Reviews tagging 'Ableism'

Tender Is the Flesh by Agustina Bazterrica

25 reviews

magellen's review

challenging dark sad tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

Tldr : book is a slow slog that eh, kind gets of boring? Tries to be shocking, feels like a pamphlet.

Book can be summarized as 'oh buddy, don't' mixed with 'society is numb and hypocritical to its sins- we are all complicit'. If you're familiar with slaughterhouse procedures and livestock breeding this book likely won't be much of a shock, and that shock feels like what the narrative relies on to hold your attention. It's meat, it's people, they're human, they're animal, we're animal- no, we're human, because only humans compartmentalize unneeded brutality in the way a human can.

The mc spends most of the book like plenty of people spend their lives, certain he is more just with better morals than the idiots around him. Sickened by casual cruelty that for others is simply how they live, it's their livelihood or their food. 
As the book builds and the mc suffers physical effects from his emotional and mental gymnastics, you start to wonder if the virus that is contested through the book may be real. There's a tension there that walks a thin line well.
The whole thing however is so wickedly ungrounded with its time line I spent the majority of the book trying to figure out how long ago the change to special meat occurred. Either it was said once and I entirely missed it or it wasnt touched on at all. The age of some heads sans gmo and the wobbly age of the mc just didnt seem to line up -

and if that was a point being made, that this HAD been in the works pre virus, again, it isnt supported enough to line up.

Personally, the book was overtly transparent, both regarding where this dudes midlife crisis was going to lead him, and with its social mirror. We choose the conformity when it suits us and damn it when we feel at odds with it. Which for this novel, extends to our emotions about cannibalism.  

It's a Salinger slog that at points felt like sitting through a vegan sermon. It is well written and I think for a different reader it is probably truly grotesque. I found it a bit boring :/

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Grief, Infertility, Animal death, Cannibalism, Child death, Gore, Ableism, Animal cruelty, Blood, Body horror, Death of parent, Pregnancy, and Slavery

xjessicaherrera's review

dark tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? N/A
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Wow. I wanted to throw up the entire time but the end? Had me so shook. I’m still spooked. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Trafficking, Torture, Cannibalism, and Ableism

melliedm's review

challenging dark tense fast-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

4.0

I mean this in the best way possible: what the fuck.

Tender is the Flesh takes place in a dystopian version of our society where animals allegedly became dangerous to eat, and the majority turned to cannibalism out of their desperation for meat (or their need to fit within societal norms) 

As you can imagine from that description, things are pretty fucked up, and Bazterrica does not flinch away from any dark corner in this world. It’s a meditation on artificial scarcity, violence, humanity, tribalism, abuse, and the objectification of life. You’ll need a strong nerve to get through this one, but it’s a worthwhile journey if you want to stomach it.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Cannibalism, Classism, Confinement, Medical content, Excrement, Pregnancy, Body horror, Child death, Abandonment, Blood, Rape, Sexual assault, Animal cruelty, Medical trauma, Slavery, Death, Death of parent, Dementia, Trafficking, Ableism, Animal death, Gore, Abortion, Domestic abuse, Child abuse, Injury/Injury detail, Misogyny, Murder, Physical abuse, Sexual content, Toxic relationship, and Torture

itsmeb's review against another edition

challenging dark sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? No

4.25

This book is really twisted but kept me interested from the minute I started reading.  I couldn’t DNF since I wanted to find out more about the world the author created. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Racism, Cannibalism, Classism, Sexual violence, Animal cruelty, Death, Rape, Ableism, Animal death, and Child death

ephemeral_remi's review

challenging dark emotional informative mysterious reflective tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Slavery, Ableism, Cannibalism, Excrement, and Violence

thebookworm777's review

dark

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

1.75

Given this book is a translation I will not spend much time on the writing quality itself. I do wish to note though that Bazterrica's style did not appeal to me as I found the language simplistic to the point it was at times distracting. I do not know if this is because of the translation or because this is what was intended. I appreciate simple language and can recognize when its use enhances a story. In this case, I felt that as a literary device it added nothing to the book and indeed detracted at times as I was distracted in some parts by the how repetitious things were becoming. 

As for the plot of this book...what plot? To me this book felt like it was cataloguing daily life in a dystopian hellscape which itself lacked verisimilitude. The premise of the book is that humans can no longer consume animal meat due a virus that has apparently been around for several decades but to which there is no cure or any mutations of the virus. This alone seemed unrealistic to me. Then comes the rest of this highly unplausible off which the book is based: that in the absence of animal flesh, people just turn willingly to cannibalizing each other.

