A review by coralinejones
Tender Is the Flesh by Agustina Bazterrica

2.75

I mentally clocked out with this before the halfway mark, not because it was too gross for me or anything, but rather, "Tender is the Flesh" feels like the author wanted to write something brutal and grotesque for shock value and nothing else. I don't think the talking points of this novel are things we've never heard before in other forms of media, especially recently. Just because a book is hard to read content wise doesn't make it incredibly smart or revolutionary, to me. Cannibalism as symbolism for vegetarianism (say that 3 times fast) really doesn't do much in the grand scheme of things... Especially when the author is a vegan. I found out the author of "Bones and All" is also a vegan and it's like... How often are we going to do this, lol.

One of my biggest critiques when it comes to horror is how some authors, or some movie writers, feel the need to make the media as uncomfortable as possible without giving an authentic reason to make it gross. I don't think gross = scary and I actually consider it's a cheap cop out. Similar to jump-scares in horror media. Is this scary or are you cheating?

Why do movies like Get Out or Hereditary work in actually scaring people, but movies like Saw or the French film, Raw, only succeeds in making people feel grossed out?

In fact, when the book started the thing I noted before all else was, and I quote myself here, "Great, another book where women have it the worst no matter what."

Now, don't get me wrong, I really wanted to love this novel, and I think there are some positive takeaways. I understand why one would enjoy this, and why it would fuck them up, maybe I'm... A bit traumatized? Too used to this sort of thing? I am an overall horror fan, I enjoy "Hannibal", as stated above I'm familiar with Bones and All, and vampires are one of my special interests; for me that whole "OMG this is SOOOO fucked." point doesn't really apply to me.

I don't find the world built for this novel believable. I think there are too many plot holes for my liking. A novel with this sort of commentary should be a lot longer. I don't think there's much character development, and by the end I just felt that this novel was a little too cold, too damp, too bland, and not enough.