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My Year of Meats

by Ruth Ozeki (Goodreads Author)

3.88 of 5 stars 3.88 · rating details · 5,352 ratings · 702 reviews

A cross-cultural tale of two women brought together by the intersections of television and industrial agriculture, fertility and motherhood, life and love—the breakout hit by the celebrated author of A Tale for the Time Being

Ruth Ozeki’s mesmerizing debut novel has captivated readers and reviewers worldwide. When documentarian Jane Takagi-Little finally lands a job produc...more

Paperback, 361 pages

Published March 1st 1999 by Penguin Books (first published January 1st 1998)

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Jan 24, 2008 judy rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2008

the ending just ruined it for me. there was something contrived in the magic it tried to dust over an otherwise clean, compelling narrative. i was close to love up until the epilogue's approach.

"Sometimes Akiko felt like a thief, sneaking through the desolate corners of her own life, stealing back moments and pieces of herself." (37)

"They voted to name her Joy. When she first came to live at the large brick house at the end of the drive, she spoke no English and certain things seemed to terrify...more

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Dec 17, 2008 Ciara rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: vegetarians, aspiring vegetarians, mixed race folks, propaganda producers, environmentalists

Shelves: especially-great-novels, feminist-y-books, read-in-2007

this would be ruth ozeki's fantastic first novel. you should go read this right now, if you haven't already. it's one of my all-time favorites. the story is based around two protaganists: one is a mixed race american woman who works as a television producer. the japanese beef council hires her to produce a series that profiles a different american family & its beef consumption every week, highlighting the all-american robust outdoors-y health of the family, & featuring a beef-heavy recip...more

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Apr 28, 2008 Alicia Kachmar rated it 5 of 5 stars

Wow. I had heard about this book while at Smith College because it was the summer reading choice for incoming first-years. I was either a sophomore or junior at the time, and had always meant to pick it up. (Funny that only after I finished it did I learn that she is a Smith alum too).

This novel is so many things: a work of fiction, a cinematic piece in its movement, a political piece in its content, a look at "romantic" relationships and complexities, motherhood, eating disorders, the meat ind...more

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Feb 24, 2008 Osho rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2008

It's a little hard to know whether this is an excellent novel with horrific content, or an excellent novel that becomes somewhat disappointing over the course of the story. I tend toward the former interpretation, but some reviewers seem to agree with the latter. Specifically, the novel veers toward pedantic nonfiction documentary toward the end; since the protagonist is making a documentary, this does not trouble me. I'm a little more concerned by the sometimes heavy-handed parallelism between...more It's a little hard to know whether this is an excellent novel with horrific content, or an excellent novel that becomes somewhat disappointing over the course of the story. I tend toward the former interpretation, but some reviewers seem to agree with the latter. Specifically, the novel veers toward pedantic nonfiction documentary toward the end; since the protagonist is making a documentary, this does not trouble me. I'm a little more concerned by the sometimes heavy-handed parallelism between documentarian Jane and important secondary character Akiko. They begin more as foils, but end in some ways as reflections. I'd have liked to see more divergence between them by the end. It's stated, but not adequately conveyed.

Both the novel and negative reviews of the novel evoke comparisons to Kingsolver's Prodigal Summer and Smiley's Moo (indeed, the included reader's guide quotes Smiley's comments about the book). The novel itself involves women finding their place and power, and learning to articulate their beliefs and values, and act on them, with reasonable confidence. Like Moo, the story begins innocently and somewhat farcically, then moves gradually toward more serious revelations with bigger consequences and higher stakes. As in Prodigal Summer, the characters must wrestle with their growing awareness that, hopeless as it may seem, they must act in accord with the dictates of conscience in order not to stand by passively when damage is being done.

