Butter

We had a wonderful start to our new season with the first Book Club meeting of the club year. There was a great turn out, filled with book club regulars as well as some new faces who joined for the first time. We discussed Butter by Asako Yuzuki, which gave us a lot to talk about.

The book is a thriller/mystery, which on the surface explores the relationship between a female journalist, Rika, and her subject, Manako Kajii, a woman accused of murdering multiple former lovers. The two women get to know each other via Rika’s visits to the prison to talk to Kajii and convince her to let her publish her story. But the novel explores so much more, and we were able to discuss Japanese culture — or as we learned from one of our Book Club members from Japan — it is really Tokyo culture as well as the standards society places on women, especially with respect to their body, relationships of all kinds, loneliness and the importance of building community. We also need to mention food, which played a central role to the story. Not everyone was a fan of the book, with some finding the pacing slow or the characters annoying. However, others enjoyed it a lot, and it was certainly a rich source for discussion.