4.5/5
I really enjoyed this book. *This isn’t a mystery or thriller book.* which I think needs to be said because of the description, yes it talks about a female murderer but it’s not a book directly about the murders.
I LOVED all of the writing about food in this book. Warning, don’t read while hungry! But Asako Yuzuki writes about all of the best comfort and traditional Japanese foods. Reading it gave me such a sense of home and made me miss my grandmothers cooking sooo much!
This book goes deep into real life relationships between family, friends, work, social life. I loved how real everything felt. You get a really good sense of Japanese culture through this book. I loved all of the characters and the path they made throughout the story.

The only reason I give it .5 less is because it took me forever to read and sometimes it felt like the chapters were never ending and I would get confused. But I think it may be because of reading it on my kindle.

A mysterious, deliciously written story about friendship, murder, and what it takes to set your true self free.

A journalist sets out to write the story of her career highlighting a woman accused of murdering the men she dated/took care of. But the woman accused entrances her with her personality and opinions on men and women.

As the story goes on our journalist grapples with what’s going too far when investigating the case and reliving the life of the accused defendant. From struggling with her weight and newfound love for food, to her opinions on feminism and relationship dynamics, she learns a lot about herself and Japanese culture.

This book was a slow burn, but executed in terms of plot and the deeper takeaways of the book. If you love reading about food, societal expectations, and deranged criminals, you’ll enjoy what Butter has to offer. I’ll be recommending this one!

Thanks to Netgalley and Ecco for the ARC :-)

Butter by Asako Yuzuki tells the story of a journalist named Rika who wants the story of Manako Kajii, a woman housed at the Tokyo Dentention Center convicted on three murders. She attains a visit under the guise of wanting to discuss food, Kajii’s expertise as a previous food blogger. The relationship between them turns into an a different experience, described as an “atmospheric Japanese noir thriller” as it is based on the real life case of the “Konkatsu Killer”, where con woman Kanae Kijima was convicted of killing three of her lovers after seducing them with her apt culinary skills and subsequently poisoning them.

This book felt like a combination of Silence of the Lambs and meets Julie and Julia, as an unassuming journalist interviews a masterful alleged killer, and also under her influence goes on a journey of confections and delicatessens. It has such luxurious descriptions of food that I haven’t found in another book! It will definitely make you hungry (not going to lie I based some of my meals on the cravings that arose from reading this). I myself love to cook and don’t really see it as a chore as some people do, this book expanded upon this, saying that nurturing yourself combined with the instant gratification of flavor and the joy food illicits is one of the best human experiences. Eating should be indulging this sense, not merely surviving, if we are lucky. The name of the novel itself indicates the omnipresent ingredient in recipes throughout the book and symbolizes something that most of us use every day, and sometimes substitute because we think of it as a bad substance, but within that complacency and fear ignore the luxury behind enjoying it.

It mixes the gastronomic with our fascination with those who kill for personal gain. It also highlights women’s beauty standards as well as fatphobia and how even the acts of women eating, deriving pleasure from food, or gaining weight can be bastardized from an innocuous human experience. It’s a fascinating combination! I rated it how I did because it was slow moving for me personally, but I could see others really enjoying it. Thank you to @netgalley and @eccobooks for the eARC!!

The low rating is my fault and not the book or the writing. There is an obvious cult following for this book, but it is not what I expected it to be. I definitely wanted this to be more murdery and less foodie so it just wasn’t what I was in the mood for.

Don’t let my angsty mood reader chaos brain keep you away from this one. Listen to all the reviewers that really got into the layers that are hidden in this story.

I received a digital ARC of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Thanks to NetGalley for this eARC!

This was my first Asako Yuzuki experience. I was turned on to requesting this book because of someone who recommended this on their bookstagram account. I'm a huge fan of Polly Barton's translated works, so I knew going in this was going to be a treat. A novel about food and murder? As dark as it sounds, yes, please and thank you. I loved the plot of the story and it was an interesting read! I highly recommend it.

When I got the ARC of Butter I was so excited to read. I love reading new Japanese writers that I've never read before. This book was a huge bestseller that was based on a true story. Lets just say that by the time you finish this book you'll never look at butter (plant based ones too) the same way again. You'll appreciate it more than ever. The story take place around a butter shortage in Japan. The lead character is a reporter named Rika who decides to interview a notorious serial killer named Manako Kajii who was found guilty of tking advantage of men by dining out woth them at expensive restaurants and living a luxourious lifestyle. Rika tries to find out why she did. Through the book descriptions of delicous food fill the pages until the very end. You see Rika become a different person and her feministic side comes through and goes up against the societal norms people expect a woman to look and behave. When I started the book I could not out it down but then the desciptions of the food became overwhelming so started reading a chapter at a time. It was like I was getting full from he descriptions! I swear this one one of those books that I'll reread because it's so smart and you may miss things the first time around. Highly recommended!! Thanks to Ecco and Netgalley for the read.I can't wait to read her next book!