All three novels have a reasonably strong anti-chemical agricultural message. All have evoked angry reviews that state that the author (and protagonist) is some sort of unreasonable smug feminist who thinks women (and in this case, also lesbians) and nature are great and that men and American culture are bad--the twist in reviews of My Year of Meats is the charge that Ozeki valorizes white Americans and denigrates Japan. Sorry, I don't see it the way these readers see it. Positive depictions of lesbians and negative depictions of American agricultural practices do not trouble me overmuch. In fact, I see positive and negative depictions of both males and females in all of these novels, and I'm not sure what has some reviewers so up in arms. If I were to count up all the books I've read in which women are shrill and useless and American men save the day, I'd have to say they far outnumber the novels that depict the opposite. Each of these stories doesn't quite trust that the reader will put the pieces together, and so is unnecessarily emphatic and unsubtle. I can live with that. (less)

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Aug 23, 2007 Michelle rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction

This is a tale of contrasts - Shonagon's pillow book of delicate lists juxtaposed against documentaries made to sell meat to Japanese housewives ("beef is best") ,take charge Jane Takagi-Little and submissive Akiko Ueno, and Japanese and American culture. Told mostly in alternating segments from Jane and Akiko's point of view and occasionally other characters, Jane starts the novel as a starving would-be documentarian only to land a job with Beef-EX and vows to use her skills to tell the 'real'...more

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Apr 18, 2007 Ms. Wayne added it

Shelves: japan

From the Publisher

Jane Takagi-Little, by trade a documentary filmmaker, by nature a truth seeker, is "racially half," Japanese and American, and, as she tells us, "neither here nor there..." Jane is sharp-edged, desperate for a job, and determined not to fall in love again. Akiko Ueno, a young Japanese housewife, lives with her husband in a bleak high-rise apartment complex in a suburb of Tokyo. Akiko is so thin her bones hurt, and her husband, an ad agency salaryman who wants her to get pregnan...more

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Mar 22, 2009 Anne Marie rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: green

It is only March and I'm already going to call this as the best book I've read this year. I love the main character. She doesn't fit in anywhere, yet manipulates everyone. Interwoven into her story is an excellent commentary on the meat industry.
Read this...then quit eating meat.

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Jan 01, 2012 Frederick Bingham rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

There are two main characters. Jane Takagi-Little is a Japanese American who grew up on a farm in Minnesota. She goes to Japan to study and ends up being employed by a Japanese TV network. They send her to the US to film a weekly show called 'My American Wife'. It depicts a different woman making a dish using meat. The show is sponsored by the american beef council as a way to show Japanese housewives how to prepare beef. She ends up producing some controversial and offbeat shows that get very h...more

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Jan 29, 2009 Jonathan rated it 4 of 5 stars

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. This was another book on CD. I liked a lot, even though I didn't feel like I needed more information about the meat industry being messed up.

I really like books like this that have a international/cross cultural feel, that are told through the experiences of people who are a point of contact between nations, race, colonizer and colonized, etc. In this case it is bi-racial Japanese-white woman (whose mother was Japanese woman born in Japan.) We also get the perspective of a woman in Japan who is...more

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Oct 31, 2012 Logan Young rated it 4 of 5 stars

I picked up this book for ￥105 ($1.20) at a Japanese used book store, and I was pleasantly surprised. The first chapter got me hooked; Jane is immensely likeable, like many reviewers before me have noted. The other character, Akiko, is one that leaves a lot to be desired for me. She seems more like the old, dying breed of the ideal, docile Japanese wife. Yeah, exposure to the authenticity of life in Jane's "My American Life" episodes emboldened her to leave her abusive husband, but I never shook...more I picked up this book for ￥105 ($1.20) at a Japanese used book store, and I was pleasantly surprised. The first chapter got me hooked; Jane is immensely likeable, like many reviewers before me have noted. The other character, Akiko, is one that leaves a lot to be desired for me. She seems more like the old, dying breed of the ideal, docile Japanese wife. Yeah, exposure to the authenticity of life in Jane's "My American Life" episodes emboldened her to leave her abusive husband, but I never shook the feeling that Ozeki didn't put nearly as much energy into developing Akiko as she did Jane. Her sections of the book would have been very bland if she had not been receiving terrible abuse from "John."

