Butter: A Novel of Food and Murder

Encourage readers to connect the book’s themes and characters with their personal experiences.

1. Who were your favorite and least favorite characters? Why did these characters elicit strong emotional responses in you?

2. Do you relate to Rika’s or Manako Kajii’s relationship with food? What resonated with you about the way these characters regard the culinary arts?

3. Do you agree or disagree with how Rika communicated with Kajii? What would you have done differently or similarly, and why?

4. The novel explores how childhood meals shape an individual’s relationship with food. How do your childhood memories of food and cooking compare and contrast to the characters’ memories?

5. Do you think that Kajii is guilty of killing her three alleged victims? How did you respond to her character and the media’s representation of her?

Examine the book’s relevance to societal issues, historical events, or cultural themes.

1. Butter interrogates Japan’s cultural notions of femininity and beauty. How do these societal expectations compare to your own? Do you believe that a woman’s appearance is related to her self-worth and capability? Why or why not?

2. Rika reinvents what the culinary and domestic arts mean to her throughout the novel. Do you believe that cooking and cleaning can be forms of self-expression and self-empowerment for a woman? Discuss your reasoning.

Dive into the book’s structure, characters, themes, and symbolism.

1. The novel is primarily written from the third-person limited point of view. Analyze the significance of this narrative vantage point. How does it relate to Rika’s character evolution and the novel’s explorations of Cooking as Love and Care and the Quest for Self-Realization and Liberation?

2. Compare and contrast Rika’s and Reiko’s characters. Why do you think Reiko is such a significant figure throughout the novel? How would Rika’s character evolution differ without Reiko’s friendship?

3. The novel is set in contemporary Tokyo, Japan. How does this setting contribute to the novel’s overarching mood, tone, and atmosphere? How does the setting relate to the narrator’s linguistic stylings?

4. Butter explores Societal Pressures of Body Image. Choose two characters in the novel, and chart the similarities and differences in how they view beauty standards, particularly body size and its connection to worth. What is the narrative effect of these characters’ respective views on body image?