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.
10 Highlight(s)
Why is it that with nobody to watch over them, men can’t stop themselves from falling into disrepair? And that disrepair is then looked upon kindly and excused by the world, seen not as a failure of personal responsibility but something poignant and tragic.’
She knew by now that the taste of butter in combination with any kind of carbohydrate was one of inexplicable fullness.
The cold wind coming off the river stung the inside of her nose and slapped at her cheeks, instructing her: Make an effort! But be sure not to surpass everybody else while you’re at it!
She was beginning to understand that the more delicious the time she spent with others, the more alone she felt.
To think that a badly made meal like this could have saved somebody’s life was arrogant and self-obsessed in the extreme
Her loved ones’ issues were their own domains, as individuals, and not places that she could go stomping into. Quite possibly, the only thing she could do was to create a place of refuge where the people close to her could come when they needed to.
the preconception that women are creatures who are forever comparing themselves with one another. But that only happens because men try and use their yardsticks to establish some kind of order among women
The only way to be free of it – however scary and anxiety-inducing it was, however much you kept on looking back to check whether or not people were laughing at you – was to learn to accept yourself.
you don’t have to get through everything alone. You don’t have to always be growing as a person either. The far more important thing is just to get through the day.’
going to take care of myself physically, and make sure I enjoy my life. That was what I got divorced for. It wasn’t to make things harder for myself, but to make them more enjoyable