I wasn't bothered much by the documentary explanations, but I definitely agree with the criticism of the characters and situations being far too emphatic. Ok, I get it, DES bad. There is another criticism I agree with concerning the ending. Perhaps this is just because I read the novel 14 years after it was published, (SPOILER) but it is completely beyond belief that the American media would react the way they did to footage of the meat industry's practices. The USDA is getting budget cut after budget cut, and they admit that they have no means of testing the food we eat. They often hire groups to "test" the food for them (of course these groups have connections to the big food producers. Corporations will regulate themselves right?). Every few months we hear about a recall of spinach or cantaloupe or meat. The media knows what's happening, WE know what's happening. Ozeki points out though that "ignorance is an act of will, a choice that one makes over and over again, especially when information overwhelms and knowledge has become synonymous with impotence."

So, I guess I am trying to say that I hate it when a novel which had been very good get nearly spoiled because the author wants to end it by wrapping it up and putting a pretty red bow on top. Ozeki should not have put that Epilogue in. (less)

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Aug 04, 2012 Joshua rated it 4 of 5 stars

Ruth Ozeki is a filmmaker and novelist who loosely based her debut novel My Year Of Meats (1998, Penguin Books) on her experience filming for the tobacco industry. The story follows two female protagonists: first is documentarian Jane Takagi-Little on her journey across America filming the TV series My American Wife! The series, sponsored by meat-exporting corporation BEEF-EX , glorifies the American family and the use of meat in American homes for Japanese audiences. On the other side of the gl...more Ruth Ozeki is a filmmaker and novelist who loosely based her debut novel My Year Of Meats (1998, Penguin Books) on her experience filming for the tobacco industry. The story follows two female protagonists: first is documentarian Jane Takagi-Little on her journey across America filming the TV series My American Wife! The series, sponsored by meat-exporting corporation BEEF-EX , glorifies the American family and the use of meat in American homes for Japanese audiences. On the other side of the globe in Japan, Akiko Ueno watches and grades the episodes of My American Wife! to please her husband and Jane’s boss, “John” Ueno. Somewhere along the way Jane stumbles upon the corruption of the American cattle industry and how it’s inextricably and fundamentally linked with her own life.

One of the coolest parts of My Year Of Meats is that it addresses so many relevant issues in its 361 pages in a way that is not overwhelming. Jane, like the author, is a first-generation American and from that vantage point she explores the sometimes willful misunderstandings between the two countries. At the same time she also fleshes out well-articulated opinions about different forms of motherhood, romance on the road and staying true to yourself.

This book is full of mothers: cold, distant women who don’t really know how to be a mother; boisterous women who can never have enough kids; mothers and wives who need to mold themselves to exemplify the American dream; wronged women who’ve adopted mother as their core identity; lesbian mothers; mothers-to-be; mothers who’ve lost children. This exploration of the role of being a mother points out the pros and cons of motherhood and at the end of the novel she observes that there are good, bad and wrong choices, but somehow never a right one.

The meat and potatoes of the story is the dirty little facts about the cattle industry in America. I put down this book a little closer to becoming a vegetarian than before, with it’s gruesome descriptions of the treatment of cattle being reared for the slaughterhouse. I’m very interested now in where my meat comes from, how it was treated on the farm, and what kind of residual chemicals are entering my body while eating it. Did you know that Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease, also known as mad cow disease, is caused by farmers adding remaining cow entrails from the slaughterhouse and feces into the cows’ food in an effort to reduce costs and fatten the animals faster? This was discovered and addressed when the first case was discovered in a Canadian cow in 1993, and although policies were changed, mad cow had still killed at least 210 people by October 2009.

I was considering going vegetarian before, but this book pushed me over the edge and made the decision for me. I would highly encourage you to pick up this book, and tour the United States with Jane Takagi-Little and her endearing camera crew as they discover where your food comes from and how easy it is to blur the facts.(less)

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Jun 08, 2012 Monica Casper rated it 4 of 5 stars

The book is a delight, both entertaining and smart. The "expose" of the meat industry is spot-on but doesn't detract from the narrative. Ozeki, a filmmaker, writes beautifully cinematic scenes and her dialogue is crisp and realistic.

