Butter by Asako Yuzuki

I read this while on holiday and loved every page. Not only is this an engaging thriller, but also an interesting social critique of the relationship many women and femmes have with food and their own bodies. Even though the story is set in Japan, I could still relate to it even from my European experience. The obsession with eating as little as possible to fit into the smallest clothing sizes, for example, rang very true for me, especially as someone born and raised in Spain. (I may be wrong here, but I find the female beauty standards in the UK a tad more relaxed, which I appreciate.)

An interesting thing about this story is that it is based on a real criminal case in Japan where a woman was accused of killing (probably by poisoning them) her much older lovers. Apparently, this was a case that shocked the nation because the woman in question turned out to be ‘not beautiful’ (meaning, she was seen as fat by others) – so everyone wondered, how could she have been desirable for those men who ended up being her victims?