From Amazon: 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.
The series, My American Wife!, initially 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 estrogen on their cattle and determines to sabotage the program.
It’s a book that isn’t heavy on the science and math but has a strong clear message. Using her great story telling ability Ozeki puts together an amazing “can’t-put-it-down-until-I-read-it-all” book.