Jane is an immensely likable figure, complicated and trying to figure out her life. She is unique in her racial "doubling" but also "everywoman" in attempting to balance work and love, her history and her future, individuality and reproduction. Akiko is also engaging...more

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Feb 09, 2012 Karo rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: japan

I greatly enjoyed My Year of Meats. Though the "meat" side of the novel was impossible to miss -- it is, obviously, crucial to the plot -- I found that it had very little to do with what made the book so enjoyable. I'd seen the book around in bookstores for years, but never bought it because I thought that I had the meat industry covered, having read Upton Sinclair's The Jungle. Don't make the same mistake I made! My Year of Meats is so much more. Jane Takagi-Little is a documentarian who accept...more

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Apr 17, 2011 Ellen Librarian rated it 3 of 5 stars

This fun, interesting and unusual novel was almost great. It's got to be one of the most original stories ever: A Japanese-American documentarian gets a job producing a Japanese reality television series sponsored by an American beef trade group. Though the show visits a different American household each week and showcases its American, meat-filled meals, the real purpose is to entice Japanese housewives into buying and serving American meat. In the course of producing the series, the protagonis...more

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Feb 11, 2011 Angie rated it 4 of 5 stars

I enjoyed this book and I really wasn't expecting that. One of the most interesting parts about this book was how it introduced the poetry of Shonagon at the beginning of each chapter. Her Pillow Book of lists and observations is poignant and surprisingly modern for its age. The book follows two women's lives; one American and one, Japanese, and the point at which they intersect around a a japanese television show called My American Wife sponsored by the beef industry to sell beef to the Japanes...more

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Dec 01, 2010 Becky rated it 2 of 5 stars

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. Disturbing title. Okay book.

Story about two women: the strong, independent documentarian Jane Takagi-Little (Takagi for short); and the timid, weak Japanese housewife Akiko Ueno. They are indirectly linked by Joicho "John" Ueno, who is Akiko's abusive husband and Takagi's evil boss.

Takagi is filming a tv series called "This American Wife" which is being used to market beef to a new Japanese market. Because the series is funded by the beef industry, Takagi doesn't have the freedom to portray ho...more Disturbing title. Okay book.

Story about two women: the strong, independent documentarian Jane Takagi-Little (Takagi for short); and the timid, weak Japanese housewife Akiko Ueno. They are indirectly linked by Joicho "John" Ueno, who is Akiko's abusive husband and Takagi's evil boss.

Takagi is filming a tv series called "This American Wife" which is being used to market beef to a new Japanese market. Because the series is funded by the beef industry, Takagi doesn't have the freedom to portray honest, interesting content. The plot thickens when she learns that non-organic beef is borderline toxic.

Akiko is so underweight due to her bulimia, stemming from her dismal marriage to an asshole, that she cannot have children. However, her husband is obsessed with passing on his genes. He also enjoys drinking excessively, ogling strippers, and beating up his wife whom he only sees as an incubator for his future child.

Despite the obvious differences between these two women, their lives parallel each other throughout the novel. They both enjoy Shonagon (an ancient Japanese author), struggle with getting pregnant, and have complicated relationships. The parallels are so similarly timed that while Tagaki is sick from her early stages of pregnancy, on the other side of the world Akiko is throwing up due to her bulimia. At times the parallels are a nice touch; at other times, a bit forced. But interestingly, their characters switch by the end of the book: Takagi falls apart after her miscarriage, Akiko finds strength to leave her husband.

The anti-meat section of this book fell a bit flat. You settle in and get comfortable with the book, which seems to be about two women. Suddenly you're reading a fiction book posing as a non-fiction book about the hazards of eating red meat and the evils of the beef industry. A bit heavy handed. I like a good non-fiction book, but when placed in a novel, it loses all credibility. The novelist isn't an expert with credibility, despite her moderate research. Plus, the delivery of the message through a conveniently one-sided evil character felt biased. It doesn't matter whether or not I agree with the message; this wasn't the place for a term paper.

While I've mentioned one-sided characters, John Ueno was also too much evil for one weasel of a man. I didn't quite buy it. I understand that he has a high-pressure job and takes his frustrations and failures out on his wife. And maybe the pressure and guilt led to a drinking problem and the subsequent downward spiral. But how did this clueless man ever rise to his current high position at his company. Was he competent/charming/kind before he was married? Was there a time when he didn't consistently do or say the wrong thing? It just doesn't fit. Nothing about this man jumps off the page as an authentic character. He's basically your generic asshole, too conveniently and entirely evil so the reader has someone to hate.

