Tender is the Flesh by Augustina Bazterrica

This dystopian world takes shape after a virus affecting animals spreads across the globe with no cure. The only way to contain it is through the total eradication of all animals—livestock, pets, and wildlife alike. You’re probably wondering what happens to the world once all the animals are gone. To make up for the loss of meat and other food sources, this dystopian society begins breeding and farming humans in their place. 

Tender Is the Flesh is undeniably gross, morbid, and disturbing, but it’s also one of the most frighteningly realistic stories I’ve ever read. Agustina Bazterrica creates a world that feels eerily close to our own, just twisted enough to make you question where the line really is. It also serves as a striking commentary on how easily humans exploit one another without a second thought. Those same words, gross, morbid, and disturbing, could just as easily describe the state of our world today and the horrible atrocities that came before. The reality Bazterrica imagines doesn’t feel that far off; sometimes it seems like we’re only a few steps away.

I really liked the third person perspective of Marcos, our protagonist, and Bazterrica’s haunting, yet sometimes darkly witty, writing style. Marcos comes from the world before the virus; he remembers what life was like before everything collapsed and people began profiting from cannibalism, himself included. He works at a processing plant, yes, one that packages and sells humans to buyers. Although he tries to resist the “Transition,” as the government calls it, his entire life now revolves around packaging, cutting, filleting, and processing human bodies. There’s no escape. On top of that, he’s grieving the loss of his infant son, enduring both personal and societal horror at once. Seeing the world through his eyes completely threw me for a loop and made me hold on to the hope that, somehow, he might wake up from this nightmare, despite everything he’s been through. 

I also found the world-building incredibly detailed in this book. Every question I had, the hows, whats, wheres, and whens, were fully answered. I was painfully and reluctantly eating it up, and I couldn’t put it down (Hannibal Lecter would’ve loved this). I like how Bazterrica uses Marcos and his line of work as a vessel to introduce readers to the inner workings of the industry from the breeding farms to the methods used to stun and slaughter “meat,” and even the cruel scientific experiments conducted on humans. It really gives so much detail, to a fault, where you have to take a minute to digest (how many cannibal puns is too much?). 

But in my opinion, it’s so much more than that. It challenges readers to reflect on our own morals and ethics, and on the discomfort we feel when deciding what is right and wrong.

Building off that, the terminology in this world is fascinating. People don’t refer to the humans they consume as “humans,” but instead as “heads.” It’s a linguistic trick that makes the idea of eating another person more palatable (pun intended) and easier for society to accept. And no one is even allowed to utter the word cannibalism, but instead, it’s given a more polite name: special meat. Imagine walking through a grocery store and seeing a shrink-wrapped severed head with a shiny red label that reads special meat. Ew. 

Beyond all the human consumption, the ending will leave you completely shocked, making you think, “WTF did I just read?” There are so many other fascinating aspects of the book that I don’t want to spoil, so I highly recommend taking a deep breath and diving in. It’s definitely nightmare fuel, I had to put it down several times. I should also warn that if you get queasy easily, this is not the book for you. It contains numerous triggers, including animal abuse, human abuse, and sexual assault, and there’s probably more. 

Overall, I loved it. The book made me think, really think, about the world around me, and I always appreciate a story that can do that. I can just imagine someone’s face when I tell them I loved Tender Is the Flesh, you know, the one about killing and eating humans. But in my opinion, it’s so much more than that. It challenges readers to reflect on our own morals and ethics, and on the discomfort we feel when deciding what is right and wrong. It asks the question: what really makes us any different from animals?