A book which sits partway between macabre and critique, Butter is about an aspiring journalist and her fascination with a suspected serial killer. After a chance meeting, the journalist (Rika) takes recipes and suggestions for experiences from the killer (Kajii) and finds herself turning into someone entirely new.
A hand against the glass of misogyny, fatphobia, and the expectations we place on women…I loved it.

Rating: 🧈🧈🧈🧈🧈
5 Sticks of yellowy emulsified goodness 😋

I have not read a book about food that's made me quite literally drool while reading since Kitchen by Banana Yoshimoto. This book was a love letter to the culinary arts. I had to pause at one point to make a batch of cookies just to stop from salivating 🤤

The story follows Rika, a young journalist looking to become the first woman in her office to gain an official writer's seat with her paper. Rika decides her best bet for a career making story would be to gain an exclusive interview with serial killer Manako Kajii, a gourmand mistress accused of killing three of her patron lovers and defrauding many more.

Rika writes to the convicted serial killer, on the advice of her closest friend Reiko, asking for advice on recipes - Kajii's excellent cooking skills being a major factor in the downfall of her supposed victims. That simple letter snowballs into an unlikely friendship and perhaps a mutual obsession. But who is really in control - the interviewer or the interviewee?

I was really excited about this book because of the summary. And it did have great moments but it was entirely too wordy. The chapters were incredibly long and it took me much longer than normal to finish.

This was phenomenal. I went into it with no expectations and it absolutely blew me away with how good it was. The story within this and the characters were all so compelling. Following Rika as she dives into the Manako Kajii case was interesting from the start, but something about the way she was sucked in was just impossible to look away from. Like a bad car accident, I couldn't look away. When other people started to get involved and everything started spiralling, my eyes couldn't read the story fast enough. I think this was an incredibly well written book with such an interesting plot, I absolutely loved every second of it.

This book was absolutely delicious to read... the food descriptions alone were fantastic. However, the journey into being a food lover was also unique and so well written. The places, people, and dynamics of Japanese culture were fascinating and I really enjoyed this book. It was so interesting and made me want to travel to Japan immediately.

Butter comes out next week on April 16, 2024, and you can purchase HERE!

I've started to realise that nothing ever happens if you don't impose on people.

Adding this to my weird books pile! Thank you so much for the advance copy. Will recommend to the right reader.

This story pulls you in like a simmering stew; the plot and characters slowly releasing their flavor to bring out the fullness of the story. Perhaps it is due to the translation, but some of the city life details add too much minutiae that I found myself glossing over them to get to the story. I feel like this is a good novel for fans of cozy mysteries that want to step up their palate a little more without intense gore.

For me this was is a highly captivating journey that explored relatable themes of identity, family, and societal pressures and I thought it did it with grace and humor. The characters are beautifully crafted, and the narrative is both poignant and thought-provoking. And it made me hungry! I even got up and made myself a bowl of rice with butter and soy sauce. This novel was a compelling read that will stay with me long after the final page. I Highly recommend it!

Butter is such a weird book I think I will think about it for a long time and still not settle on how it made me feel. The book had a slow start for me (disclaimer: I tend to prefer short books!) but I´m glad I stayed with it; I found things picked up for me around the 40% mark, and once we were in the 60s, I had to see it through to the end. Food descriptions stay with me, as does the relationship between Rika and Reiko---that´s the area I found myself most invested, in addition to the suspected serial killer, Kaji. I liked that we went back to her home, to the village where she grew up, to all those dairy cows, and I enjoyed the way the women worked together and betrayed one another, how ambiguous their relationship read to others and how people reacted to that uncertainty. Some of the messages in the book felt a little heavy handed to me (the continued mentions of Rika´s weight, for example) but I think that might be an area where I need to find a different way of understanding it, of making sense of what feels to me surface level. Butter is one of those books I can´t say I love but I am fascinated by it and I think I could spend hours talking about all the details, all the choices made, everything the book is doing. It´s a great read, dark and funny and original, and a little like Kaji´s beloved orthodox cooking, it takes a while to get through, but you really don´t want to skip a page (or step) to rush the ending.

[arc review]
Thank you to HarperCollins Canada for providing an arc in exchange for an honest review.
Butter (North American translation) releases April 16, 2024

<b>Don’t read this while hungry!</b>

Rika is a journalist investigating a convicted serial killer who is a also a gourmet cook.
The key to getting any information from Manako Kajii seems to be through experiencing the decadence of good food, namely butter, which there is currently a shortage of.

The food descriptions were plentiful and extremely rich! You could tell that the characters were very passionate and appreciative about what they were consuming, which definitely added to the overall story.

There are some prominent themes that surround misogyny and fatphobia, and I did find that the book was a little long for what it was.
I went in with the expectations of dissecting the mindset of a <u>serial killer</u>, but there wasn’t much in terms of murders or deaths.
I then started to shift my focus into thinking that perhaps being the person to influence a change in the way someone else perceives food to become more gluttonous, could then be correlated to calling them a killer by way of association?
Whichever way you want to interpret it, this was definitely mismarketed as a mystery/thriller as it was more of a social commentary/self-discovery through the lens of food.