Oh yeah. There's also an unconvincing, unrealistic romance with a happy ending. (less)

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Nov 01, 2010 Leslie rated it 4 of 5 stars

Wasn't enthusiastic about this book, lukewarm after first 30 or so pages, but it became a fabulous 2-plot page turner that I couldn't put down. It is a novel but felt "real" to me, possibly because much of it is seen through the eyes of a Japanese-American woman who is producing a documentary ("The American Wife") for Japanese TV. In the course of the book she learns many of the ugly secrets of the meat industry. Each segment features a family and the wife's cooking of some kind of meat. The cha...more

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May 10, 2010 Ruth rated it 3 of 5 stars

This is a novel about a year in the life of Jane, a woman who is working for a Japanese tv show sponsored by the US meat industry to highlight a different "wholesome" american family and their favorite meat recipe in each episode. The chapters are interspersed with excerpts from The Pillow Book, which I have always kind of liked, especially the lists. Over the course of the book Jane pushes the limits more and more and ends up learning all this stuff about factory farming and hormones while othe...more

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May 14, 2009 Erin rated it 4 of 5 stars

Excellent book. Highly recommended.

First of all Ruth Ozeki's writing style is lovely-- she's very talented. Secondly, the characters she created in this novel are so interesting, vivid and thoughtful that you won't soon forget them when you've finished the book.

The book tells the story of Jane Takagi-Little, a struggling documentarian who is hired to produce a Japanese television program sponsored by an American meat exporting business. As she travels from small town to small town documenting t...more

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Nov 26, 2008 Elizabeth rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: you when you want a deeper beach book.

Recommended to Elizabeth by: bookclub & masumi

Shelves: smithalumbookclub

When the facilitator of the book club suggested that we read, "My Year of . . . " for the month of June, I could not imagine that she meant us to read and discuss a book about someone who encountered many introductions in a twelve-month span, nor an individual apprenticing in a butcher shop for fifty-odd weeks. Neither of my imagined scenarios proved entirely accurate, but main character Jane Takagi-Little does meet many people in her travels to record variety with which Americans prepare meat.

T...more When the facilitator of the book club suggested that we read, "My Year of . . . " for the month of June, I could not imagine that she meant us to read and discuss a book about someone who encountered many introductions in a twelve-month span, nor an individual apprenticing in a butcher shop for fifty-odd weeks. Neither of my imagined scenarios proved entirely accurate, but main character Jane Takagi-Little does meet many people in her travels to record variety with which Americans prepare meat.

The complicated cross-cultural task of taping Americans in the US for programs edited and aired in Japan (well represented by the cover art: a cow suspended in limbo by disproportionately sized chopsticks) explores inside/outsider perspective; offers an account of the fuel that runs our bodies and national economy; and posits on the complicated nature of "what is seen vs. what is."

Major and minor American and Japanese characters foil a primary narrator whose biracial identity, significant height, and formative years in rural Minnesota indicate and invite questions about what defines home (location, address, citizenship?), sense of self (recipes, employment, relationships?) and values. Jane Takagi-Little is invaluable as principal protagonist. Smith College alumnae may sniff out her character as influenced by the subversive women's college support of women to lead meaningful lives, which often run outside the bounds of tradition, yet also weave in traditional experiences and feelings. Jane, perhaps like many young American women, has much to consider in the ties of daughter/motherhood. And it is noteworthy that motherhood and nutrition are interrelated.

As a product to reflect and represent US culture, meat is surprisingly apt. Due to the ecological and economic costs we incur to maintain supply of meat, it is not sustainable. It does not feed the greatest number at the lowest expense, and too many go hungry on a daily basis. Yet meat remains the basis of many diets. Parallel: the US is no longer sole superpower in part due to devouring financial, natural and human resources.

