Storyline: 2/5 
 Characters: 4/5 
 Writing Style: 4/5 
 Composition: 5/5 
 There are good reasons for this book having come to my attention. I am interested in East Asia, enjoy stories of intercultural (mis)understanding, have a penchant for writings critical of capitalism (and business and marketing), and appreciate dry humor. So much of this worked in just the ways I had hoped and expected. The descriptions conveyed through the search for authentic America were not only poetic but resonant. Images of Japanese housewives trying to learn about America from television were guiltlessly funny. The visits to Walmart and encounters with downhome goodwill were buoyant and heartwarming. The very premise of the book, a Japanese television show featuring "real" American wives and sponsored by American meat exporters, was comedic from the outset and required little elaboration in order to ridicule the author's targets. These parts of the book were insightful, wholesome, empowering, beautiful, humorous, and fun. 
 There was a second half to the book that undermined those many positive elements. For every convivial story of friendship, there was a tale of suffering and depression. For every sharp and quirky look into Japanese-American interactions, there was a moralizing encounter with the author's notion of progress. In some of these areas, this was merely my preference. I did not want to read about menstruation, miscarriage, the novelty of sex without condoms, child abuse, sexual assault, and rape. It was often more than my own reading preferences, however. Some books enlighten and open up with juxtaposition. This was not one of those cases. The serious themes here were surely worth being discussed, but in this book they clashed with the quirky, lighthearted, and playful ambience the author so effectively created. This was not a story where joy could only be explained by overcoming adversity or fun could be had by freeing oneself of burdens. The really mean material here was an addition, not a corollary. In my more mean-spirited interpretation, it was added to make the book more dramatic and longer. In my more generous one, perhaps it was something the author needed to express. It was the wrong place for it regardless. 
 Whatever one thinks about the contrast of the carefree with the serious, the most serious flaw in the book was the polemic. Many of my life choices and personal beliefs are consistent with the author's argument, thus she should have found a sympathetic reader in me. This read, though, like a story where the author had an idea halfway through and decided to change the direction and very essence of the tale. After reading the author interview at the back of the book, I learned that this was exactly the case. This turned into a young adult tale of burgeoning political activism. The main character (which was, according to Ozeki's interview, mirroring the author's experience as she researched the background material for the book) abruptly becomes aware of an under-discussed societal wrong. She meets the like-minded, affirming and encouraging her in her new convictions. I did think the book had strong characterization. We were being shown a naive figure who was having a later-in-life, coming-of-age moment where she took interest in and wanted to change the world. Our heroine became passionate and dogmatic, an uncompromising champion for a good cause. This character was superbly drawn, showing the credulity of the youthful, the partiality of the rebel. Recently confronted with alarming facts, entirely uninterested in nuance, attentive to only confirming evidence, a hypocrite to the core, our protagonist is the epitome of the newly aware progressive with a cause. Ruth Ozeki, however, was not writing a satire of the liberal or an incisive look at the activist. The book synopsis calls My Year with Meets a "modern-day take on on Upton Sinclair's The Jungle," but Sinclair knew that Jurgis Rudkis was a fool (albeit a pitiable one). Ozeki was presenting a protagonist whom we should cheer and applaud. Ozeki herself was a believer. The book then descended into a sleuthing thriller (it dawned on Ozeki later in the writing, she confesses) complete with conspiracies, cover-ups, and bad capitalists that also happen to do terrible things to wives and children. It was an awful conclusion to such a promising start. 
 Sometimes a novel with both great elements and terrible features simply balances out to be a mediocre book. The masterful switching between perspectives and points of view, the shrewd intercultural musings, the lyrical scenes of joy were all, however, ruined by ill-fitting narratives of despair, a dilettante's tirade, and an incongruous Nancy Drew-like finish.