Tender is the Flesh by Agustina Bazterrica (review)

 

Blurb:

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.

My Thoughts:

Honestly, I'm not sure how I feel about this book. I felt really unsettled whilst reading it. It's not a happy book. There's not really any warm and fuzzies going on here. The world kind of sucks. The characters are all kind of sucky and the thought of eating human flesh just makes me nauseous...and I get it. That's the whole point. I think the author was trying to highlight how complacent humans can be when the majority chooses to do something, the few will go along with it. 

I couldn't help but hope that the main character would break free, do the right thing and live with the consequences of his actions but alas...it didn't work that way. (I'm trying to be as spoiler free as possible here). My main thought through this whole story was HAS NO ONE HEARD OF VEGETARIANISM OR VEGANISM? There are so many meat substitutes why go to that extreme? That was the part that lost me and kept me from slipping into this world completely. 

Honestly, it's a decently written book. There was sufficient world building that I could picture this society pretty well. A few little points kept it from being REAL REAL and the main character was just pretty boring. There were several gory scenes in the book that made me squeamish. Several non-gory scenes that made me squirm in an unpleasant way and then the ending made me grrrrr. 

I didn't exactly hate it, but I didn't exactly love it. It was a quick read however, so there's that. 

What did you think of this book?