My Year of Meats by Ruth Ozeki

My Year of Meats

Now that Michael Pollan's New York Times bestsellers have opened up a national dialogue about where food really comes from, conscientious readers everywhere will want to devour My Year of Meats. When documentarian Jane Takagi-Little finally lands a job producing a Japanese television show that just happens to be sponsored by the American meat-exporting industry, she begins to uncover some unsavory truths about love, fertility, and a very dangerous hormone called DES. A modern-day take on Upton Sinclair's The Jungle, veteran filmmaker Ruth Ozeki's novel has been hailed as "rare and provocative" (USA Today) and "up-to-the-minute" (Chicago Tribune).

4.5 Stars

I think this book was VERY good, despite my distaste for postmodern fiction. The main character was believable and fierce and I wanted her to round-house a million scheming meat industry idiots in about two chapters. Besides that, the novel really touches on the universal humanity we all share and the injustices we are suffering because we are unaware of what the meat industry is doing to our foods (hormones... MANNYY hormones). Ozeki emphasizes the point that there is SO much debilitating ignorance; this ignorance paralyzes the people that would mobilize protests against unfair practices in business. She based the novel's facts on valid research, so I had a bit of trouble eating beef after reading this novel.

Final Verdict: Fresh-Ground Goodness

Mona in the Promised Land by Gish Jen

Mona in the Promised Land

In this ebullient and inventive novel, Gish Jen restores multiculturalism from high concept to a fact of life. At least that's what it becomes for teenaged Mona Chang, who in 1968 moves with her newly prosperous family to Scarshill, New York, where the Chinese have become "the new Jews." What could be more natural than for Mona to take this literally--even to the point of converting? As Mona attends temple "rap" sessions and falls in love (with a nice Jewish boy who lives in a tepee), Jen introduces us to one of the most charming and sweet-spirited heroines in recent fiction, a girl who can wisecrack with perfect aplomb even when she's organizing the help in her father's pancake house. On every page of Mona in the Promised Land, Gish Jen sets our received notions spinning with a wit as dry as a latter-day Jane Austen's.

4 Stars: This book was quite good. Though this was a book I read for class, I would have read it on my own. The main character, Mona, has a brilliant sardonic wit and is a hoot - if you can keep up with her. The characters are well-formed and purposeful and the dynamics of different ethnic communities are distinguished in a clever and distinct way. I really enjoyed the story line as well - a Chinese-American trying to convert to Judaism is not your usual novel topic. Mona makes you feel like you aren't alone in your search for yourself and her coming-of-age leads you quickly and splashingly into the search for your identity. If you're a girl, read this.

Final Verdict: Classic Coming-of-age