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Tender is the Flesh
Working at the local processing plant, Marcos is in the business of slaughtering humans —though no one calls them that anymore.
His wife has left him, his father is sinking into dementia, and Marcos tries not to think too hard about how he makes a living. After all, it happened so quickly. First, it was reported that an infectious virus has made all animal meat poisonous to humans. Then governments initiated the “Transition.” Now, eating human meat—“special meat”—is legal. Marcos tries to stick to numbers, consignments, processing.
Then one day he’s given a gift: a live specimen of the finest quality. Though he’s aware that any form of personal contact is forbidden on pain of death, little by little he starts to treat her like a human being. And soon, he becomes tortured by what has been lost—and what might still be saved.
His wife has left him, his father is sinking into dementia, and Marcos tries not to think too hard about how he makes a living. After all, it happened so quickly. First, it was reported that an infectious virus has made all animal meat poisonous to humans. Then governments initiated the “Transition.” Now, eating human meat—“special meat”—is legal. Marcos tries to stick to numbers, consignments, processing.
Then one day he’s given a gift: a live specimen of the finest quality. Though he’s aware that any form of personal contact is forbidden on pain of death, little by little he starts to treat her like a human being. And soon, he becomes tortured by what has been lost—and what might still be saved.
209 pages, Paperback
First published November 29, 2017
About the author
Agustina Bazterrica
12 books2,184 followersAgustina Bazterrica nació en Buenos Aires, en 1974. Es Licenciada en Artes (UBA). Ganó el Primer Premio Municipal de la Ciudad de Buenos Aires Cuento Inédito 2004/5 y el Primer Premio en el XXXVIII Concurso Latinoamericano de Cuento “Edmundo Valadés”, Puebla, México, 2009, entre otros. Tiene cuentos y poesías publicados en antologías, revistas y diarios. Escribe reseñas y artículos para distintos medios. En 2013 publicó su novela Matar a la niña (Textos Intrusos). Es co-coordinadora del Ciclo de Arte Siga al Conejo Blanco.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 42,090 reviews
December 27, 2022
Many might say that a book dealing with the level of brutality and horrific subject matter that makes up this book could never be thoughtful or highbrow. I disagree with that. I definitely think literature depicting graphic violence doesn't automatically disqualify it from being anything more than an assault on the senses or torture porn. I think it can lay out valuable examinations of so many aspects of society that deserve to be scrutinized, all while remaining allegorical. Battle Royale by Koushun Takami (as well as its film adaptation) is just one example of a successful novel of this nature.
Unfortunately, Tender Is The Flesh didn't live up to that expectation for me.
It truly is brimming with brutality. In fact, that's all it is, is brutal. A virus that turns animal meat poisonous to humans causes humans to slaughter every non-human animal and begin factory farming human beings for food instead. You would think that a concept such as: "imagine what the world would be like if humans were treated the way we treat animals in factory farms" would have a lot to say. Just think about the fact that in the western part of the world, most people don't think twice about eating certain animals as food, but will get disgusted, enraged and even downright racist when other cultures in other parts of the world eat animals westerners don't view as 'food animals'. Or the fact that most people eat fish, have no qualms with the concept of fishing, but will protest whale hunting as it applies to various Indigenous cultures, particularly Inuit. I could go on and on. The point is, a book with this concept could tackle some serious societal issues - environmental destruction, racism, health, food insecurity, speciesism, etc. As I entered this book and continued reading through it, I often wondered, "are we going to examine which humans are deemed 'food humans' in a meaningful way? Does it even matter? Does race, class, sexuality, or anything come into play in this near-future dystopian world that so closely could resemble our own?"
And the answer is no. Because this book unpacks nothing.
There were certainly minor suggestions toward some things, but they were quickly set aside in order to either continue describing the horrific acts inflicted upon these farmed humans, or to meander on about mundane things in the main character's personal life that ended up having little to no significance on the overall story. We didn't even really get anything in the way of showing how people came to accept this cannibalistic way of life, or how those who work in these factories are affected in their personal lives. The closest we get to a glimpse of this is the main character essentially being described as not caring one way or another, human or non-human slaughter, because he was only in the industry in order to pay for his father's nursing home. I'm sorry, but that is just not well-rounded enough for me as a reader. There was even the compelling hint at an ongoing conspiracy theory that the virus was faked by governments in order to deceive society into cannibalism as a means to alleviate overpopulation. However, this subplot peters out pretty quickly, but only after having a group of teenage boys briefly bring up the conspiracy's existence in conversation while graphically killing a litter of puppies they found in an abandoned zoo. Again, it's brutality for the sake of brutality and seemingly nothing else.
Of course, I don't need -and I know many other readers don't need- literature or any form of entertainment to have a big, glaring moral spoonfed to me/us. Despite all that I've said, I hope it doesn't seem like I'm implying I didn't like this book because it didn't hold my hand while leading me through a clear and precise commentary of my own biases. I don't need that. But if a book is to be this grotesque in its depictions, I do think it should either go completely nihilistic (and thus let that speak for itself) or have at least something compelling to show for it. I think, overall, this book felt incomplete to me and that's my biggest gripe. The author certainly had ideas, but because her world-building was weak and her writing offered little in the way of depth, those ideas never really broke the surface and ended up fizzling out before anything of interest or import could come of it.
Underneath all its gruesomeness, shock value and gore, it's actually a super boring book.
Unfortunately, Tender Is The Flesh didn't live up to that expectation for me.
It truly is brimming with brutality. In fact, that's all it is, is brutal. A virus that turns animal meat poisonous to humans causes humans to slaughter every non-human animal and begin factory farming human beings for food instead. You would think that a concept such as: "imagine what the world would be like if humans were treated the way we treat animals in factory farms" would have a lot to say. Just think about the fact that in the western part of the world, most people don't think twice about eating certain animals as food, but will get disgusted, enraged and even downright racist when other cultures in other parts of the world eat animals westerners don't view as 'food animals'. Or the fact that most people eat fish, have no qualms with the concept of fishing, but will protest whale hunting as it applies to various Indigenous cultures, particularly Inuit. I could go on and on. The point is, a book with this concept could tackle some serious societal issues - environmental destruction, racism, health, food insecurity, speciesism, etc. As I entered this book and continued reading through it, I often wondered, "are we going to examine which humans are deemed 'food humans' in a meaningful way? Does it even matter? Does race, class, sexuality, or anything come into play in this near-future dystopian world that so closely could resemble our own?"
And the answer is no. Because this book unpacks nothing.
There were certainly minor suggestions toward some things, but they were quickly set aside in order to either continue describing the horrific acts inflicted upon these farmed humans, or to meander on about mundane things in the main character's personal life that ended up having little to no significance on the overall story. We didn't even really get anything in the way of showing how people came to accept this cannibalistic way of life, or how those who work in these factories are affected in their personal lives. The closest we get to a glimpse of this is the main character essentially being described as not caring one way or another, human or non-human slaughter, because he was only in the industry in order to pay for his father's nursing home. I'm sorry, but that is just not well-rounded enough for me as a reader. There was even the compelling hint at an ongoing conspiracy theory that the virus was faked by governments in order to deceive society into cannibalism as a means to alleviate overpopulation. However, this subplot peters out pretty quickly, but only after having a group of teenage boys briefly bring up the conspiracy's existence in conversation while graphically killing a litter of puppies they found in an abandoned zoo. Again, it's brutality for the sake of brutality and seemingly nothing else.
