Butter by Asako Yuzuki
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
What I enjoyed about this book was its dissection of the norms surrounding women’s conduct and appearance in modern Japanese society: the way that many are compelled to be a certain shape, docile at home and subservient in public. These aspects are shown in vignettes and scenes, and also discussed in the characters’ internal monologues. The discussions the characters have about these come across as a little staged, but are illuminating nevertheless.
A lot of the book is about food. Although the early descriptions of Rika (the main character) coming to a higher appreciation of food through her best friend, Reiko, and nemesis, Kajii are exciting and flavorful, there are only so many descriptions I could manage, and I found myself starting to skim them.
But what ultimately let the book down for me was that the relationships between Rika and Reiko, Rika and Kajii and (although not depicted) Reiko and Kajii were not convincing. Kajii, accused and convicted of murder, never came across as more than a cypher.
And also, at 500+ pages, I felt the subject matter struggled to fill the space between the covers. Worth reading, but not a book or an author I’d go back to.