Reviews tagging 'Fatphobia'

Butter: A Novel of Food and Murder by Asako Yuzuki

37 reviews

kimib79's review

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dark mysterious slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.0

This book started off strong and then just dragged on and on. It could have been 300 pages or perhaps fewer. Her married friend is bat crap crazy, fyi. 
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sterredinah's review against another edition

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inspiring reflective tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

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e11en's review against another edition

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challenging dark mysterious tense fast-paced

4.0

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aventurinewand's review

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hopeful reflective medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.0

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carlomartinez__'s review

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challenging dark reflective slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

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ellegranger's review

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challenging emotional reflective slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? N/A
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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caseyreadslol's review against another edition

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reflective slow-paced
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

2.75

decent enough prose to (just barely) slide me over the finish line but otherwise imagine reading narrative and character arcs structured like this https://youtu.be/kJqZCa-xXvQ?si=wW2WZls8a6tU5cMf . for nearly 500 desperately in need of cutting down pages
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fionag's review against another edition

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dark mysterious slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.5

A read I was disappointed by. I agree with a lot of reviews I’ve seen that this book is a lot longer than it needs to be and could’ve been much sharper if a couple hundred pages were cut. I also think that the marketing of this book was perhaps misleading, as from the content on socials I assumed this would be the story of a journalist slowly siding with a killer and joining the dark side, a la Hannibal. It’s a shame because the first part of the book I enjoyed and then it fell off for me. Some discussions of sexism felt far too on the nose and I don’t think they were adding anything new. I didn’t like our main character and I thought she didn’t have any agency. The ‘twist’ at the end was so unsurprising and there’s a part in the middle that annoyed me and felt pointless. Also the body shaming is extreme and something I grew bored of, though if you were struggling with disordered thoughts I can imagine this would be really triggering. The narration on audio felt a bit strange as I struggled to get where a paragraph changed and it felt a bit rushed. Overall definitely not for me but the food descriptions were amazing and I really did find Kajii an intriguing character 
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book_artiste's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful informative reflective tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Enjoyed the inclusion of feminist themes and think they were insightful from the perspective of women in Japan, but otherwise there were no "hot-takes" or new information for me in terms of this theme. Really enjoyed, however, how the plot was so well linked to this theme and did well to address many different issues in a natural way (didn't feel forced/performative). 
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dorothy_shack's review

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There was a lot of talk about body size/shape/changes due to changes in diet/societal stuff about bodies and food that I’m honestly not in a good place to read, now or ever. I came for food descriptions, not breathless depictions of how gross-but-somehow-alluring a chubby probable-murderer is. 

The writing itself is evocative and well-done, so if you’re up for a lot of discussion about Japanese societal expectations of women’s bodies and behavior, you might enjoy this more than I did. 
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