Of course, I don't need -and I know many other readers don't need- literature or any form of entertainment to have a big, glaring moral spoonfed to me/us. Despite all that I've said, I hope it doesn't seem like I'm implying I didn't like this book because it didn't hold my hand while leading me through a clear and precise commentary of my own biases. I don't need that. But if a book is to be this grotesque in its depictions, I do think it should either go completely nihilistic (and thus let that speak for itself) or have at least something compelling to show for it. I think, overall, this book felt incomplete to me and that's my biggest gripe. The author certainly had ideas, but because her world-building was weak and her writing offered little in the way of depth, those ideas never really broke the surface and ended up fizzling out before anything of interest or import could come of it.
Underneath all its gruesomeness, shock value and gore, it's actually a super boring book.
November 29, 2021
I have always believed that in our capitalist, consumerist society, we devour each other. - Agustina Bazterrica
This story is really disturbing, and it isn't until the very last page that it becomes clear just how deeply disturbing it is.
Tender Is the Flesh is an Argentinian import from an author who is apparently very popular in her own country. After reading this, dare I ask what other horrors she has created? This dystopian horror story is set in a world that feels so close to our own, except a zoonotic virus has made it so that all animals have had to be destroyed. To fill the gap in the meat market, people start to breed and farm humans for their meat.
It is as horrifying and gory as it sounds. Extra warning for those sensitive to scenes of sexual assault and animal cruelty. But while it is hard to stomach at times, I was morbidly fascinated by what Bazterrica had to say about the way humans take advantage of other humans because they can get away with it. The book is horribly convincing and believable. We only have to look to our own real world to recall the excuses humans have made to enslave other humans and to shuttle them off to extermination camps. It does not take a huge suspension of disbelief to imagine the events of this book could happen.
The book also focuses on the way language is used to make humans feel better about committing atrocities. No one is allowed to say "cannibalism" and the meat in the book is packaged as "special meat". There's some dark humour, too, with a few prods at the hypocrisy of humans being outraged by slavery at the same time as imprisoning and eating other humans.
It is told in third person limited and follows Marcos Tejo who works at a meat plant. He takes us through all the horrors involved with breeding, killing, flaying and packaging humans, whilst also dealing with the loss of his own infant son.
For such a bleak tale, it is surprisingly compelling. All the time while reading I was wondering what on earth the conclusion of this nightmare could leave us with, but I think it was even more effective than I could have imagined.
July 8, 2023
in order to believe this book is anything other than disturbing for disturbing's sake, you have to buy into its worldview even a little.
and i don't!
i just don't see the world this way, i don't believe that humans are this unendingly susceptible to propaganda and unempathetic in their hearts.
it feels like a creative writing 101 allegory to me - oh, factory farming is bad, so let's make animals replaced with humans and then people will REALIZE it's bad! it's neither necessary nor new nor altogether an accurate metaphor.
this got more and more difficult for me to read not because it's grotesque and awful and ugly, but because it's, to me, very silly!
and at the end, only more so!
i'm sorry but i don't think cannibalism is the same as carnivore-ism and i never will :) not even for the sake of a thrown together literary horror.
bottom line: i disliked a cool girl book. who am i. (besides not cool, which has been obvious since the day of my birth.)
----------------
currently-reading updates
quick word of advice:
i picked this one up to start during my lunch break today.
don't do that.
----------------
tbr review
don't mind me, just adding another hot girl book to my to-read list
and i don't!
i just don't see the world this way, i don't believe that humans are this unendingly susceptible to propaganda and unempathetic in their hearts.
it feels like a creative writing 101 allegory to me - oh, factory farming is bad, so let's make animals replaced with humans and then people will REALIZE it's bad! it's neither necessary nor new nor altogether an accurate metaphor.
this got more and more difficult for me to read not because it's grotesque and awful and ugly, but because it's, to me, very silly!
and at the end, only more so!
i'm sorry but i don't think cannibalism is the same as carnivore-ism and i never will :) not even for the sake of a thrown together literary horror.
bottom line: i disliked a cool girl book. who am i. (besides not cool, which has been obvious since the day of my birth.)
----------------
currently-reading updates
quick word of advice:
i picked this one up to start during my lunch break today.
don't do that.
----------------
tbr review
don't mind me, just adding another hot girl book to my to-read list
Read
December 28, 2022One of the most relentless and ugly books I've ever read. A book that describes a society where humans are slaughtered for meat, in more detail than I was ready for. This novel willfully refuses to allow itself to fall into any category of fiction that would make it easier to take as a reader. The flat direct style of its prose didn't allow me, as I read along, to think of it as horror, or satire, or a metaphorical representation of social injustice, or a nihilistic moral thesis about humanity. It is exactly what it is. Never boring, it managed to continue to shock me until its final pages.
In 2010 Roger Ebert reviewed the cult movie The Human Centipede and wrote:
I am required to award stars to movies I review. This time, I refuse to do it. The star rating system is unsuited to this film. Is the movie good? Is it bad? Does it matter? It is what it is and occupies a world where the stars don't shine.
That goes for this novel, as well. If forced to give stars, I would give it five stars, for the way it relentlessly fulfills its purpose.
In 2010 Roger Ebert reviewed the cult movie The Human Centipede and wrote:
I am required to award stars to movies I review. This time, I refuse to do it. The star rating system is unsuited to this film. Is the movie good? Is it bad? Does it matter? It is what it is and occupies a world where the stars don't shine.
That goes for this novel, as well. If forced to give stars, I would give it five stars, for the way it relentlessly fulfills its purpose.
October 5, 2021
FUUUUUUUUCK ok the ending got me
February 7, 2022
Completely disgusting and beautiful at once. Humans are animals. My stomach churned the entire time, but I could not stop reading this book. And no, I did not, could not predict how it ends.
October 29, 2022
nearly threw up in Starbucks
February 16, 2023
Is there a reason why they couldn’t just do plant-based protein?? 😭 everyone in this book deserves to brutally die!! the ending was rushed but left my jaw on the floor.
January 31, 2024
Believe the hype
eat your vegetables
not your neighbor.
eat your vegetables
not your neighbor.
March 2, 2022
Bold of me to catch a stomach bug while reading this
November 1, 2022
This was... disturbing but interesting. I think?
August 30, 2021
Cinco estrellas porque es uno de los libros más impactantes con los que me he topado en los últimos meses. No suelo leer distopias, pero desde las primeras páginas está historia se pegó a mi estómago para provocarme todo tipo de sensaciones. Entre lo macabro y lo perverso, con unas descripciones tan gráficas que provocan náuseas.
January 26, 2021
“No one can call them humans because that would mean giving them an identity. They call them product, or meat, or food.”
This book was weird. It definitely succeeded at being repulsive and stomach-turning at times. And I thought it had some interesting ideas about words and how they are wielded to shape public opinion. But unfortunately it felt underdeveloped and a bit cold. I didn’t feel any connection to Marcos or what was happening, but instead felt so outside of the story I was only ever moved by it when it was making me feel sick. An interesting premise but not the best story I’ve ever read.