In this book beef industry executives call for an appealing image packaged as a reality show. Jane's background in television direction/production contributes to her reliability: she admits that scenes are not always chronological and complete, sharing how difficult it can be to find beauty in the heartland & its beloved dishes. Author Ruth Ozeki juxtaposes to Jane the voice of one Japanese woman, Akiko Ueno. Absolute difference in lifestyle and daily routine of these two women creates great resonance at points where their narratives overlap.

That we can comprehend multitude views and feelings, is what the novel depends upon. In addition to reader's vantage of multiple perspectives, Ozeki employs a creative tactic of including "faxed communications" between New York and Tokyo. These are fun to read, useful for characterization, and fabulous reminders that our ever-shrinking world can still be full of cultural, linguistic and inter-personal barriers.
(less)

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Dec 08, 2011 Cat rated it 2 of 5 stars

Ruth Ozeki recognizes the collaboration of commercially-fueled media hype, deliberately adopted consumer ignorance, and the bottom-line practices of the food industry, and this diagnosis of disturbing global trends and local effects rings true. There was a lot of information in this book about hormonally treated beef that I did not know in this detail, and Ozeki is clever to package that information within a novel about two women both preoccupied with their fertility. The first is a Japanese-Ame...more Ruth Ozeki recognizes the collaboration of commercially-fueled media hype, deliberately adopted consumer ignorance, and the bottom-line practices of the food industry, and this diagnosis of disturbing global trends and local effects rings true. There was a lot of information in this book about hormonally treated beef that I did not know in this detail, and Ozeki is clever to package that information within a novel about two women both preoccupied with their fertility. The first is a Japanese-American documentarian, Jane Takagi, hired by a Japanese TV show to promote beef products through a reality series focused on the American family, specifically called My American Wife!. Ozeki is not particularly subtle in suggesting that the way that women are treated in the media (and sometimes in their own homes) bears a striking similarity to the dressed slabs of beef in these episodes. The second is the Japanese wife of the representative of the corporate sponsor BEEF-EX. This corporate representative has started going by "John" to compliment his name "Ueno" (and likes to say "get it? get it? John Wayne-O!")

One of the problems that I had with this book is that it is painted in such broad strokes (and some of those strokes seem awfully close to familiar Asian stereotypes). For example, the Japanese wife is hopelessly timid and unassuming, even as her husband becomes more and more horrible and abusive. He is an unabashed villain who becomes only more tyrannical and heinous as the book continues. It becomes increasingly creepy that his wife, Akiko, has determined that all she wants is to become a mother (with the help of his sperm) and then she can leave him. ?!?!? I have no doubt that such monsters exist in the world, but it seems awfully convenient that the wife-beating, heavy-drinking, stripper-loving, rapist husband also happens to represent an evil beef conglomerate bent on marketing contaminated products to the world. Funny how all of these levels of moral turpitude go together.

By contrast, Japanese-American Jane falls into bed with a blind date who turns out to be even more wonderful than she'd realized he was to begin with. Not only is he fabulous in bed (which Ozeki details relentlessly), but he's also a good guy. And rich. And handsome. And a musician, if you'll believe it! Jane's agency and self-determination (and Western-ness, I hate to add) allow her to save the day at the conclusion of the book through her artistry. While when Akiko and Jane finally meet, Akiko is disappointed that Jane is not more stalwart and decisive, it seems like Jane's overall spunkiness is the moral center of the book, guiding everyone else towards a more self-aware position. In this formulation, though Japan is being contaminated by American food products, they also need American individualism and iconoclasm to mitigate respect for authority and rigid gender relations. I don't know very much about Japanese culture, but this self-congratulatory tone about Americanism struck a false note with me.

The novel follows Jane's journey as she visits families meant to teach Japanese housewives about meat products on the reality show. Here too Ozeki lays her ideological cards blatantly on the table. The "good" families include a family with multicultural adopted children, an African American family active in their local church, the parents and community surrounding a disabled teenage girl hurt at a Walmart, and an interracial lesbian couple. I too applaud the recognition of diversity, disability, and queerness (hurrah! hurrah!), but all of these families turn out to be rather bland and perfect. They don't feel real; they feel like liberal ideals of feel-good models of families. Meanwhile, the "bad" families are white (a bland couple running a B&B) and/or work for bad industries (the family that runs a feed lot and slaughterhouse and must be awakened to the error in their ways by Jane Takagi).

