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Summary: A fascinating, smart, eco-friendly, humorous book...
Review: This is simply the best book I have read in years. I couldn't put it down. Rarely does an author expose a major industry's flagrant injustices with such wit and humor. I was moved to both tears and laughter. Ozeki's wonderful prose brings both Japanese culture and American culture to life. This is a great first novel! Campai Ozeki-san!
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Summary: Superb, unusual, quirky,fascinating!
Review: Simply superb first novel! I literally stayed up all night just to get this finished. Laugh out loud funny, and incredily horrifying at the same time. If this is an accurate rendering of the meat industry in the US, all I can say is "I'm with Oprah"!
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Summary: MY YEAR OF MEATS has won rave reviews!
Review: "Character gems and exquisite plotting make this a treasure to read, but the real sizzle is in the take on beef."
-- Kirkus, 4/1/98, starred review
"A very cool book, satirical but never mean, funny, peopled by fully inhabited characters who are both blind and self-aware."
-- John Sayles, director of Matewan, Lone Star, and Men With Guns
"Fluent entertaining prose."
-- Publishers Weekly, 3/30/98, starred review
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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.
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Summary: East "Meats" West
Review: "My Year of Meats" is an ambitious novel that defies being confined to one type of genre or style. What starts as a smart and funny satire of American and Japanese cultures ultimately morphs into an examination into some serious and tragic subject matter (and not just limited to the meat industry). The novel uses multiple narrative perspectives (primarily Jane Takagi-Little, an American documentary filmmaker of Japanese descent, and Akiko Ueno, a repressed Japanese housewife) and intersperses a traditional narrative style with faxes and letters to move the plot along. While the shifting tone and many points of view may frustrate some readers, one thinks Ozeki is purposely placing the reader on a roller-coaster ride. One can never really anticipate what will be around the next corner. The paperback version also includes an interview with the author and discussion questions. One can see why this book has become a favorite of reading groups. The novel is filled with plenty of topics worthy of debate -- from the meaning of the American dream or "ideal" to each of the characters' issues with abuse and denial in their lives. Nevertheless, "Meats" is entertaining while never being heavy-handed (though an unflinching look at a slaughterhouse is perhaps the biggest blow to the meat industry since Oprah's beef trial and Upton Sinclair's "The Jungle"). In the spirit of Jane's wickedly sarcastic faxes to her meat-obsessed Japanese boss, I would have to say that this is a "well done" novel and definitely a "rare" treat.
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Summary: My advice: Read something else
Review: I'm glad so many people have found pleasure reading this book. As for me, I read about 25 pages and found no reason to read another page.
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Summary: it's all about the image
Review: This book is excellent because it's an unforgiving romp through modern day America and the hurdles it holds for artists, people of multicultural heredity, and women. It's also an unforgiving look at some of the Japanese misconceptions of America and how they're perpetuated.
What I really love about this book is the role-reversal of strength and the confrontation with one's own self-image.
The other real clincher is that the book hits on a real life issue - medicines in our meat - in a way that hits the reader right in the gut. It's a well-researched heads up for our social consciousness.
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Summary: Interesting
Review: I liked this book. It was very well written, thoughtful, had strong character development and also something unique to a lot of fiction these days: a plot.
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Summary: Propaganda with stereotype characters
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.
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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.
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