This book was weird. It definitely succeeded at being repulsive and stomach-turning at times. And I thought it had some interesting ideas about words and how they are wielded to shape public opinion. But unfortunately it felt underdeveloped and a bit cold. I didn’t feel any connection to Marcos or what was happening, but instead felt so outside of the story I was only ever moved by it when it was making me feel sick. An interesting premise but not the best story I’ve ever read.
June 18, 2020
A mysterious virus has eradicated animals to the brink of mass extinction. Left with no meat source to cultivate, humanity has turned to cannibalism to whet its appetite, satiate its ceaseless hunger for flesh and blood. Humans are now domesticated, mass produced, slaughtered, and sold for "special meat." Pickled fingers, barbecued ribs, broiled tongue served over kimchi and potato salad, taste humanity dressed in herbs and spices.
Marcos is from the past generation. He was among those who witnessed the animals decimated and humanity slowly regress back to its primeval instincts choosing to savagely devour their kin than be without meat. Practically raised in an animal slaughterhouse his father owned, Marcos found his expertise needed in this new industry asking for mass murder. Thus Marcos swallowed the bitter reality in front of him and did what he needed to survive until fate brought him despair to awaken his dulled senses, and then beauty to remind him of his humanity.
The concept of cannibalism is nothing new to us. Civilizations of the past from the mighty Aztecs of Mexico, to the great tribes of the Pacific Islands and Southeast Asia, and even the great Pharaohs of Egypt have displayed behaviour involving the use of human meat as food source. The concept of human beings being sold and treated as commercial goods we have seen and eradicated as well in the form of slavery. But the combination of cannibalism, mass production of humans, and commercialization of human meat - an entire industry devoted to making cannibalism efficient and profitable - is a hard idea to grasp.
As you read through the book's pages the inital shock factor wears off and you are left with a curious feeling of resignation. Gradually you realize that your mind has accepted this behavior and what used to induce revulsion has now affected a normalcy. The infinite capacity of human beings to adapt is a powerful phenomenon, and to an extent our ability to survive is infinitely pronounced by the alternative darkness presented here. But at the same time our tendency to set aside our morals, our code of ethics, at the smallest sign of discomfort is in perfect display as well. If this book has an idea as its driving force, it is that we need to accept that we are nothing but beasts. Man is an animal. We are capable of feral acts, and the unconscious desire to erase all we have learned through civilization and revert into savageness is ever present. This is why our society will never be perfect. Because while most educate themselves out of their beastly instincts. Others cannot let go of their aggression, cannot deny their barbaric urge for violence, and suppress their predatory thirst for blood. In just an instant the overcoat of civility can be dropped to reveal an untamed animal: brute, wild, murderous, ready to eat its own kind. This we cannot let happen.
Sink your teeth into this gritty and often jarring piece of literature. It can be therapeutic - a small taste of the gory to quench the monstrous urge within. Better encountered in literature than manifested through actual violence. Indulge in this mortal feast. Behind its depictions of human slaughter and cannibalism you'll find yourself intoxicated by its morbid truths. Before you realize it you begin to relish the revoltingly raw images in your mind, like a predatory beast inevitably drawn by the hypnotic scent of fresh blood.
Marcos is from the past generation. He was among those who witnessed the animals decimated and humanity slowly regress back to its primeval instincts choosing to savagely devour their kin than be without meat. Practically raised in an animal slaughterhouse his father owned, Marcos found his expertise needed in this new industry asking for mass murder. Thus Marcos swallowed the bitter reality in front of him and did what he needed to survive until fate brought him despair to awaken his dulled senses, and then beauty to remind him of his humanity.
The concept of cannibalism is nothing new to us. Civilizations of the past from the mighty Aztecs of Mexico, to the great tribes of the Pacific Islands and Southeast Asia, and even the great Pharaohs of Egypt have displayed behaviour involving the use of human meat as food source. The concept of human beings being sold and treated as commercial goods we have seen and eradicated as well in the form of slavery. But the combination of cannibalism, mass production of humans, and commercialization of human meat - an entire industry devoted to making cannibalism efficient and profitable - is a hard idea to grasp.
As you read through the book's pages the inital shock factor wears off and you are left with a curious feeling of resignation. Gradually you realize that your mind has accepted this behavior and what used to induce revulsion has now affected a normalcy. The infinite capacity of human beings to adapt is a powerful phenomenon, and to an extent our ability to survive is infinitely pronounced by the alternative darkness presented here. But at the same time our tendency to set aside our morals, our code of ethics, at the smallest sign of discomfort is in perfect display as well. If this book has an idea as its driving force, it is that we need to accept that we are nothing but beasts. Man is an animal. We are capable of feral acts, and the unconscious desire to erase all we have learned through civilization and revert into savageness is ever present. This is why our society will never be perfect. Because while most educate themselves out of their beastly instincts. Others cannot let go of their aggression, cannot deny their barbaric urge for violence, and suppress their predatory thirst for blood. In just an instant the overcoat of civility can be dropped to reveal an untamed animal: brute, wild, murderous, ready to eat its own kind. This we cannot let happen.
Sink your teeth into this gritty and often jarring piece of literature. It can be therapeutic - a small taste of the gory to quench the monstrous urge within. Better encountered in literature than manifested through actual violence. Indulge in this mortal feast. Behind its depictions of human slaughter and cannibalism you'll find yourself intoxicated by its morbid truths. Before you realize it you begin to relish the revoltingly raw images in your mind, like a predatory beast inevitably drawn by the hypnotic scent of fresh blood.
December 17, 2020
how you make a book about cannibalism this level of bland and boring
October 1, 2020
In its scathing and visceral indictment of factory farming, Tender is the Flesh seems to forget that politics and (in)justice extend beyond the—still important—realm of animal cruelty and capitalism.
There is not nearly enough interrogating of broader themes in this book to justify its shock value, self-righteous narrator, and disgusting, dehumanizing portrayal of women and marginalized people.
There is not nearly enough interrogating of broader themes in this book to justify its shock value, self-righteous narrator, and disgusting, dehumanizing portrayal of women and marginalized people.
April 1, 2021
i can't contain my thoughts right now but a fuller review to come
May 14, 2022
This is vile, bold, dark, vicious, gory, bloody, disturbing, eerie, volatile, provocative!
Let out your screams! Prepare to sleep with lights on! If you suffer insomnia or still believe in monsters hide under your beds ( I personally recheck my closets and bed before going to bed) this book is not great fit for you ( when I still look my face paler than snow owl and bloodshot eyes make me great candidate for any B rated horror movie star, I absolutely agree to this opinion. Why the hell I chose to read this ?)
As Thomas Hobbes mentioned in his DeCive “That Man to Man is a kind of God; and that Man to Man is an arrant Wolfe.”
Imagine a dystopian world: the animal meat is toxic but it is legal to eat special meat: yes, as you guess cannibalism is approved by government! Hurray! I think Hannibal Lecter may be the president candidate for this forthcoming ominous future!
So human will be categorized into two types: some of them will be feeders as other half of them will be the eaters! Let the hunger games begin!
Marcos is the main character who tries to resist that human massacre, working at the plant but he also witnesses the batshit craziness occurs in front of his eyes with graphic details including women’s massacres including cutting limb, draining blood and shipping process ( don’t you ever dare to read this book at the same day your husband decides to have his BBQ party at the backyard! Oh gross! )
And let’s not forget the cult members visit him to contribute their sacrifices. Marcos tries to be observer without joining this vicious mess destruction, becoming our eyes during this horrifying, bleak, hopeless, dark dystopian journey!
