tender is the flesh
by agustina bazterrica
★★☆☆☆
dates read: 2/3/23 - 2/12/23 ! this review contains spoilers !
"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."
tw: rape, sexual assault, torture, violence against women, pregnancy, cannibalism, graphic imagery, gore
i understand the aims of this book in its criticisms of factory farming and the meat-packing industry, but i hated it. two stars is generous, considering how much i disliked this novel. if i could scrub my brain to erase this book from my memory, i would.
the thought of witnessing an animal being prepped and packaged to be processed already makes me sick to my stomach, and so to put real life people in their place made me want to throw up my insides. bazterrica took the argument of "what if the roles were reversed" and made it into tender is the flesh. had i known exactly what this book involved, i would have left it on the table at barnes and noble.
i hate marcos, the main character. if only i could reach my hands into the pages and wring his neck. while reading this book, you think that marcos is the sole exception to this grotesque and disturbing world that he lives in, because that is exactly how he presents himself. he actively disagrees with life after the transition, building himself up to be a person with morals, as one of the last people in the world who is fully aware that the society they are in, is wrong. however, you are wrong. marcos is not the exception, but like everyone else. he's just better at hiding it. once he meets jasmine, it becomes crystal clear that he is not the type of person we think he is, or even he thinks he is.
there is not one single redeemable or even remotely decent character in this book. they are all disgusting, inhumane, and selfish in the most grotesque fashion. it'll make your skin crawl. through her characters, bazterrica is able to illustrate the innate violence and corruption of humanity, no matter how close to the surface or deeply buried it is.
this is a bit nit picky, but in terms of the novel's writing style, it wasn't my favorite. although it is hard to attribute that directly to bazterrica since it can be a result of a rough translation. as a result of the world building that this dystopian story required, the incorporation of the background information was not subtle but immediate. it also became apparent that bazterrica doesn't have much variation in her sentences too. however, these concerns were a lot more apparent in the beginning of the story so perhaps it just took me a bit of time to adjust.
this book is horrifying, leaving my stomach feeling dull for at least a week. there is nothing enjoyable or remotely comforting about the story told and i would highly recommend against anyone reading this book. this is another one of those books that i wish came with a list of trigger warnings on the front so i could have known what to expect.
you've been warned.