Tag Archives: Literary Fiction

Book Review

Review: Butter

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Butter book cover. A cow with a bloody handprint.

Butter
By Asako Yuzuki
Ecco, 9780063236417, October 2024, 464 pp.

The Short of It:

Can anyone live without butter? Yes, but why would you want to?

The Rest of It:

The cult Japanese bestseller about a female gourmet cook and serial killer, and the journalist intent on cracking her case, inspired by a true story~the publisher

Manako Kajii, held in a Tokyo detention house for the murders of businessmen, who she allegedly seduced with her delicious gourmet cooking. The case has piqued everyone’s interest. Who is this woman? What is her motive? She’s tight-lipped and refuses to speak to the press, even with the possibility of it helping her case.

Enter Rika Machida. A journalist, assigned to interview Kajii. Kajii wants nothing to do with the press and refuses all interviews until Rika sends her a message asking for her recipe for beef stew. Turns out the beef “stew” is really Beef Bourguignon. Rika is FAR from a chef. Barely able to piece together a ramen packet. She has no clue what she is stepping into but knows that if Kajii is going to talk, it’s going to be about food.

Rika’s introduction into foodie culture is slow, beginning with really delicious rice and lots of butter. Good butter. Imported butter. Butter that is hard to find due to a butter shortage. The richness that it imparts to food is second to none and Kajii makes Rika well aware of this.

As Rika experiments with food, she becomes Kajii’s muse as she delights in Kajii’s favorite meals and then reports back to her how the dish made her feel. This interaction allows Kajii to experience these dishes from the confinement of the detention center.

Rika’s relationship with Kajii spills into her relationships with her close friends and they begin to question her intentions. What started off as an interview opportunity turns into something else. These relationship are complicated, cushioned between delicious food.

If you are looking for a crime thriller type of read, I’d hesitate to recommend Butter. Kajii’s interactions with her victims are centered around food culture, living a certain way, and gazing deeply into not only her victims but those who choose to know her. There’s not much in the way of court proceedings or evidence collection. But, if food is your thing, you will literally eat this one up. I gained six pounds while reading this book. No lie.

Inspired by the real case of a convicted con woman and serial killer—the “Konkatsu Killer”

Source: Borrowed
Disclosure: This post contains Bookshop.org affiliate links.

Book Club, Book Review

Review: Trust

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Trust

Trust
By Hernan Diaz
Published Riverhead, 9780593420324, May 2023, 416 pp.

The Short of It:

What happens when money can’t buy the perfect life?

The Rest of It:

Trust is a novel made up of four competing narratives:

  • The book opens with BONDS,  a novel by Harold Vanner. The story of Wall Street financier Benjamin Rask and his wife, Helen. Rich beyond means, but dealing with Helen’s declining health and her descent into madness.
  • MY LIFE, a memoir by Andrew Bevel. This is Bevel’s attempt to correct the horrible fictionalization of his life in BONDS. It’s never completed and fails to hit the mark.
  • IDA’S MEMOIR, is the memoir that results from Ida’s story. Ida is the ghostwriter hired by Bevel to help him pen his memoir.
  • MILDRED’S JOURNAL is comprised of her personal papers detailing her life with Andrew and ultimately, what we know of her final days.

This was a fascinating read. The transitions between each story was a little jarring at first, until you get the hang of what is happening. I read this on my Kindle and at first, I thought my ebook copy was possibly corrupted but then it all began to make sense.

I have to say, I was pretty enthralled with Benjamin and Helen Rask. They lived quite the life of affluence. Parties, concerts, social circles and Helen’s philanthropy. I was very invested in their story, especially when Helen falls ill and descends into possible madness. BUT, this is the fictionalized story that Vanner absolutely hated!! So much so that he purchased the publishing house that put the book out and bought every copy to get it off the shelves. BONDS has dashes of GATSBY, in my opinion.

Bevel is quite the oddity. Somewhat brilliant as a financier but without possessing any tangible talent. Financial matters just seem to go his way. His desire to correct Vanner’s work leads him to hire a ghostwriter, Ida. This part of the story is really interesting. The hiring process gives us a window into Bevel’s life and Ida’s own memoir highlighting the experience gives us her unfettered opinion of Bevel himself.

The author gives us all of these female characters in various stages of realization and dare I say it, enlightenment. Historically, women didn’t play a large role in the world of finance, or did they? As the reader, you are tasked with putting all these stories together to find the real truth.

Was Bevel as devoted to his wife Mildred as he wants us to believe? Was Mildred really “too far gone” in her descent into illness or was she well aware of the goings on around her? Mental illness or some other ailment? Once you get to her journal, it’s not clear because it is after all HER point of view and she clearly writes from a medicated haze of awareness.

Who can you believe? What story is real?

I picked this for my club’s February read and I am really glad I did. It was pretty readable even with the different formats, but more than that, I was intrigued. I wanted to know more about these people and the search for truth, a somewhat elusive thing, was entertaining. I liked how the author didn’t really lead the reader by the hand, he sort of puts it all out there for you to interpret. I liked that the story could be considered from many different angles.

Trust won the Pulitzer for fiction, was longlisted for the Booker Prize in 2022 and made Obama’s list of fave reads for 2022. I really enjoyed Diaz’s writing and can’t wait for his next work. Trust is also being adapted into a series for HBO by Kate Winslet.

Highly recommend.

Source: Borrowed
Disclosure: This post contains Bookshop.org affiliate links.