Reviews with content warning for Suicide - Butter

I had very high hopes for this one and felt like that made this experience worse for me.

Very promising start. Moves into a certain direction that I was looking forward to read and explore more, but the story changes tracks suddenly in the last stretch of the second act, right after a really tense moment ended in some sort of anti-climax.
For those that have read the book:

This is when Reiko goes to visit and stay with an old acquaintance of Kajii. It reads as if Yuzuki had planned for her to be killed, making this the single but in my opinion most impactful death in this whole story. This doesn't happen, but the way that Reiko is involved in the story is so minimal that she might as well have died.

Getting through the last 100 or so pages was a struggle, since a lot of the interesting stuff happens off-screen or is resolved on a whim and in a passing sentence.
Rika and Kajii had a really interesting dynamic going on, and during the time that this developed and got more intense I had the most fun. But it is a shame that Yuzuki dropped such an interesting antagonist when a lot of the story still needed to be resolved.

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kcarri's review

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challenging dark emotional reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

Thank you Fourth Estate and NetGalley for the early review copy ahead of its publication on February 29th in return for a fair and honest review.

TL;DR: interesting toxic relationships all around in a book that's far too long for its own good.

Butter is whole load of things. It's a crime novel, a feminist expose, a feast of food writing, and an emotional journey of grief, connection, and the pitfalls of society.

Butter is, also, good - but not brilliant.

It follows Rika as she secures an illusive interview with the suspected serial killer and fraudster, Kajii months before the criminal is due to go on re-trail. From there, the story plays out as conversations between the two as well as the spiraling chaos that consumes Rika as she falls more and more under Kajii's spell.

Characters in this book do the heavy lifting. Rika's internal monologue in engrossing, genuinely making you feel as if you're descending down this spiral with her. While Kajii's way of speech is so captivating that it drags you into her delusions just as it enchants Rika in the same way. Watching their relationship play out, supporting each other, destroying each other, is so enthralling to flick thorough and this is largely owed to the fabulous translation of this work.

It is impeccably written, managing to create the most engrossing first hundred pages that I have ever read in my entire life. It explores its politics of patriarchy and the expectations society places on women with such clarity while still rich metaphors and texture which is so impressive. If there's one thing you cannot fault, it is how much of amazing job Polly Barton did in translating it. That alone sees it through to the end for me.

But, the book is plotted very strangely, seeming to end far earlier than it does, and then using the remaining pages to answer questions I didn't really feel I needed to know the answer for. And in that filler, I found myself growing tired of this narrative. If it had been skimmed down to 200-300 at the most pages, then ultimately you'd get a much more tighter experience that hammers in its themes and narrative.

That for me is what stops me absolutely adoring this book. While the good are fantastically good, the whole book seems over bloated and frankly dull in sections. That doesn't mean I didn't have a good time with it - and if Japanese feminist literature with a true crime edge is at all your thing, then please give Butter a try, it's worth it - but on the whole, I've left feeling worn by it in a way I didn't expect.

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cphunter's review

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5.0

Absolutely loved this book. A commentary on women’s bodies, on food, on cultural traditions, on interpersonal relationships, on power dynamics and gender imbalance, on obsession, on manipulation, on rurality vs urban living. The descriptions of food were literally mouthwatering and the plot was unlike anything else I’ve read.
It was quite long but very readable. I wish there had been more insight and commentary on queerness as it was touched upon very loosely, but these aren’t criticisms as both shortening the book and including queerness into its commentary on relationships/desire/gender expectations, would have made it a very different book.

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