TENDER IS THE FLESH by Agustina Bazterrica

 

Tender is the Flesh by Agustina Bazterrica
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I found this at the thrift store last year and almost forgot I had it. I've heard some gross things about this one and they were all true. 😲

Marcos lives in a world without animals. After they all caught a virus that spread and disqualified their meat from being used as our food supply or even as pets, they were all exterminated. So, the meat hunger and protein intake had to be replaced. That's when humans became cattle, and when cannibalism became legal...

Yikes. Gross. Gag. 🤢

This book doesn't waste any time getting into the gory details of what Marcos does for a living. He's also quick to tell us every damn step involved in farming human beings in great detail. And certainly doesn't leave out any of the many disgusting nitty-gritty things about the horrid world he lives in.

And this is one bleak and brutal place. 😫

Seriously, I felt low-key queasy all the way through this book and couldn't wait to get to the end. Not only because this guy was so casual about the whole thing, while at the same trying very hard to convince the reader he was deeply affected by all the awful reality everywhere he turns. But you know what? The more I read, the more I realised that just wasn't the case. Otherwise he wouldn't have done some of the awful shit he does, or say a lot of the crap he says. 😑

Marcos is not a nice guy. He's not a sympathetic character. He's just a man who suffered a great loss and is in the process of losing someone else. And THIS is what turns him into a judgy bitch offering his opinion on everything even though he's a big part of the problem.

I found this whole story disturbing af. I was uncomfortable from start to finish and couldn't decide if I kept reading because I was enjoying it, or because I was hate-reading it.

The truth is that I liked the writing style and the boldness of the main character--until I figured him out. I even initially liked how honest and awful he was and how he wasn't remotely ashamed or affected in any way at all. So, in spite of my queasiness, I couldn't stop reading this fucked up book.

And once I got to The End, I realised what I suspected all along. Proving that I was right about Marcos and all of the other demented characters in this messed-up story of conspiracy, greed and downright savagery.

I've got one word for this book: repulsed. That's how I felt reading this. It's the stain it's left me with. And relates back to the obvious commentary the author was making about the despicable mass production farming in our own world.

Ugh. I feel so dirty and sick. I never want to feel like that again while reading a book. There's nothing strong enough to clear away this disgusting brutality from my brain. 😣

 

View all my reviews