The ending was a quick, unexpected stab in the chest! You keep screaming, trying to gather your wits, close your wide open mouth, slow down your heart rates! WTH!!!
That was true thought provoking, realistic, terrifying story will haunt you for days !
It was challenging, complex, giving you Orwell book vibes including Animal Farm, 1984!
Presenting us pessimistic, wild, bleak, haunting future world. I cannot imagine anything is predicted in those chapters become real! But it can... unfortunately it can... that makes the book one of the most scariest stories you ever read!
Let out your screams! Prepare to sleep with lights on! If you suffer insomnia or still believe in monsters hide under your beds ( I personally recheck my closets and bed before going to bed) this book is not great fit for you ( when I still look my face paler than snow owl and bloodshot eyes make me great candidate for any B rated horror movie star, I absolutely agree to this opinion. Why the hell I chose to read this ?)
As Thomas Hobbes mentioned in his DeCive “That Man to Man is a kind of God; and that Man to Man is an arrant Wolfe.”
Imagine a dystopian world: the animal meat is toxic but it is legal to eat special meat: yes, as you guess cannibalism is approved by government! Hurray! I think Hannibal Lecter may be the president candidate for this forthcoming ominous future!
So human will be categorized into two types: some of them will be feeders as other half of them will be the eaters! Let the hunger games begin!
Marcos is the main character who tries to resist that human massacre, working at the plant but he also witnesses the batshit craziness occurs in front of his eyes with graphic details including women’s massacres including cutting limb, draining blood and shipping process ( don’t you ever dare to read this book at the same day your husband decides to have his BBQ party at the backyard! Oh gross! )
And let’s not forget the cult members visit him to contribute their sacrifices. Marcos tries to be observer without joining this vicious mess destruction, becoming our eyes during this horrifying, bleak, hopeless, dark dystopian journey!
The ending was a quick, unexpected stab in the chest! You keep screaming, trying to gather your wits, close your wide open mouth, slow down your heart rates! WTH!!!
That was true thought provoking, realistic, terrifying story will haunt you for days !
It was challenging, complex, giving you Orwell book vibes including Animal Farm, 1984!
Presenting us pessimistic, wild, bleak, haunting future world. I cannot imagine anything is predicted in those chapters become real! But it can... unfortunately it can... that makes the book one of the most scariest stories you ever read!
May 17, 2020
Bold. Subversive. Punchy. Nauseating. Provocative. Challenging. Excessive. Polemical. Gruesome.
In 1729, Jonathan Swift published a sustained Juvenalian satire called A Modest Proposal in which he solved in one move the economic and social woes of the starving poor, especially in Ireland: all they had to do was sell their children to be eaten by the rich, and not just would they become wealthy, but the population over-crowding would be eased as well. One line that has always stayed with me is this: 'A young healthy child well nursed, is, at a year old, a most delicious nourishing and wholesome food, whether stewed, roasted, baked, or boiled; and I make no doubt that it will equally serve in a fricassee, or a ragout.' It's a line that might well serve as a fitting epigraph for this book.
Bazterrica offers to us a world in which cannibalism rules, now called the Transition and covered over by linguistic euphemisms to make it, er, palatable. The thing is this isn't really a dystopia as I've seen it described: it reflects all kinds of realities, albeit pushed to extremes. The conveyor line killing sounds like the process that animals go through, stunned, slaughtered, turned into leather, fertilizer, as well as prime cuts of meat. The mass transits that bring 'heads' to the killing centres remind us of the Nazi death-trains, complete with the occasional 'head' trying desperately to escape before being shot. The laboratory doing medical experiments on live specimens reflect our own pharmaceutical and medical protocols. The Scavengers are the have-nots, socially ostracised and kept outside of social structures like the homeless on our streets. And the 'game-hunting' and people-trafficking are just a step away from what we read about every day. Bazterrica's vision may be excessive, and shockingly so, but only just: and the book asks provocative, uneasy questions about what exactly it is which separates the human from animal.
This is no 1984 or The Handmaid's Tale: it doesn't have the extensive, convincing world-building and is shorter, more polemical - but for a short read-it-in-a-few-hours book it's punchy and oh so provocative. (And yes, that'll be veggie burgers for me, thanks).
In 1729, Jonathan Swift published a sustained Juvenalian satire called A Modest Proposal in which he solved in one move the economic and social woes of the starving poor, especially in Ireland: all they had to do was sell their children to be eaten by the rich, and not just would they become wealthy, but the population over-crowding would be eased as well. One line that has always stayed with me is this: 'A young healthy child well nursed, is, at a year old, a most delicious nourishing and wholesome food, whether stewed, roasted, baked, or boiled; and I make no doubt that it will equally serve in a fricassee, or a ragout.' It's a line that might well serve as a fitting epigraph for this book.
Bazterrica offers to us a world in which cannibalism rules, now called the Transition and covered over by linguistic euphemisms to make it, er, palatable. The thing is this isn't really a dystopia as I've seen it described: it reflects all kinds of realities, albeit pushed to extremes. The conveyor line killing sounds like the process that animals go through, stunned, slaughtered, turned into leather, fertilizer, as well as prime cuts of meat. The mass transits that bring 'heads' to the killing centres remind us of the Nazi death-trains, complete with the occasional 'head' trying desperately to escape before being shot. The laboratory doing medical experiments on live specimens reflect our own pharmaceutical and medical protocols. The Scavengers are the have-nots, socially ostracised and kept outside of social structures like the homeless on our streets. And the 'game-hunting' and people-trafficking are just a step away from what we read about every day. Bazterrica's vision may be excessive, and shockingly so, but only just: and the book asks provocative, uneasy questions about what exactly it is which separates the human from animal.
This is no 1984 or The Handmaid's Tale: it doesn't have the extensive, convincing world-building and is shorter, more polemical - but for a short read-it-in-a-few-hours book it's punchy and oh so provocative. (And yes, that'll be veggie burgers for me, thanks).
January 26, 2022
reading vlog: https://youtu.be/AXpfik6Q72g
The love I have for this book has me looking at myself in a whole new light.
THIS is my horror. I have found my perfect cocktail of disgust, intrigue, logic, and humanity.
I am a firm believer in the government conspiracy side of this book. This has sparked so many good conversations for me with so many people. This might be a favorite of all time.
The love I have for this book has me looking at myself in a whole new light.
THIS is my horror. I have found my perfect cocktail of disgust, intrigue, logic, and humanity.
I am a firm believer in the government conspiracy side of this book. This has sparked so many good conversations for me with so many people. This might be a favorite of all time.
Read
May 16, 2020It's always a delight to read science fiction in translation and even more that ava raris, Latin American science fiction. Latin American lit is so often crushed into the mold of magic realism that, like a black hole, publishing sucks up all the works that do not ascribe to that category and condemns them to darkness. But Tender is the Flesh is definitely science fiction. It would sit prettily (or disturbingly) next to The Road or Under the Skin. It has that quality of a literary, high-quality dystopia that academics like to feast on. It's also entirely engrossing.
