Thoughts on Tender is the Flesh

Tender is the Flesh is a violent dystopian novel written by Augustina Bazterrica, published in November of 2017. 

This book follows Marcos in a world where a virus has rendered all animal meat contaminated and cannot be consumed. Due to the lack of meat, cannibalism has become legalized. Our main character, Marcos, is employed in a human meat supplier factory and is tormented by his day-to-day. 

Overall, this book is cleverly written. It's able to make something that is so abhorrent so plain and simple. The descriptions of what the procedure is for the human meat supplier underlines how we currently look at most, if not all, livestock and butcheries. Tying the disturbing content is the new societal views and the actions these characters make, allowing the characters to make less than human decisions to show the desensitization to human on human harm.

The pacing of the story is fantastic, utilizing the ever growing pressures on Marco to keep you hooked into reading the next page and wanting to find out what happened next. Although the ending isn't the best outcome, it underlines the main themes of the story.

I thoroughly recommend this book to anyone who may have a tough stomach.