Will I love Butter?

Butter is the kind of novel that sneaks up on you. You think you’re reading a true-crime story about a woman accused of murdering men with her cooking, and then suddenly you’re knee-deep in questions about appetite, femininity, power, and why women are taught to be ashamed of wanting anything at all.

Asako Yuzuki uses food as both pleasure and weapon. Every recipe feels lush and intimate, but also slightly menacing. The real tension isn’t did she do it? so much as why does society need her to be a monster? The novel is at its sharpest when it skewers… show more.

“There are two things that I simply cannot tolerate: feminists and margarine.” The cult Japanese bestseller about a female foodie-cook-serial killer and the journalist who visits her in prison, intent on cracking her case, was inspired by a true story. The author delves into the mysteries of the human heart with deep insight and gentle wit. Characters evolve before us; we understand them, then we don’t, at all. While about love and friendship, the novel contains the best descriptions of taste and the experience of eating I’ve ever read—and one my character Julia McWilliams (Child) might surely have relished.