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Butter is the story of Rika Machida, a journalist, who starts meeting with Manako Kajii, a convicted serial killer. Rika hopes to secure an exclusive interview with Manako (or Kajiimana as she's popularly known), but ends up getting sucked into her narrative. As Kajii's truth unfolds, we get to see Riika sampling food and grapple with her own past and relationships. The book highlights patriarchal gender roles and beauty standards repeatedly. This is interspersed with interesting commentary on friendships, career, internalized misogyny, care-taking, and so on. This is not done subtly, though. That was one of my gripes with the writing/translation. I also thought that the writing could have been tighter, especially towards the end. Overall, a fun and intriguing read, but probably won't make it to my 'best of 2026' list.

Butter is the story of Rika Machida, a journalist, who starts meeting with Manako Kajii, a convicted serial killer. Rika hopes to secure an exclusive interview with Manako (or Kajiimana as she's popularly known), but ends up getting sucked into her narrative. As Kajii's truth unfolds, we get to see Riika sampling food and grapple with her own past and relationships. The book highlights patriarchal gender roles and beauty standards repeatedly. This is interspersed with interesting commentary on friendships, career, internalized misogyny, care-taking, and so on. This is not done subtly, though. That was one of my gripes with the writing/translation. I also thought that the writing could have been tighter, especially towards the end. Overall, a fun and intriguing read, but probably won't make it to my 'best of 2026' list.

I normally don't complain about books being long. I gladly read A Suitable Boy twice. But The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny felt pointlessly stretched out. I say this primarily due to the massive number of side characters with their own stories. Case in point - Mina Foi and Ernest, Vanya, Satya and Pooja, the many drivers, Vinita and Punita (and Mr. Habib). In the beginning, these side characters excited me. I wanted to know who they were. But after a while, things got too convoluted. I like the descriptive writing style. Magical realism, however, is not something I particularly enjoy. If I did, I would give this 3 stars instead of 2.

I loved this book! Despite having learnt about the Sri Lankan civil war in school, I did not know much of the details presented in this book. Parts of it were hard to read (the chapter on Black July, for example) but I could not put it down. I'm so glad I read this.

I did my best to not DNF this one, but I couldn't go on after a point. According to some reviews on Goodreads, the humour and tone of the original was lost in translation. Language notwithstanding, I felt that the story had too many characters for no apparent reason. I couldn't keep track of who was whom and their storyline and just gave up.