Made me hungry and could even smell the foods, but took me a long time to read which made it feel extremely stretched and disconnected.
I really don't know why this book took me nearly 60 days to read, but it did which makes the events at the start of the book feel so utterly far away from the end.
I'm not sure what drew me to the book but I picked it up with zero expectations.
It discusses feminism, the pressure society puts on women to behave and appear certain ways (though this is Japanese culture, I do think a lot of this applies/is experienced by western white women too).
There's a strong feature of food and butter in particular (as you'd expect from the title) - and the author (and translator) does an excellent job of writing in a way that left me reading late at night and really wanting to taste the food (and I'm not a foodie).
There's also a story of friendship and support through those connections. This part of the book was really lovely to read, but seemed to all be crammed in at the end.
The story also includes a very manipulative character, Kajii, and whilst I read I felt sorry (and frustrated) for the protagonist, Rika, that she couldn't see the obvious manipulation (but perhaps that's the point, when we're close up to manipulation, we can't see the wood for the trees).
There really is a lot (of meaty subjects) in this book, and perhaps this contributed to my slow reading but it did leave me struggling to carry all the ideas through to the end of the book.
I've written about urgency in writing, and that's what helps me turn the page. This book doesn't have that, which isn't bad, but doesn't help me.
I suspect I would have enjoyed this more had I been able to digest it a little faster than two months.
Originally published on Remy Sharp's b:log