The didacticism of the book undercuts its novelistic and psychological resonance. There are some heartbreaking topics in here: from children being poisoned to vicious rape and spousal abuse to late-term miscarriage. But none of them felt heartbreaking (more grisly) because I keep feeling like I was being led through the paces of an ideological argument rather than a real, living world. My detachment felt all the stranger since I more or less agree with the ideological argument. (Factory farming = bad. The global reach of this toxic interplay between American food and pharma = bad.) But being grossed out by the disturbing things the book depicts is not the same thing as being moved, and I wanted to be moved and to believe in these characters. They felt like cardboard cut-outs of themselves. At risk of a cringe-worthy pun, I wanted meatier characters.(less)

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Aug 05, 2010 Catherine Siemann rated it 5 of 5 stars

I'm not sure, on an objective critical level, that this is a five-star book, but once in awhile, I just don't care. The novel has two viewpoint characters. First-person narrator Jane Takagi-Little, an unemployed documentarian in the East Village who finds herself in the compromised position of producing My American Wife!, a show designed to promote consumption of beef in the Japanese market. She's also got a complicated non-romance with a jazz musician. The other main character, whose story is t...more

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Oct 12, 2009 Dufus rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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Nov 30, 2011 Justin rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: school

Ruth L. Ozeki deftly weaves the menacing nature of uncertainty throughout her engaging novel, My Year of Meats. At the eye of this hurricane is the specter of diethylstilbestrol. The two protagonists of the novel, Akiko Ueno and Jane Takagi-Little seem to be flip sides of a coin minted with strong yet ash sensitive female heroes. Their stories seem to be tragically out of synch, as though they could be the same woman at different stages of her life. Ozeki skillfully joins these two characters i...more Ruth L. Ozeki deftly weaves the menacing nature of uncertainty throughout her engaging novel, My Year of Meats. At the eye of this hurricane is the specter of diethylstilbestrol. The two protagonists of the novel, Akiko Ueno and Jane Takagi-Little seem to be flip sides of a coin minted with strong yet ash sensitive female heroes. Their stories seem to be tragically out of synch, as though they could be the same woman at different stages of her life. Ozeki skillfully joins these two characters in the final third of the book to this reader's great joy.
The strong symbolism of women as cattle and the meat market that is the world of media and paternal dominance in society lurks just behind every page of this gripping novel. The mores and expectancy of life weigh heavily on the protagonistas (sic), Ozeki does a palpable job of enfolding the reader into the bleak and wondrous aspects of their lives. As the heifer dangles by its ankle in the slaughter house, Akiko and Jane are on the metaphoric hook at this juncture in the novel. Throughout the novel, the correlation and disparity between Japanese and American culture can be seen in the way characters approach sex, vice, food, relationships, work and each other.
Diethylstilbestrol plays an important role as a sort of arch antagonist. Lurking in every bite of meat or just beyond a characters memory, part of a past that promised better living through chemistry. It seems that the faceless BEEF-EX corporation is an easy scapegoat for the ills of this fictional world. But the reality with which Ozeki weaves her yarn reminds the reader that though it is a work of fiction, a woman much like Akiko Ueno could be on a plane over Alaska right now. Or a Jane Takagi-Little could be huddled over a screen at this very moment poring over shockingly brutal footage we'll be moved to tears by in the near future. It's this same omnipresent character that Ozeki instills into DES in the confines of her story and unnervingly bleeds it's proliferation beyond the pages of her book, dripping onto the dinner tables of America, Japan and the developing world at large.
Ozeki squarely serves this entree of DES as a dare to reflect on our own eating habits and challenges our notion of the sanctity of life through the themes of procreation and mortality. The My American Wife candidates act as a parade of our Mothers, Aunts and Sisters. Serving as reminders of the role of women in our households and lives. The detached nature of reading about a documentary about fictional characters does not lessen the humanity of these women. Even three times removed, the insidious character of DES was never far from this readers mind. Ozeki masterfully interplays dread with hope and captures the intangible quality of "being" an American. Longing for satiation while blissfully, if not ignorantly, pushing a metaphoric cart up and down the aisles of our big-box-mart values. Marveling at the price we've allowed our very existence to be devalued to. Clambering to buy into the promise that industrial agriculture broke the second that first hypodermic needle broke the skin of the first cow to be hormonally enhanced.
Rosie the precocious adolescent was the most sympathetic of characters in the novel. She served as innocence besmirched by cold chemical calculation. The acceptance and ignorance of her condition by the family speaks to a gross, atavistic sort of fear and awe of the female form that is displayed in the objectification of women everywhere. The role of DES is never more clearly sinister in its effects than it is in the documentary footage that Jane edits together. While Rosie and Bunny's faces are blurred out, this only adds to the disturbing notion that it could be someone you love being blurred out. It's this kind of awareness that Jane's fictional documentary served to raise and that Ruth Ozeki's novel hopefully instills.

