics). 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.¤

2) Paperback Book My Year of Meats by Penguin (Non-Classics). 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.¤

3) Paperback Book My Year of Meats by Penguin (Non-Classics). 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.¤

4) Paperback Book My Year of Meats by Penguin (Non-Classics). There are very few sure things in life, but one of them is "My Year in Meats" by Ruth Ozeki. This story has it all a great protaganist, a mystery to unravel and a fast paced story built around interesting business and societal issues making this book a satisfying read for readers of every shape and size.

A great gift I hit a home run when I gave it to my mother, my wife, a cousin (in her 20´s) and my 19 year old daughter.¤

5) Paperback Book My Year of Meats by Penguin (Non-Classics). What starts off as an exploration of personal identity--about a half-Japanese, half-Caucasian woman who is connected to both cultures through her family and job but feels she belongs to neither--well established in the first chapter, is unfortunately dropped and barely mentioned again. This technique occurs throughout the novel, touching on the meat industry, family values, cultural differences, and sexual discovery, but never explores any of them very deeply. Even the writing itself is often stark, I often had no clear picture of what people or places looked like, and farms, apartments, offices all lacked the details to help me see where I was.

Overall, the novel reads as though the author wasn´t sure what she wanted the story to be about (which she admits in the notes section), and just wandered around until she stumbled upon something that felt right. The ending is confident, makes assertions about meat and marriage using the two protagonists, then wraps everything up far too quickly and cleanly. This is fine in the drafting stages, but once the book is finished it really is the author´s job to go back and create a unified whole. It´s OK that the characters are confused and try to figure things out, but the narrative should be focused and aware. When the characters begin to discuss the perils of eating meat, it reads as someone who has read one book on the subject would speak about it, knowing a lot of chilling facts, but not understanding how it all works or being able to present it with a clear argument. This is not a bad story, I just believe the author should have spent more time with it.¤

6) Paperback Book My Year of Meats by Penguin (Non-Classics). Veteran filmaker Ruth Ozeki´s novel has been hailed as "one of the heartiest and yes, meatiest debuts in years" (Glamour). It tells the story of a year in the lives of two ordinary women on opposite ends of the earth, brought together by a convergence of extraordinary circumstances. Jane, a struggling filmmaker in New York, is given her big break--a chance to travel through the U.S. to produce a Japanese television program sponsored by an American meat exporting business. But along the way, she discovers some unsavory truths about love, honor, and a particularly damaging hormone called DES that wreaks havoc with her uterus. Meanwhile, Akiko, a painfully thin Japanese woman struggling with bulimia, is being pressured by her child-craving husband to put some meat on her bones--literally. How Jane´s and Akiko´s lives intersect taps into some of the deepest concerns of our time--how the past informs the present and how we live and love in an ever-shrinking world.

A cross-cultural, tragi-comic romp through America and Japan that is "wonderfully wild and bracing . . . a feast that leaves you hungry for whatever Ozeki cooks up next" (Newsweek).

"Ozeki masks a deeper purpose with a light tone. . . . A comical-satirical-farcical-epical-tragical-romantical novel." -Jane Smiley, Chicago Tribune Book Review (front page)¤

7) Paperback Book My Year of Meats by Penguin (Non-Classics). At first glance, a novel that promises to expose the unethical practices of the American meat industry may not be at the top of your reading list, but Ruth Ozeki´s debut, My Year of Meats is well worth a second look. Like the author, the novel´s protagonist, Jane Takagi-Little, is a Japanese-American documentary filmmaker; like Ozeki, who was once commissioned by a beef lobbying group to make television shows for the Japanese market, Jane is invited to work on a Japanese television show meant to encourage beef consumption via the not-so-subliminal suggestion that prime rib equals a perfect family:

TO: AMERICAN RESEARCH STAFF
FROM: Tokyo Office
DATE: January 5, 1991
RE: My American Wife!...

Here is list of IMPORTANT THINGS for My American Wife!

DESIRABLE THINGS:
1. Attractiveness, wholesomeness, warm personality
2. Delicious meat recipe (NOTE: Pork and other meats is second class meats, so please remember this easy motto: "Pork is Possible, but Beef is Best!")
3. Attractive, docile husband
4. Attractive, obedient children
5. Attractive, wholesome lifestyle
6. Attractive, clean house...

UNDESIRABLE THINGS:
1. Physical imperfections
2. Obesity
3. Squalor
4. Second class peoples

The series, My American Wife!, initally seems like a dream come true for Jane as she criss-crosses the United States filming a different American family each week for her Japanese audience. Naturally, the emphasis is on meat, and Ozeki has fun with out-there recipes such as rump roast in coke and beef fudge; but as Jane becomes more familiar with her subject, she becomes increasingly aware of the beef industry´s widespread practice of using synthetic estrogens on their cattle and determines to sabotage the program.

Cut to Tokyo where Akiko Ueno struggles through the dull misery of life with her brutish husband, who happens to be in charge of the show´s advertising. After seeing one of Jane´s subversive episodes about a vegetarian lesbian couple, Akiko gets in touch and the two women plot to expose the meat industry´s hazardous practices. Romance, humor, intrigue, and even a message--My Year of Meats has it all. This is a book that even a vegetarian would love.¤

Page Updated: Robert N. Goolsby, 11-Oct-2008, 01402804649780140280463, 820-8X0-640-950-730-K2B-NEB-8

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