smart reader-friendly book of the week

My Year of Meats
by Ruth L. Ozeki

i'd been wanting to read this book for a very long time before i finally found it at work and decided to pick it up. i had no idea it was going to be so charming and thoroughly researched and SMART!

The main character, Jane Takagi-Little is a Japanese-American woman with a story to tell, but not the story her employer, BEEF-EX, wants her to be telling...Jane is producing a television show about all American meat-eating (preferably BEEF-eating) families called "My American Wife" which centers around the woman of the house and her kitchen. All this to promote meat-eating to the Japanese housewife.
But Jane can't seem to stick to the script and as she delves deeper and deeper into the facts about the hormones (especially, a certain one called, DES, a man-made estrogen) used in beef production come to light and the BEEF-EX corporation throws, how shall a say, a bit of a cow?.

there were a lot of things in this book that made me so so glad i do not eat red meat. but there were a lot more things in the plot line that were beautiful and sad and heart-breaking as well.