Tender Is the Flesh
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Average rating3.7
Working at the local processing plant, Marcos is in the business of slaughtering humans—though no one calls them that anymore.
His wife has left him, his father is sinking into dementia, and Marcos tries not to think too hard about how he makes a living. After all, it happened so quickly. First, it was reported that an infectious virus has made all animal meat poisonous to humans. Then governments initiated the “Transition.” Now, eating human meat—“special meat”—is legal. Marcos tries to stick to numbers, consignments, processing.
Then one day he’s given a gift: a live specimen of the finest quality. Though he’s aware that any form of personal contact is forbidden on pain of death, little by little he starts to treat her like a human being. And soon, he becomes tortured by what has been lost—and what might still be saved.
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TENDER IS THE FLESH will blow your mind. WHERE DO I EVEN START. This book is dystopian horror to the nth degree and not for the faint of heart. Envision a world in which we no longer consume animal meat due to a virus, and instead we breed humans as “special meat.” Bazterrica is heavy-handed and gets very detailed about this gruesome new world, clearly making a statement about overpopulation, the meat industry, and what happens when we fool ourselves by using pretty language instead of calling a thing what it is. Despite the intensity and graphic nature of the plot, I had a hard time putting it down.
Content warnings: cannibalism, rape, experiments on non-consenting humans, suicide, infertility, death of a child, trafficking, animal harm and killings, graphic descriptions of EVERYTHING.
Thank you to NetGalley and Scribner for the digital ARC and opportunity to review early.
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