Never once did I feel there was an adequate explanation for why cannibalism was normalized other than that people enjoy eating meat. I have a difficult time believing that people as a whole enjoy meat so much that they'd be willing to socially sanction cannibalism in the absence of animal products. I also have a difficult time believing these actions would take place in a age where we have an increasing number of meat substitutes and lab grown meat is a concept that has been teased for years. The lack of compelling reason for cannibalistic activities to take place truly made this book difficult to engage with a serious work rather than as a poorly created piece of satire. 

A lot of the writing is explicit and horrific, and for what? Because we *must* eat each other? Again, why? In the absence of a true answer to this question I feel like the graphic, gory scenes in this book exist not to make a comment on society but rather as a form of horror porn. Other elements of this book which gave me this impression included the way sexuality, rape, death, torture, and cannibalism are all mixed up with each other. 

Other elements I did not enjoy included overtones of racism, misogyny, and classism. These elements I feel all had the potential to be used in a critical manner but instead just existed for no apparent purpose other than shock. 


In addition to all of the above, the book to me ends with a number of loose ends. The author will introduce what seems to be a plot point only to never fulfill its arc. The last chapter of the book was honestly its strongest but even then I found the writing to be lacking. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Ableism, Torture, Sexual violence, Sexism, Cannibalism, Violence, Trafficking, Murder, and Blood

Moderate: Self harm, Racism, Suicidal thoughts, Pregnancy, and Injury/Injury detail

rkorevenge's review

challenging dark reflective sad tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

This made me queasy and the ending is horrific. Not for the faint of heart. Seriously, check trigger warnings. This was the most vicious storytelling I’ve ever encountered and it just doesn’t stop. It’s just absolutely brutal from the first page to the last. The ending literally made me throw the book across the room in anger. I’ve never had such a visceral reaction to a book. It’s a good book but I will never read it again. I don’t have to read it again honestly because the last line will haunt me for the rest of my life. This is a truly horrific imaging of atrocities that our infrastructures, languages, cultures, and governments are capable of implementing and justifying- and how quickly we would allow it to happen. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Cannibalism, Child abuse, Child death, Confinement, Death, Excrement, Forced institutionalization, Gaslighting, Genocide, Infertility, Medical trauma, Sexual content, Suicide, Terminal illness, Torture, Abortion, Alcohol, Alcoholism, Animal death, Ableism, Addiction, Adult/minor relationship, Animal cruelty, Blood, Colonisation, Injury/Injury detail, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Slavery, Suicidal thoughts, Abandonment, Classism, Death of parent, Dementia, Emotional abuse, Gore, Grief, Infidelity, Kidnapping, Medical content, Mental illness, Miscarriage, Murder, Pedophilia, Pregnancy, Rape, Suicide attempt, Trafficking, Violence, Vomit, and War

sarah984's review against another edition

dark reflective slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

1.0

This was a strange read for me - sort of a cannibalistic version of The Jungle. I didn't mind the matter of fact descriptions of the brutality of the meat industry (in fact, the words the industry has come up with to mask what they're actually doing is one of the few things I actually liked about the book) but could hardly stand any of the rest of it. So much of this book is about this sort of whiny annoying character who feels superior to other people for no real reason, unappealing sex scenes and mind-boggling world building. The idea that the land didn't change at all when most animals were slaughtered is kind of ridiculous, as is the idea that every government in the world agreed to this plan at the same time

when the virus (likely) doesn't exist and it doesn't even solve the stated problem. The Transition is posited to be a solution to "overpopulation" but eating non-agricultural humans is in most cases illegal and the ones in captivity are bred for meat purposes so the population is the same??

I didn't get this book.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Animal cruelty, Gore, Animal death, Cannibalism, Confinement, and Death

Moderate: Ableism, Child abuse, Death of parent, Pedophilia, Child death, Excrement, Medical content, Dementia, Grief, Misogyny, Racism, Trafficking, Violence, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Pregnancy, Rape, Torture, and Toxic relationship

Minor: Addiction, Homophobia, Vomit, Gun violence, Self harm, Abortion, Terminal illness, and Suicide

angiesbookmark's review

challenging dark tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Cannibalism, Child abuse, Child death, Confinement, Death, Sexual assault, Trafficking, Vomit, Pregnancy, Murder, Rape, Ableism, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Blood, Body horror, Classism, Excrement, Gore, Infidelity, Physical abuse, Suicidal thoughts, Torture, Genocide, Infertility, Injury/Injury detail, Miscarriage, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Slavery, and Violence

philtatoss98's review against another edition

challenging dark reflective sad tense fast-paced

5.0

De los mejores libros que he leído en mi vida, pero a que precio.

No se como hablar de el sin dar spoilers pero me parece una construcción increíble.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Ableism, Animal cruelty, Body horror, Blood, Death, Death of parent, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Excrement, Genocide, Gore, Murder, Rape, Sexual assault, Violence, Abortion, Animal death, Cannibalism, Medical content, Physical abuse, Pregnancy, Sexual violence, and Terminal illness