The plot is basic. In a near-future (or alternate reality?) dystopia, cannibalism is a common occurrence. People are bred for meat consumption and graves are ransacked for tasty cadavers. A man who works in a meat processing facility suddenly finds himself with a costly luxury gift: a human who should be consumed for her meat. Cue moral dilemmas and ruminations.
White audiences often demand 'authentic' Latin American novels. By which I mean they want a word italicized every paragraph and enough 'local color' to render a text into the equivalent of a cheap, plastic Frida Kahlo statuette. Tender is the Flesh obviously does not evoke any of those plastic concerns. It's bold, nasty and entirely it's own thing while also reflecting an era that I like to call New Latin American and Hispanic Fantastic, which has little to nothing to do with magic realism (see Michelle Roche Rodríguez and others).
It's a very interesting book and one that any science fiction fan should pursue with the obvious warning that it's pretty dark material.
The plot is basic. In a near-future (or alternate reality?) dystopia, cannibalism is a common occurrence. People are bred for meat consumption and graves are ransacked for tasty cadavers. A man who works in a meat processing facility suddenly finds himself with a costly luxury gift: a human who should be consumed for her meat. Cue moral dilemmas and ruminations.
White audiences often demand 'authentic' Latin American novels. By which I mean they want a word italicized every paragraph and enough 'local color' to render a text into the equivalent of a cheap, plastic Frida Kahlo statuette. Tender is the Flesh obviously does not evoke any of those plastic concerns. It's bold, nasty and entirely it's own thing while also reflecting an era that I like to call New Latin American and Hispanic Fantastic, which has little to nothing to do with magic realism (see Michelle Roche Rodríguez and others).
It's a very interesting book and one that any science fiction fan should pursue with the obvious warning that it's pretty dark material.
January 1, 2023
I was surprisingly engrossed with this book. The morbid and grotesque treatment of humans in this fictional world is just like the way we already treat animals in reality, so I was fascinated by the reimagined dynamic in this dystopian setting. However, the turn of events in the last half of the book made things go downhill, and the ending cemented a 2-star for me. Not because of personal disagreement with the main character’s actions (I’m aware of how he’s supposed to be portrayed as), but because it read more like a parody instead of a thoughtful critique. I mean, if you have a bunch of teenagers kicking a puppy while loudly shouting expositional dialogue about the government, you’ve kinda lost all subtlety at this point lmao
March 28, 2024
‘The human being is the cause of all evil in this world. We are our own virus.’
Tender is the Flesh is a chilling and thought provoking masterpiece that immerses readers into a dystopian world where ethical boundaries are blurred beyond recognition. Agustina Bazterrica's narrative grips you from the first page, daring you to confront uncomfortable truths about society's treatment of animals and the consequences of unchecked power.
Bazterrica's skillful storytelling delves into themes of power, ethics, and the fragility of humanity, leaving an indelible mark on anyone brave enough to journey through its pages.
The prose is hauntingly beautiful, evoking a visceral response that lingers long after the final page. This is a book that challenges, disturbs, and ultimately leaves an indelible mark on the soul. Bazterrica's exploration of humanity's capacity for cruelty is both mesmerizing and horrifying, making "Tender is the Flesh" an essential read for anyone willing to confront the darker aspects of our nature.
Tender is the Flesh is not merely a book; it's an experience—one that will undoubtedly leave a lasting impression on all who dare to delve into its depths.
My Highest Recommendation.
Tender is the Flesh is a chilling and thought provoking masterpiece that immerses readers into a dystopian world where ethical boundaries are blurred beyond recognition. Agustina Bazterrica's narrative grips you from the first page, daring you to confront uncomfortable truths about society's treatment of animals and the consequences of unchecked power.
Bazterrica's skillful storytelling delves into themes of power, ethics, and the fragility of humanity, leaving an indelible mark on anyone brave enough to journey through its pages.
The prose is hauntingly beautiful, evoking a visceral response that lingers long after the final page. This is a book that challenges, disturbs, and ultimately leaves an indelible mark on the soul. Bazterrica's exploration of humanity's capacity for cruelty is both mesmerizing and horrifying, making "Tender is the Flesh" an essential read for anyone willing to confront the darker aspects of our nature.
Tender is the Flesh is not merely a book; it's an experience—one that will undoubtedly leave a lasting impression on all who dare to delve into its depths.
My Highest Recommendation.
May 2, 2023
Protecting Ourselves With Words
Those old enough will remember the confident chants at the Woodstock Festival in 1969: “No rain. No rain.” ( it rained buckets). Or many younger folk might have had the experience of being tucked in bed while saying their prayers at their parents’ direction: “… and God bless Mummy and Daddy and please help cure Grandma’s liver cancer.” (She died the next week). And we all know about the standard line by the hero in Westerns and B-movie Adventures: “Don’t worry Ma’am, it’ll be all right, I promise.” (of course it never is).
There is a deep impulse to believe that our words can change the world. Hence our fascination with incantations, magical spells, arcane knowledge, religious ritual, and obdurate idealism. Of course words don’t change the world. But they sure do change the users of words. We pretend to have some control over the world by speaking about it with confidence and decisiveness. Actually we’re whistling in the dark. It’s an evolutionary compensation I suppose. Consciousness of our own mortality and its constant fear would be detrimental to our survival. So we have words to protect us. We explain things. We rationalise our fragile and insignificant existence as something of cosmic and eternal importance.
Words allow us to rationalise, to normalise, absolutely any set of circumstances if we think it’s in our interests to do so. We call this morality, when all that term means is that we have found the words to make us feel safer, more secure, less bestial, in short, that we are able to live with each other without constant fear. Words allow this. Our actions may be abysmally horrid, intensely, anti-social, entirely self-serving even self-destructive, but we’re comfortable with that as long as the words justify, or at least don’t forbid, what we do.
Tender Is the Flesh takes our rationalising talent very seriously. I feel confident to say that it goes beyond the bounds of any other literary or cinematic experience any of us has ever had. The book makes Orwell’s 1982 look like a fairy story. The infamous film The Texas Chain Saw Massacre doesn’t touch it for horror. Soylent Green becomes a euphemistic appetiser. Documentaries of the Holocaust come closest I suppose, but even they don’t depict the systematic breeding of victims, their mutilation to prevent self-abortion, the casual mass slaughter, butchering, distribution, and sale of the resulting cuts of meat to the social elite.
Yes, the book is about industrialised cannibalism. It is meant to shock. It clearly intends to show how we use language to do whatever we think necessary to live comfortably. Victims are not human; they are product. Their hands are front trotters; ears and fingers are mixed brochettes; and there’s tongue à la vinaigrette as a delicacy. The most expensive cuts deserve time and care in preparation: “It’s the most tender kind of meat, there’s only just a little, because a kid doesn’t weigh as much as a calf… It melts in your mouth.”
This is a world created by words. Or rather it is a world in which words have progressively transformed the people who use them. Words have allowed them to enter a new reality and “to reaffirm this reality through words, as though words created and maintain the world in which they live.” It is true that “words construct a small, controlled world that’s full of cracks. A world that could fracture with one inappropriate word.” So certain words referring to victims as human, for example, are punished severely. But some still remember when the words meant something different. Marcos, the protagonist, is one such, and the new words “are words that strike at his brain, accumulate, cause damage. He wishes he could say atrocity, inclemency, excess, sadism.”
