Book Review: Tender is the Flesh

 

Tender is the Flesh

Agustina Bazterrica

Overall: 2/5

Plot and themes: 2/5

Characters: 2/5

Writing style: 3/5

Attention-grabbing: 2/5

Tender is the Flesh is a horror novella that illustrates a world where all animals aside from humans are poisonous for human consumption. To fulfill the very obvious and necessary desire for meat, humans now farm other humans. But not human-humans, they give them all the value of cattle and consider them completely other from themselves. The novella specifically follows a man who has recently had his life turned upside down and is now reflecting on the present societal values. 

The most fundamental problem with this book is that absolutely nothing is justified. It's like, I understand that there is a certain degree of suspension of disbelief and I read a ton of paranormal books where crazy stuff happens constantly. But this book just says it and wants us to believe there was such a limited rejection of that kind of thing. I could understand if it had begun 50 or 100 years in the past and we were told that it was a revolution where the dissenters were quickly wiped out but it's not. It happened within the recent lifespan of the main character. 

I get the "depth" of it and what we're supposed to reflect on. I just don't think it was constructed in a way that was shocking or even deep. It just felt like it was constantly going for a shock factor that I didn't really care much about.