Butter Book Review: Food, Freedom, and the Pressure to Be Acceptable
In Butter, a journalist’s decision to eat a proper meal attracts almost as much scrutiny as the woman she is investigating. Rika Machida begins the novel chasing a story. Before long, her boyfriend seems more interested in the weight she has gained than in what she has discovered.
That shift gives Asako Yuzuki’s novel its uncomfortable appeal. The crimes bring Rika to the prison visiting room, but the conversations there follow her into her kitchen, her relationships, and her understanding of herself. Food is everywhere. So is someone else’s opinion about whether she deserves to enjoy it.
What Is Butter About?
Rika works at a weekly magazine in Tokyo. Her days stretch into late nights, and eating is something she fits around her job. When she visits her friend Reiko, whose married life revolves around a carefully kept home and cooking, the differences between their routines are hard to ignore.
Rika is pursuing an interview with Manako Kajii, a woman convicted of murdering men she met through dating sites. Kajii maintains her innocence and is appealing her conviction. Her lavish food blog and expensive tastes have fascinated the public, as has the question of how a woman who fails to meet conventional beauty standards could have attracted these men.
Kajii will not speak to the press. Reiko suggests asking her for a recipe instead. Rika writes about beef stew, and Kajii replies.
Their meetings become lessons in eating. Kajii recommends ingredients, restaurants, and dishes, beginning with rice dressed with butter and soy sauce. Rika follows her instructions, hoping that this exchange will eventually lead to answers about the case.
She also begins to enjoy herself. As she eats more generously, her body changes, drawing criticism from her boyfriend, Makoto. The comments disturb her, but returning to her old habits no longer feels quite so straightforward.
Her investigation continues beyond the visiting room. She looks into Kajii’s past and her relationships with the men who died. Meanwhile, Reiko becomes increasingly involved, despite struggling with her own marriage and difficulties conceiving. Rika’s attachment to Kajii begins to affect her judgment, and the boundaries between reporting a story and becoming part of it grow harder to maintain.
What Makes Butter Worth Reading
The pleasure of an ordinary meal
The food descriptions earn their place, particularly early on. A bowl of buttered rice sounds simple enough, yet Yuzuki makes it feel like a discovery. Rika has become so accustomed to getting through the day that taking pleasure in a meal requires a change of habit.
We liked how slowly that pleasure develops. She pays attention to taste, starts thinking about what she wants, and makes room for it. These are modest changes, but they matter to someone whose needs have spent years coming last.
Butter itself is an inspired choice. Rich and unapologetically indulgent, it brings Rika into conflict with the discipline expected of her. Enjoying it is easy. Accepting that she is allowed to enjoy it proves harder.
Rika’s memories of her father also complicate her relationship with cooking. Food carries regret as well as pleasure, giving her new habits a personal history beyond the pressure to remain thin.
Who gets to judge a woman’s body?
The novel is particularly sharp about how casual comments shape body image. People who accept Rika’s exhausting schedule become concerned when she gains weight. Their comments carry the assumption that her appearance is open for discussion, even when she has invited no advice.
Kajii faces a more public version of this treatment. The fascination with her size and desirability keeps intruding on the allegations against her. Her appearance becomes something people believe they are entitled to explain, mock, and use against her.
Yuzuki captures the cruelty without needing every encounter to become a confrontation. Often, a passing remark is enough. Rika’s discomfort comes partly from recognizing how familiar these judgments already are to her.
As feminist fiction, Butter is also willing to make its central women difficult. Kajii’s confidence can be attractive, especially beside Rika’s self-denial. Her hostility toward other women is less easy to admire. Rejecting one set of expectations has not made her generous or free of prejudice.
That complication gives their relationship substance. Rika wants to learn something from Kajii, but she also wants her approval. It is an uneasy arrangement for a woman supposedly discovering how to live on her own terms.
The strain within female friendship
Rika and Reiko’s relationship offers another way into the book’s questions. One woman has built her life around work; the other has invested heavily in domestic life. Both have reasons to wonder whether they have chosen well.
Their female friendship has warmth, but it also carries envy, worry, and expectations neither always knows how to express. Reiko’s cooking initially suggests a life with more room for care. Gradually, the effort and frustration behind that impression become harder to overlook.
We appreciated these quieter tensions. The women can recognize something missing in each other’s lives while remaining less clear about their own unhappiness. Their concern for one another does not always translate into understanding.
Where the Novel Loses Momentum
Butter would benefit from a firmer edit. Some meals open up a fresh aspect of Rika’s experience; others lead back to reflections the novel has already explored. The repeated discussion of food, weight, and social expectations eventually begins to slow the reading down.
The crime premise adds to this difficulty. Readers expecting a steadily tightening investigation may feel that the case keeps slipping away just when it should be gathering force. The move toward social commentary is rewarding, but the book does not always manage the transition smoothly.
Rika and Kajii’s connection could also have been more convincing in places. There is plenty of potential for emotional manipulation in a relationship built around instructions and approval. At times, however, Rika’s willingness to keep complying feels insufficiently examined. We wanted more of the hesitation and self-justification that might explain her dependence.
Reiko deserves similar attention. Her fertility struggles, dissatisfaction, and concern about Rika give her a compelling place in the story. Yet some decisions feel abrupt because we have not spent enough time with the feelings behind them. More access to her inner life would have strengthened the friendship and made its difficult turns easier to understand.
These reservations matter because the novel asks for a considerable investment of time. Its best scenes are perceptive enough to stand without quite so much explanation around them.
About Asako Yuzuki
Born in Tokyo in 1981, Asako Yuzuki writes about women’s relationships, social pressures, and the tensions within everyday life. Her story Forget Me, Not Blue won the All Yomimono Award for New Writers and appeared in her debut collection in 2010.
She won the Yamamoto Shūgorō Prize for Nile Perch no Joshikai in 2015 and has received multiple Naoki Prize nominations. Her work has been adapted for television, radio, and film.
Butter, translated into English by Polly Barton, won Waterstones Book of the Year in 2024. Its combination of food writing and social criticism has brought Yuzuki to a wider readership of Japanese fiction.
Three Passages That Capture the Book
These lines bring us back to Rika’s struggle to decide how much of herself she is willing to surrender to other people’s expectations.
She was tired of living her life thinking constantly about how she appeared to others, checking her answers against everyone else’s.
I don’t want to give myself up to other people for their consumption. I want to decide how I work and interact with other people based on what I think really matters.
At the end of the day, men were not looking for a real-life woman, but a professional entertainer.
Butter Book Review: Our Verdict
Butter can be repetitive, and its psychological tension does not always match the promise of its premise. Still, its observations about the restrictions women learn to accept are hard to dismiss.
Readers who enjoy Japanese novels with complicated relationships will find much to consider here. It also belongs on the radar of anyone drawn to feminist books that leave room for uncomfortable disagreements. Give it time, read it with something good to eat, and, if possible, find other women to discuss it with afterward. Kajii alone should give you plenty to argue about.
If You Liked This Review…
Rika’s struggle to live on her own terms may leave you thinking about the effort of always trying to be acceptable. Mika Moon, a witch accustomed to concealing her magic and avoiding close attachments, knows that exhaustion too. An invitation to teach three young witches gives her a chance to question those old rules. For a gentler story about finding people who welcome you as you are, read our review of The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches.
A reverential admirer of words, Madhu loves watching them weave their bewitching magic on cozy afternoons.