I am reminded by this book of the many ways we justify the cruelest action. One in particular strikes me as apposite, the Massacre of Béziers in the year 1209. A force of crusading knights were ordered by Pope Innocent III to root out the heresy of Catharism from the South of France. Commanded by his legate, Arnaud Amalric, the abbot of the great Benedictine monastery of Citeaux, the force laid siege to the place. When the citizenry refused to give up the small band of Cathars in the town, the abbot gave his infamous order: Caedite eos. Novit enim Dominus qui sunt eius. - “Kill them all. God will know his own.” About 20,000 inhabitants were slaughtered. The abbot was rewarded with a bishopric.
This was a case in which profoundly inhumane horror was not only permitted but promoted by the words, the necessity, of religious doctrine - ‘heretic’ dehumanised people as completely as ‘product.’ It could just as well be military, political, racial, or gender words. Expediency can become our morality almost instantly. There are indeed no limits to our ability to invent such words and to rationalise such behaviour. The horrors recounted in Agustina Bazterrica’s novel are themselves justified by this sad fact. It says what no one says often enough.
Those old enough will remember the confident chants at the Woodstock Festival in 1969: “No rain. No rain.” ( it rained buckets). Or many younger folk might have had the experience of being tucked in bed while saying their prayers at their parents’ direction: “… and God bless Mummy and Daddy and please help cure Grandma’s liver cancer.” (She died the next week). And we all know about the standard line by the hero in Westerns and B-movie Adventures: “Don’t worry Ma’am, it’ll be all right, I promise.” (of course it never is).
There is a deep impulse to believe that our words can change the world. Hence our fascination with incantations, magical spells, arcane knowledge, religious ritual, and obdurate idealism. Of course words don’t change the world. But they sure do change the users of words. We pretend to have some control over the world by speaking about it with confidence and decisiveness. Actually we’re whistling in the dark. It’s an evolutionary compensation I suppose. Consciousness of our own mortality and its constant fear would be detrimental to our survival. So we have words to protect us. We explain things. We rationalise our fragile and insignificant existence as something of cosmic and eternal importance.
Words allow us to rationalise, to normalise, absolutely any set of circumstances if we think it’s in our interests to do so. We call this morality, when all that term means is that we have found the words to make us feel safer, more secure, less bestial, in short, that we are able to live with each other without constant fear. Words allow this. Our actions may be abysmally horrid, intensely, anti-social, entirely self-serving even self-destructive, but we’re comfortable with that as long as the words justify, or at least don’t forbid, what we do.
Tender Is the Flesh takes our rationalising talent very seriously. I feel confident to say that it goes beyond the bounds of any other literary or cinematic experience any of us has ever had. The book makes Orwell’s 1982 look like a fairy story. The infamous film The Texas Chain Saw Massacre doesn’t touch it for horror. Soylent Green becomes a euphemistic appetiser. Documentaries of the Holocaust come closest I suppose, but even they don’t depict the systematic breeding of victims, their mutilation to prevent self-abortion, the casual mass slaughter, butchering, distribution, and sale of the resulting cuts of meat to the social elite.
Yes, the book is about industrialised cannibalism. It is meant to shock. It clearly intends to show how we use language to do whatever we think necessary to live comfortably. Victims are not human; they are product. Their hands are front trotters; ears and fingers are mixed brochettes; and there’s tongue à la vinaigrette as a delicacy. The most expensive cuts deserve time and care in preparation: “It’s the most tender kind of meat, there’s only just a little, because a kid doesn’t weigh as much as a calf… It melts in your mouth.”
This is a world created by words. Or rather it is a world in which words have progressively transformed the people who use them. Words have allowed them to enter a new reality and “to reaffirm this reality through words, as though words created and maintain the world in which they live.” It is true that “words construct a small, controlled world that’s full of cracks. A world that could fracture with one inappropriate word.” So certain words referring to victims as human, for example, are punished severely. But some still remember when the words meant something different. Marcos, the protagonist, is one such, and the new words “are words that strike at his brain, accumulate, cause damage. He wishes he could say atrocity, inclemency, excess, sadism.”
I am reminded by this book of the many ways we justify the cruelest action. One in particular strikes me as apposite, the Massacre of Béziers in the year 1209. A force of crusading knights were ordered by Pope Innocent III to root out the heresy of Catharism from the South of France. Commanded by his legate, Arnaud Amalric, the abbot of the great Benedictine monastery of Citeaux, the force laid siege to the place. When the citizenry refused to give up the small band of Cathars in the town, the abbot gave his infamous order: Caedite eos. Novit enim Dominus qui sunt eius. - “Kill them all. God will know his own.” About 20,000 inhabitants were slaughtered. The abbot was rewarded with a bishopric.
This was a case in which profoundly inhumane horror was not only permitted but promoted by the words, the necessity, of religious doctrine - ‘heretic’ dehumanised people as completely as ‘product.’ It could just as well be military, political, racial, or gender words. Expediency can become our morality almost instantly. There are indeed no limits to our ability to invent such words and to rationalise such behaviour. The horrors recounted in Agustina Bazterrica’s novel are themselves justified by this sad fact. It says what no one says often enough.
February 14, 2024
Title: TENDER IS THE FLESH
Author: Agustina Bazterrica, Sarah Moses (Translator)
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
A virus sweeps across our globe rendering all animals toxic to humans. They have to be eliminated. All of them. Animals in captivity, wild animals, our beloved pets. Eventually, the human race looks to alternative sources of food.
“Special meat”
Human beings are raised like cattle, bred for human consumption. The main character of this dystopian horror novel is Marcos, a high-level manager for a meat processing plant. Due to a personal tragedy, he and his wife are separated. Marcos is struggling with the weight of grief and loss as well as the violent nature of his job.
I have never been so engrossed in a book. The thought-provoking, shocking subject matter combined with the disturbing chain of events happening in the protagonist’s life makes for a captivating reading experience. Bazterrica’s prose cuts with the precision of a scalpel; every sentence penetrating. Glimpses of humanity shine through the dark brutality and violence of a cannibalistic society but are quickly overshadowed by some act of depravity. At times, the intensity is so extreme, that it’s tempting to lay the book aside or skim through a disturbing scene but again, Bazterrica’s storytelling is so magnetic, that it’s impossible to let go of one’s curiosity. The need to see this through to the end is necessary and rewarding. One of the most insane endings I’ve ever read.
Author: Agustina Bazterrica, Sarah Moses (Translator)
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
A virus sweeps across our globe rendering all animals toxic to humans. They have to be eliminated. All of them. Animals in captivity, wild animals, our beloved pets. Eventually, the human race looks to alternative sources of food.
“Special meat”
Human beings are raised like cattle, bred for human consumption. The main character of this dystopian horror novel is Marcos, a high-level manager for a meat processing plant. Due to a personal tragedy, he and his wife are separated. Marcos is struggling with the weight of grief and loss as well as the violent nature of his job.
I have never been so engrossed in a book. The thought-provoking, shocking subject matter combined with the disturbing chain of events happening in the protagonist’s life makes for a captivating reading experience. Bazterrica’s prose cuts with the precision of a scalpel; every sentence penetrating. Glimpses of humanity shine through the dark brutality and violence of a cannibalistic society but are quickly overshadowed by some act of depravity. At times, the intensity is so extreme, that it’s tempting to lay the book aside or skim through a disturbing scene but again, Bazterrica’s storytelling is so magnetic, that it’s impossible to let go of one’s curiosity. The need to see this through to the end is necessary and rewarding. One of the most insane endings I’ve ever read.
