Butter

Rika, the only female journalist at a men’s magazine, asks for an interview with Manako Kaji, a gourmet food-obsessed serial killer. Kaji has been jailed for life for befriending and killing a series of lonely men having supposedly seduced them with her cooking. Rika soon finds herself captivated by Kaji who helps her awaken her own passion for food.

Butter is at its best during its lavish description of food and its exploration of misogyny, fat-phobia and women’s role in society. It’s elegantly written and each interaction with food, however small, is given some context and significance.

Then the characters sit down and explain exactly what is going on, sometimes for quite a while. It seems like everyone in the book has an unnatural level of insight into their own lives and how they fit into the world around them, and are willing to sit there and monologue about it. Perhaps it’s just lost in translation but it was hard to get through these scenes when the point had already been gotten across just a few moments before.

So is it trying to bite off more than it can chew? Mostly no. Yuzuki covers a lot of ground thematically but the book is more than long enough to handle it. She explores the balance between being a healthy weight, too fat or too thin with sensitivity and nuance and hits upon a lot of truth about the societal reasons behind varying opinions on the subject.

It’s also really interesting to hear Western food as somehow exotic - the preparation of a Turkey recounted as something completely bizarre and foreign. It made me grateful to grow up in a house where cooking your own food was the norm.