Okay. Listen. Tender Is the Flesh by Agustina Bazterrica is one of those books that made me question my life choices—chief among them being: why did IOkay. Listen. Tender Is the Flesh by Agustina Bazterrica is one of those books that made me question my life choices—chief among them being: why did I keep reading when I absolutely wanted to launch it across the room at least five separate times? And yet... here I am. Scarred, queasy, and low-key impressed.
Let me be clear: I’m a vegetarian. I’ve watched Okja without blinking, I’ve argued with people about the ethics of factory farming over brunch, and still—still—this book made me feel like I was going to crawl out of my skin. Bazterrica doesn’t just hand you a dystopia; she slow-roasts it, bastes it in dread, and serves it rare with a side of horror sauce.
The premise? Animal meat is toxic. Human meat is the new filet mignon. Capitalism says "yum," society says "sure," and suddenly we’re casually running artisanal butcheries for "special meat" (read: people). Our main guy Marcos is numb, grieving, emotionally flatlined—but still complicit as hell. That is, until someone gifts him a live female "specimen," and he starts treating her like, oh I don’t know� an actual person. Things get complicated, fast.
The prose is cold, clinical, detached—which somehow makes everything feel even more grotesque. It’s like a documentary you don’t want to watch but can’t look away from. I actually liked the parts about Marcos� memories of his father and his lost child best—those had a quiet grief that grounded the whole thing. I wish the rest of the book had lingered more in that space.
But oh no, instead we got euphemisms for butchering humans, institutionalized cannibalism, dystopian dating apps, and don’t even get me started on the breeding farms. (Yes. Breeding. Farms.)
I get it—it’s a metaphor. For the meat industry. For how language sanitizes violence. For the way capitalism grinds everything (and everyone) into consumable parts. I get it. But holy hell, Bazterrica, you didn’t have to go that hard.
Would I recommend it? Maybe. If you’ve got the stomach for it and enjoy reading books that feel like a prolonged existential panic attack. It’s horrifying, sharp, and yes, brilliant. But it also made me want to bleach my brain.
In short: Tender Is the Flesh is like a bad trip at a vegan slaughterhouse art exhibit. Thought-provoking? Yes. Disturbing? Absolutely. Regret reading it? Kind of. Glad I did? Also yes. Would I ever read it again? Not unless I’m looking to fully unravel.
3.75/5 � For the sheer audacity, the metaphorical heft, and the fact that I will never look at a meat counter the same way again. ...more
Loading...