October 13, 2021
So bleak and horrifying!! That ending had me like 🤯
Reading vlog where I read it: https://youtu.be/ZuJK4T4tkRQ
Reading vlog where I read it: https://youtu.be/ZuJK4T4tkRQ
January 25, 2022
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TENDER IS THE FLESH has been on my radar for a while but I was a little worried about picking it up because it sounded intense and, as I have said in previous reviews, I am a soft and jellied wimp when it comes to horror. And this is no gentle, easy read: it's a dystopian work translated from Spanish (by way of Argentina) about a futuristic world in which a plague has rendered animals poisonous to humans, so humans are being born and bred for the consumption of other humans, either literally (as meat) or consumeristically (for sport, "leather," or extremely niche and sadistic forms of fetish sex).
***WARNING: this review will have spoilers and will discuss extremely disturbing things that happen in this book***
I am not a vegetarian but I don't actually eat a lot of meat, for a combination of reasons, which resolve around health (too much meat, especially processed, can lead to colon cancer and pancreatic cancer, among other health risks), ethical reasons (mass-produced meat is often taken from facilities that don't raise or slaughter animals humanely, and takes a huge toll on the environment), and financial (meat is expensive and alternatives are a lot cheaper (it's very easy to make seitan from vital wheat protein, or soak up and fry some textured vegetable protein-- and unlike 90s alternatives, it tastes great). I've read FAST FOOD NATION and watched interviews with Temple Grandin (an autistic woman who is famous for how she has helped change meat processing plants for the better, to be more humane, because of her incredible ability to empathize with animals), so I already know that a lot of the times, knowing the secrets behind the food on your table can sometimes leave you thinking that ignorance is bliss. But it's also sticking your head in the sand, because at the end of the day, you do vote with your wallet, and I feel like people who can afford to care should care about what goes on the table and in their mouths.
In U.S. culture (and other cultures as well, I assume) there's this almost fetishistic view of meat among some people. It seems to be tied into masculinity, as if by eating meat you prove somehow either your virility, or your complete dominion over the so-called lesser beings that inhabit this world. People lob around the insult "soy-boy," as if eating soy over dairy somehow makes someone less of a man, because real men eat meat. Bazterrica runs with this premise in her book, where the government has converted the way they process meat to accommodate for human flesh, and shows, by replacing with animals with humans, how utterly inhumane the meat industry is, and how we, as a society, dissociate ourselves from the process by which an animal becomes food. We even see that removal begin in the language itself: pigs become pork, baby cows become veal, sheep become mutton, etc.
Marcos, our narrator, is a depressed man who works in such a facility. His father is dying with dementia and his wife has left him following the death of their baby. He hates the meat industry and he hates that they don't call it what it is, tiptoeing around semantics by referring to human meat as "special meat" or as "head" when they're alive. Infractions can result in death, with those who commit the crimes ending up as meat, as well. He still remembers a time when real animals were slaughtered, and he knows that some people are unable to come to terms with this. His father is one of those people, and we are led to believe that this is one of the reasons for his cognitive decline. When Marcos is gifted a premium-grade human woman as a gift by his employer, she's the last thing he wants, but he ends up raising her as a pet and then as something more, as the line between consumer and consumed becomes terrifyingly thin.
This book wasn't as bad as I was expecting it to be-- I think because I've had to participate in a biology lab and have had to be wrist-deep in organs for science. People were a little cagey on the details, so if you're worried about whether this book will be too much for you, I will say that it goes into pretty great detail on the slaughtering process. There's an entire chapter about how humans are stunned, killed, and packaged. There's a part about human experimentation, run by a pretty sadistic doctor that the hero compares to Menegle (who was a Nazi scientist, in case you didn't know). There's animal cruelty, where a group of teens beat a bunch of puppies to death. And then there's a whole bunch of minor cruelties mentioned in asides. Pregnant "head" get their arms and legs cut off so they can't damage their babies. Rock stars and celebrities can sell themselves into a hunt, where gun nuts can hunt them and then eat them. One of these freaks captures and kills a famous rock star and brags about how eating his dick will make him virile. There are brothels that let you fuck and then kill women, and one of these same freaks refers to the process of raping the fourteen-year-old he eats as "tenderizing," jokingly.
The ending is disturbing and infuriating because I feel like it implies that a lot of our moral outrage is hypocritical and results in non-action, or is a mask for our own sublimated desires and cognitive dissonance. Which is a sad and depressing thought, but anyone who's ever been on Twitter knows that sometimes people who scream the loudest (or in all caps) can be huge hypocrites. I've seen people on Goodreads try to cancel authors for writing problematic queer rep, who also have J.K. Rowling books on their shelves with five-star ratings. I guess the point of dystopians is to make people uncomfortable and force people to confront incredibly jarring aspects of society, but this message is particularly chilling.
As a thought experiment, I think this book works, and it's no more or less disturbing than some of the classic dystopian novels I was forced to read for school, like 1984, BRAVE NEW WORLD, MAKE ROOM, MAKE ROOM! (the inspiration for the movie, Soylent Green), LOGAN'S RUN, or THE HANDMAID'S TALE. As a cohesive world in and of itself, I have questions. It doesn't really tackle some of the problems with eating human meat, such as prion disease (there was a group of people in Papua New Guinea who ended up with prion disease because of ritualistic cannibalism where they consumed their dead), or insect alternatives. For example, crickets/cricket flour has as much protein as skinless chicken. Were insects also victim to this so-called plague? (Which, the book hints, might not even exist-- the government might have made up a plague just to give themselves an excuse to legalize and legitimize cannibalism as an extreme form of population control, and yet another way for the rich to consume the poor, this time figuratively).
I feel like I need to read something happy now.
3 to 3.5 stars
May 29, 2020
Effectively an anti-factory farming polemic satirized to its shocking, inevitable conclusion, Tender Is the Flesh is a horrifying and grotesque piece of work. Translated from the Spanish brilliantly by Sarah Moses, it tells the story of a man named Marcos who recently lost his son to a cot death and is estranged from his wife as a result. Marcos works at a local processing plant - but instead of cattle, the plant farms and slaughters humans, following a virus which infected all non-human animals, rendering their meat unsafe to eat. But these people are no longer referred to as humans; so desensitized is everyone to their new dietary reality.
This book made me feel physically ill every time I picked it up, but I found it equally hard to put it down. I've been a vegetarian for most of my life, primarily in protest against factory farming, so it's safe to say that this novel's central conceit resonated strongly enough to compel me to keep reading, but it would be reductive to say that condemning the meat industry is the only thing Bazterrica is doing here. This book focuses equally on the question of what it means to be human (I can't get a sort of half-baked Never Let Me Go comparison out of my head, even if the similarities truly do end there - but there's a reason that's my favorite book; it's a theme that I find endlessly fascinating to wrestle with) and the ways in which we allow our personal ethics to be shaped by those in positions of power.
It's not a flawless book - I think the (air-tight) worldbuilding occasionally overpowers the character-driven part of the novel, which I was honestly fine with until something happened that made me wish the character development hadn't been quite so withheld from the reader, so I initially rated this 4 stars when I finished, but on second thought, I think this book will be seared into my brain forever, and I have nothing but respect and admiration for what Bazterrica has achieved here.
