A review by starryybella
Tender Is the Flesh, by Agustina Bazterrica

challenging dark mysterious sad tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

Wow. Just wow.
I know I’ve read rather stomach-turning and graphic books, but I’ve never read anything like this.
Even with “American Psycho” by Bret Easton Ellis, the punches didn’t keep rolling like it did with this book.
“Carcass. Cut in half. Stunner. Slaughter line. Spray wash. These words appear in his head and strike him. Destroy him. But they’re not just words. They’re the blood, the dense smell, the automation, the absence of thought. They burst in on the night, catch him off guard. When he wakes, his body is covered in a film of sweat because he knows that what awaits him is another day of slaughtering humans,” the first paragraph entails. Nothing could have prepared me for that, not even reading the back. Which is why I share it now - take it as you will.
From the first words, we’re desensitized to the horrors entailed in this book - because nothing gets better, as much as you want it to. The descriptions become even more gore-y, and increasingly, the lines of morality in this world become blurred quickly.
Yes, this book fasts forwards to a seemingly not-so-distant future - in fact, the more I read it, it resembled modern day technology, of course, not minding the fact all animal meat production has now turned to human meat production. But no one calls them humans anymore. They’re merely “special meat” when slaughtered or “head” when they’re livestock.
After the “virus” that made all animals dangerous to eat or to even keep as pets, the government implemented “The Transition”. Most pets and animals were slaughtered, and cannibalism became adopted after widely-adopted research showed eating animal proteins is crucial for survival.  
Not just adopted - embraced.
While the book follows our main character Marcos in his day-to-day life in this dystopian future, he faces another problem: he gets an FGP (First Generation Pure, the top-of-the-line meat) female sent to him as a gift. He’s to keep her as livestock, to either artificially inseminate for more livestock, or for slaughter. Marcos doesn’t want to though - ever since losing his child due to SIDS, his wife left him due to the grief and ever since the baby’s simulacrum funeral, he’s sworn off of eating meat. He names her Jasmine after her natural scent of wild jasmine, and becomes increasingly more sensitive to her humanity.
The second part of the book takes a turn
Spoilerafter Marcos indulges in the crime of “enjoying” the livestock - and impregnates Jasmine. This could land them both in the Municipal Slaughterhouse as punishment and get them both killed. The second part still focuses on the cruelty and goriness of the meat industry, but has this second plotline layered carefully on top of it. Marcos increasingly teaches her what it means to be human again and takes care of her while she bears his child in secret, in spite of the rest of the world. It’s a bold rejection of the society that has been forced upon them.
But… Something irked me about the second part.
SpoilerJasmine, like all livestock, has her vocal cords cut out since “meat doesn’t talk” and has a child-like aspect to her since she never has experienced kindness - only fear has been taught to her. This blurs the lines of consent. She’s 22 canonically, but something doesn’t sit right with me.
SpoilerWhile she is taught humanity and something is brought back to her now that she’s being cared for, there’s still this animalistic part that doesn’t allow her to be able to register a lot of the world around her. This love she carries for Marcos is just her reflecting what he gives her - but it also resembles the love and affection a pet has for its owner.
Take what you will. It’s something to consider when reading this book.
 The distant third-person limited narration sends chills down the reader’s spine, with a masterful translation done by translator Sarah Moses. We aren’t even sure of Marcos’s name until several chapters into the book, and even so, it’s only other characters referring to him by his name in dialogue. Even he isn’t a person because of how much this present has degraded him and stripped him of humanity, much like the “head”. The process dehumanizes not only its victims quite literally, but those participating and involved in the slaughter.
This book made me seriously consider vegetarianism or veganism for the first time. The author painstakingly made the process of slaughtering “special meat” so similar to the slaughter of pigs, cows, and other animals for consumption. Doing the mental swap of pigs and cows to humans puts things into perspective. 
This book is a damnation of not only the meat industry, but of society; society can adapt to the most cruel and awful things and completely disregard morals if it serves their desires and self-interest. Governments can also manipulate and distort the truth beyond the point of recognition - as the test of time through history has shown.
There’s also beauty in this destruction and in what once was - Marcos visits a zoo that has been torn apart when havoc wreaked after the “virus” broke out, and has memories of being young and going there with his father before the transition. Even after being chased out of the zoo by rabid, feral dogs after discovering four puppies, he calls them beautiful as he sits in his car and watches them from the window.
Refusing to pay attention to the atrocities in the book is a refusal to bear witness to the cruelty of humanity - innately, carnal desires run deep in our society, and this book hits close to home on what that carnage can lead us to. 
This book will never leave my mind.
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