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Nov 30, 2008 Julie rated it 4 of 5 stars

Each chapter narrates a month in the Year of Meats, Jane Takagi-Little’s year-long experience directing My American Wife!, a Japanese documentary series filmed in America. Jane is half-Japanese, raised in small-town Minnesota, and finds herself interpreting American mores for a Japanese audience when she does not always feel sympathy towards the American subjects of her show. The show is underwritten by BEEF-EX, an agency pushing the export of American beef to Japan, and as such the centerpiece...more

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Jan 11, 2009 Ross rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: food-politics

The premise in this novel -- that the protagonist is directing episodes of a Japanese television program called My American Wife!, sponsored by the American beef industry -- is full of promise. The glorification of meat through a hokey foreign television program sets the stage for some very funny moments. But the darker side of the novel dominates. Everything that is wrong with American feedlot-produced beef is material in this novel sometimes quite graphically. And some of the plot devices are...more

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May 10, 2011 Will rated it 3 of 5 stars

A thought provoking book. The author had areas of strengths and weaknesses. The concept, and subject, and plot line were all interesting, and provoking, and well crafted. Where the book fell short was with character believability. I know this is a pretty harsh thing to say about a fiction writer, but it seems she couldn't put herself in the minds of the characters she was writing. When it came to cultural differences between US and Japan, THAT was believable. At times, you could tell the author...more

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Jan 24, 2011 Kim rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2011

This book really did lead me down a merry path and then knock me into a muddy and shit-filled puddle.

It starts out as a simple little story of two women, miles and continents and cultures apart, linked by a tv show.
Jane is a documentarian in America, half japanese half American, making a weekly show which highlights the all American family and how they eat meat. The show is aired in Japan as part of a marketing ploy to get Japanese housewives to buy American meat.
Akiko is a Japanese woman who w...more

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May 03, 2009 Mallory rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: people looking for something different

A Japanese American woman is hired to work the Production aspect of a reality show to air in Japan called My American Wife!, which is actually sponsored by the American Beef Lobby and is to be used to convince Japanese housewives to cook the beef-and-pork laden recipes cooked by "wholesome" Middle-American Moms on each week's installment.

Let me be honest - this book is fiction, but there's a departure about 2/3 of the way through that explores (very briefly) the evils of factory farming in Ameri...more

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Jan 25, 2011 Liz rated it 4 of 5 stars

this was really engaging and easy to get into. Maybe it's because I'm already vego, but I found the stuff about the meat industry to be the context rather than the content of the book; more the setting of the drama than the drama itself, to the extent they can be separated. it's not just a Message Book, it's a novel, and a well-constructed, suspenseful one. the main criticism I would make is that Akiko's characterisation feels pretty flat. her main purpose seems to be the shrinking victim of her...more

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About Ruth Ozeki

Ruth Ozeki (born in New Haven, Connecticut) is a Japanese American novelist. She is the daughter of anthropologist Floyd Lounsbury.

Ozeki published her debut novel, My Year of Meats, in 1998. She followed up with All Over Creation in 2003. Her new novel, A Tale for the Time Being, will be published on March 12, 2013.

She is married to Canadian land artist Oliver Kellhammer, and the couple divides t...more

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Inside and Other Short Fiction: Japanese Women by Japanese Women

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