This is not an easy book to recommend, and I cannot emphasize just how strong of a stomach you need to make it through this, but, somewhat perversely, it's not a hard book to love. I'd say it's probably the single most disturbing thing I have ever read (A Clockwork Orange has been dethroned at last), but that is in no way a criticism.
Thank you to Netgalley and Scribner for the advanced copy provided in exchange for an honest review.
This book made me feel physically ill every time I picked it up, but I found it equally hard to put it down. I've been a vegetarian for most of my life, primarily in protest against factory farming, so it's safe to say that this novel's central conceit resonated strongly enough to compel me to keep reading, but it would be reductive to say that condemning the meat industry is the only thing Bazterrica is doing here. This book focuses equally on the question of what it means to be human (I can't get a sort of half-baked Never Let Me Go comparison out of my head, even if the similarities truly do end there - but there's a reason that's my favorite book; it's a theme that I find endlessly fascinating to wrestle with) and the ways in which we allow our personal ethics to be shaped by those in positions of power.
It's not a flawless book - I think the (air-tight) worldbuilding occasionally overpowers the character-driven part of the novel, which I was honestly fine with until something happened that made me wish the character development hadn't been quite so withheld from the reader, so I initially rated this 4 stars when I finished, but on second thought, I think this book will be seared into my brain forever, and I have nothing but respect and admiration for what Bazterrica has achieved here.
This is not an easy book to recommend, and I cannot emphasize just how strong of a stomach you need to make it through this, but, somewhat perversely, it's not a hard book to love. I'd say it's probably the single most disturbing thing I have ever read (A Clockwork Orange has been dethroned at last), but that is in no way a criticism.
Thank you to Netgalley and Scribner for the advanced copy provided in exchange for an honest review.
October 25, 2022
“Tender Is the Flesh” by Agustina Bazterrica is definitely one of those kinds of horror novels that will stay with you for a very long time. It’s a very unique, crazy, and freaky dystopian-inspired novel that guarantees you will never look at meat the same ever again.
Oh yes, this novel deals with what would happen if all the animals on Earth had a virus and we all had to resort to eating human meat to survive. Needless to say, I’d highly recommend you do not eat or drink anything while reading during certain chapters because it’ll definitely gross you out beyond belief.
I enjoyed Bazterrica’s unique style of writing as I know this was translated from Spanish to English and thought it was pretty good all around. It has its creepy moments with very disturbing and graphic scenes that pretty much add a very eerie element to what the world would be like if this ever happened. Don’t worry, I won’t ruin anything for you but before I discuss more of my thoughts about this novel, I have another huge heads-up for everyone since I am a proud pet owner.
If you get triggered by violence against animals, please note there is a graphic scene here involving pets that is very messed up. If you prefer not to read anything that does have violence against animals, definitely stay away from this one. It didn’t bother me because I know it’s not real but I know how this can bother my fellow readers so I just wanted to make that clear.
At any rate, the only thing I’d say that I didn’t like about “Tender Is the Flesh” is that some parts dragged on. Some chapters also felt fragmented and out of place so it took some getting used to this style of writing. It’s not terrible, but it does start out a bit confusing, picks up well, then goes back to dragging on a bit. Once I hit the 60% mark, it starts to get really good so it was definitely worth the wait.
When it comes to the ending, I was hoping for something a bit different but it definitely came out of nowhere. It was definitely shocking and something I didn’t see coming at all so kudos to Bazterrica for hitting me with something unexpected. I thought it ended well and wow, what a way to just drop the mic!
Overall, I give “Tender Is the Flesh” by Agustina Bazterrica a 4/5 as it’s really the shock value of human meat that makes this a solid read. It’s so graphic and disturbing that it’s pretty much the essence of why this novel is as popular as it is. The storyline and characters were alright but these didn’t really do it for as much as the incredibly creepy writing about processing, slaughtering, and yes, eating human meat. That’s the selling point to this as it exceeded my wildest expectations in that regard and I enjoyed that horror aspect of it immensely.
Oh yes, this novel deals with what would happen if all the animals on Earth had a virus and we all had to resort to eating human meat to survive. Needless to say, I’d highly recommend you do not eat or drink anything while reading during certain chapters because it’ll definitely gross you out beyond belief.
I enjoyed Bazterrica’s unique style of writing as I know this was translated from Spanish to English and thought it was pretty good all around. It has its creepy moments with very disturbing and graphic scenes that pretty much add a very eerie element to what the world would be like if this ever happened. Don’t worry, I won’t ruin anything for you but before I discuss more of my thoughts about this novel, I have another huge heads-up for everyone since I am a proud pet owner.
If you get triggered by violence against animals, please note there is a graphic scene here involving pets that is very messed up. If you prefer not to read anything that does have violence against animals, definitely stay away from this one. It didn’t bother me because I know it’s not real but I know how this can bother my fellow readers so I just wanted to make that clear.
At any rate, the only thing I’d say that I didn’t like about “Tender Is the Flesh” is that some parts dragged on. Some chapters also felt fragmented and out of place so it took some getting used to this style of writing. It’s not terrible, but it does start out a bit confusing, picks up well, then goes back to dragging on a bit. Once I hit the 60% mark, it starts to get really good so it was definitely worth the wait.
When it comes to the ending, I was hoping for something a bit different but it definitely came out of nowhere. It was definitely shocking and something I didn’t see coming at all so kudos to Bazterrica for hitting me with something unexpected. I thought it ended well and wow, what a way to just drop the mic!
Overall, I give “Tender Is the Flesh” by Agustina Bazterrica a 4/5 as it’s really the shock value of human meat that makes this a solid read. It’s so graphic and disturbing that it’s pretty much the essence of why this novel is as popular as it is. The storyline and characters were alright but these didn’t really do it for as much as the incredibly creepy writing about processing, slaughtering, and yes, eating human meat. That’s the selling point to this as it exceeded my wildest expectations in that regard and I enjoyed that horror aspect of it immensely.
January 4, 2021
5.0 Stars
This has to be one of the most brutal and disturbing novels I have ever read. And I absolutely loved it.
This story contained some incredibly visceral and disgusting scenes of body horror. Readers must expect all the possible content warnings in this book. I have never seriously considered becoming a vegetarian, but this book certainly made me think about it. I found meat absolutely disgusting while reading this book due to the stomach churning descriptions.
Overall, I thought this book was near perfection with a fantastic ending. I really liked the writing style which was concise and cutting. I really hope more of this author's work gets translated because I love reading fiction from fierce female voices. I have no doubt that I will be thinking about this dystopian future for a very long time.
This has to be one of the most brutal and disturbing novels I have ever read. And I absolutely loved it.
This story contained some incredibly visceral and disgusting scenes of body horror. Readers must expect all the possible content warnings in this book. I have never seriously considered becoming a vegetarian, but this book certainly made me think about it. I found meat absolutely disgusting while reading this book due to the stomach churning descriptions.
Overall, I thought this book was near perfection with a fantastic ending. I really liked the writing style which was concise and cutting. I really hope more of this author's work gets translated because I love reading fiction from fierce female voices. I have no doubt that I will be thinking about this dystopian future for a very long time.
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