<i>“The idea that a single home-cooked dish could save a person was a delusion. But how much suffering, how much bondage did that delusion cause for women? To think that a badly made meal like this could have saved somebody’s life was arrogant and self-obsessed in the extreme.”</I>

“Due to product shortages, supplies of butter are one per customer” . . .

“Butter” by Asako Yuzuki is a trip!!!! A wild fun ride!!!!
…..it’s inspired by a true crime > “The Konkatsu Killer” —
It’s also filled with mouth-watering scrumptious culinary foods.
Themes explored are misogyny, friendships, feminism, obsession, fatness, thinness, social issues, loneliness, marriage, domestication of women vs. non-domestication, and other Japanese cultural traditions, compliance, obedience, expectations, as well as resistance and defiance.

We’ve got a convicted female gourmet chef serial killer: Manoko Kajii ….. for …. she …. supposedly seduced lonely, wealthy businessmen with her cooking ….
Three men died: [after eating Kajii’s food ….but not on the premise]
….Tadanobu Motomatsu (an overdose of sleeping pills)
….Tokio Yamamura (run over by a train)
….Hisanori Niimi (in a bathtub)
But? Did they die of natural causes because they couldn’t keep up with the foodie lifestyle? Perhaps their old digestive systems couldn’t take it? It’s a perplexing mystery.

We’ve got journalist Rika Machida - a writer for a men’s magazine- a single female - who visits Kajii in the Tokyo Detention Center. Their relation is interesting….in that they have more in common than one might expect. Rika begins to expand her palate….by eating the foods Kaijii has suggested. We watch her gain weight. We have compassion for her - her job- her purpose and passion - her self-doubts….and we find ourselves rooting for her.

We’ve got Rika’s close friend Reiko since their early university days.
Reiko is married. She left her job because a doctor told her she wasn’t pregnant yet — into her two year marriage— due to stress.

At 464 pages ….”Butter” a tad too long …..but enjoyable (mystery, a dating service, media attention, murder, foods, romance, psychological drama) with sinister & savory delights…..
It’s Intriguing and wholly original.
About food….and murder:
Foods can be potentially murderous ….can’t they?
However, “Butter” will make you hungry.

A few savouring flares….
….The aroma of dashi and melted cheese.

….Grilled foie grass with dried persimmons salted and butter.

….Bagna cauda with a variety of steam winter vegetables…rich anchovy sauce, thinly cut slices of warmed salt pork, tofu and leek, gratin, rice, cooked in an earthenware pot
with vegetables and chopped oysters, and miso soup.
The dishes had a vitality to them, which came from using only the freshest ingredients, and they were the seasoning was unobtrusive, all flavors had pleasing depth.

….Caramelized pork served with truffles and a silky corn mash.

….”Dessert was home-made candied chestnuts, chiffon, cake baked with amazake and rice, flour, and cups of ginger chai”.

A couple of excerpts:

“I belonged to nobody either spiritually, or physically. I was ‘traveling’. The sports, papers and magazines had written this up in articles with titles like ‘Farsi Serial-Killer’. Thinks she’s Hepburn, deriding her lack of self-awareness”.

“Her stubbornly flat soufflé began to swell as they should. Maybe Kajii had thought of her dalliances with older men, as being in the spirit of Audrey Hepburn coupling with Humphrey, Bogart and Fred Astaire. According to her blog Kajii’s father, a man of refined tastes, had taken her along to the cinema showing old classics in Niigata. Had the films she said she’d seen
there—‘My Fair Lady, ‘Funny Face’, ‘Roman Holiday’ — come to shape her unique set of priorities?”.

Kinda brilliant…
Kinda absurd…. yet poignant ….
Definitely wonderfully wry & wise.

4.5 stars rating up.

I had high hopes for this book based off of it's blurb, but it sadly fell a little short for me. I didn't hate it by any means, but I definitely was not what I wanted it to be. Maybe it's the translation, but the prose felt off and the plot was uneven.

I sadly DNFd this one... I wanted to like it, but it was just too in-depth and complex for me. I am still really thankful to the publisher and author for granting me digital and physical access to this one.

Heavens. What an unusual and compelling novel this is. Long, full of Japanese culture and mores, it transports the reader to an unexpected world of work, obsession, murder, family, psychology and feminism, not forgetting,,of course the food and especially the butter. Yuzuki does a fine job of evoking her central character’s world of duty (including incredible hours at work) and expectation, peeling away the layers of Japanese social judgement and the cramped perspectives of its women. There are longueurs, yes, and odd chapters such as the best friend’s decision to go and stay with a child molester. At other times pace is slack ,and detours excessive. Nevertheless, this is an absorbing and refreshing departure of a story and one I won’t forget quickly.