Ruth Ozeki

My Year of Meats reads like a dual memoir told by a young Japanese American filmmaker and a Japanese housewife. The filmmaker is working on a TV show about American housewives who cook beef for dinner-- to be aired in Japan. It's an amusing premise but it started off rough. It is Ozeki's first novel and read as such, but it improved about 1/3 way through and started to hang together and find its footing as the filmmaker made discoveries about meat production. I enjoyed the characters and the story was satisfying, if not entirely believable. **Some people won't read this afraid they will be grossed out by meat after reading. This is NOT The Jungle. It's more about drugs used in the meat industry that are now outlawed. There are some unsavory meat factory scenes but I had several steaks while reading this book.**… (more)

I was going to write some long, fancy, heart-felt review about the beauty and depth of this complicated novel to offer a little balance between the people who rave about it and the folks who hate it. But I realized that this book is also a time-being. And maybe in THIS world, it only really IMPACTS the reader or writer for whom it was written.

And that reader AND writer, for the time being, is me.

Pick it up and give it a cursory go. If it feels like you’re fighting a wave, put it back down. It’s not your time. If it feels like you’re falling into and of the story – then (and now), you’re it.
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