My thanks to Penguin Books U.K. Hamish Hamilton for an eARC via NetGalley of ‘We Are The Weather’ by Jonathan Safran Foer in exchange for an honest review. It was published in October 2019. My apologies for the late feedback.

Its subtitle is ‘Saving the Planet Begins at Breakfast’, which I found intriguing. Basically he focuses upon the rarely discussed links between the farming of animals and climate change.

It was an eye opening book. He suggests that rather than giving up on a meat-based diet and going cold turkey that cutting down on the consumption of animal products could make a real difference. “Collective action is the way to save our home and way of life. And it all starts with what we eat, and don't eat, for breakfast.”

Clearly this was written for an American readership though I thought it was still relevant. In the U.K. we have different standards with respect to animal welfare in farming practices, something that has been a hot topic with respect to any future trade agreements with the USA.

I will admit that I found myself a little apprehensive about reading this book. I thought that I was going to be made to feel guilty about my eating choices. Not so.

In it JSF details his own struggles with sticking to a plant-based diet, which was refreshingly candid. Also, he recounts talking to a friend, who had refused to read his earlier book, ‘Eating Animals’. When JSF asked him why, the response from his friend was that he was afraid to read the book because he knew that it would require him to make a change that he couldn’t make. I could relate.

Throughout he also includes anecdotes about his family and the legacy they brought from Europe following the Holocaust. There were also reflections on suicide. These might have seemed a little odd in a book about climate change but I felt that they flowed quite well, linking the global issues with the personal.

3.5 stars rounded up to 4.
Following after the main text are comprehensive notes and a bibliography.

Overall, I felt that JSF was presenting his readers with facts about climate change as well as encouraging activities that were doable rather than getting up on a soapbox.

I think I just have to call it and say I just don't get on with Jonathan Safran Foer's writing. This is ymy third attempt and again, I just found myself not connecting with all. And this was about a topic I feel strongly about.

I appreciate the sentiment in this book, and what JSF was trying to get across to the reader but I'm not sure if it's because I'm already a vegetarian and someone who tries to limit the amount of dairy/eggs in my diet already but everything that was talked about in this book felt very surface level to me, and I'm already aware of the importance of changing diets for the future of our world as we know it.

The first 63 pages of this book is a compilation of random facts the author decided to talk about before eventually getting to the issue of climate change and eating less meat and dairy. This didn't really work for me and I felt myself switching off from it - it felt like in a weird way JSF was trying to trick the reader into reading about climate change and veganism but the book is literally titled 'Saving the World Begins at Breakfast'.
I also hated the section near the end where he had a whole conversation with his own soul. I appreciated the moments he added about his granny, and what it meant for him thinking about where she came from, and where he came from and what this book in the future could mean to his sons but that's not necessarily about the actual topic of the book.

I wouldn't necessarily call this book hopeful either but I do think climate change books need to be a bit scary so people will actually start realising the danger we're in and that we need to do something now. Not tomorrow or next week or next year. Now. And it can begin at breakfast or lunch or dinner. This is definitely one of those changes that if everyone made one small change, or sacrifice, when it comes to reducing meat and dairy or cutting out altogether, it can make a HUGE difference to the world. Climate change is tearing people apart when we can easily work together, share wonderful, tasty meat-free meals together in love and make the world a little bit better. And I do think JSF did a good job in getting this across.

We are Weather seeks to argue that we have become disconnected to the issue of climate change. The author argues that we need to be given clear guidelines concerning, both; what we can do as individuals, and what we can do as a collective. However, ironically, the opening arguments of We are Weather felt disjointed and muddled, making the reader disconnected from the text and its important arguments. In addition, there’s a lot of stuff about the author here. We hear endlessly about how guilty HE feels about global warming and how great he is at being vegetarian. It would have been nice to hear about those people already suffering the effects of climate change. Therefore, I soon became disconnected to the text and stopped reading.

Timely and engaging. This is a very crowded field but the author's skills as a novelist comes into play to add pace and the personal interjections are engaging.

I think the message of the book is crucial and it definitely comes across. If the main point is to reflect on one's habits and make us take responsibility on climate change, I think it's pretty effective in this sense. The structure though is incredibly confusing, He uses lots of metaphors and comparisons that, while interest stories in themselves, have little to do with the points he is trying to make. His family history is very interesting and I would not have minded reading some of those in an autobiography, but I am not sure if this was the book to share those. Same with the self interview/inner dialogue. While is good that he is honest about how much he struggles with becoming vegetarian/vegan I think it's very patronising and borderline hypocrite that he cannot practice what he preaches. Maybe he should have released the book AFTER becoming vegan, and not make the promise to stop eating dairy and eggs after he finishes the book.

It is all true and very important, but comparing this book with the other one (Eating Animals) I found the tone used by the author so patronizing that sometimes, even if, as I already said, he is totally right and we need to change right now etc.etc. my biggest and impending desire was to close the book and throw it away. Thank God there are so many notes and appendix that it was way shorter than I thought.

Tutto quello che racconta l'autore é vero, ma paragonato ad Eating animals, il livello di paternalismo che trasuda dalle sue parole é aumentato talmente tanto che anche se, come giá detto dobbiamo cambiare qualcosa immediatamente etc.etc., l'unico mio fortissimo desiderio era quello di chiudere il libro e frullarlo dalla finestra. Fortunatamente per il mio kindle e per i vicini di casa, il libro era cosí pieno di note e appendici che é finito molto prima del previsto e della mia pazienza.

THANKS NETGALLEY FOR THE PREVIEW!