Reviews tagging 'Gaslighting'

Tender Is the Flesh by Agustina Bazterrica

23 reviews

jemmers's review

challenging dark emotional sad tense medium-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

5.0

This book was cruel and lean. Starts off at a moderate pace and builds to a fast, brutal conclusion. It’ll sit with you. The world and characters are horrible and I couldn’t look away.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Grief, Rape, Infertility, Infidelity, Kidnapping, Murder, Sexual violence, Animal death, Dementia, Forced institutionalization, Gore, Medical content, Blood, Confinement, Animal cruelty, Miscarriage, Body horror, Trafficking, Torture, Death, Injury/Injury detail, Physical abuse, Slavery, Violence, Death of parent, Genocide, Child death, Gaslighting, Cannibalism, Misogyny, Pregnancy, and Sexual content

therealmsroth's review

dark tense medium-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? No

4.5

Explores the ethics of mass cannibalism, sure, but more about the ethics of eating meat at all. Equates the meat industry to slavery and not-so-subtly forces you to question your own diet habits and systems of oppression you participate in, but never question. Brings to mind the power of language to nullify and neutralize that which is gruesome and horrific by nature. Some gross moments, of course, but mostly an impressive text that made me think... What if the most horrifying circumstance and all the details necessary to make it function, were just an accepted reality?

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Forced institutionalization, Body horror, Animal death, Infidelity, Rape, Trafficking, Pandemic/Epidemic, Grief, Gore, Child death, Cannibalism, Pregnancy, Murder, Slavery, Gaslighting, Sexual assault, and Classism

akaspiderlily's review

dark slow-paced

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

To be frank, it’s a terrible read. It is highly disturbing, while offering no real substance outside of its graphic detailed description of a cannibalistic future society. There is a fetishization at play almost, and the main character is a violent, raping, sociopath, whose only “human” characteristic lies in the fact that he does not enjoy eating human meat like “normal” with everyone else. Additionally, I found the truly horrific parts of it entirely too pathetically dismissive of the history this society would have had, as if caging humans, breeding them, hunting them, experimenting on them, and eating them, was not something practiced by white conquistadors and slavers on African and indigenous people. There is a literal mention of one of the villains in the story having a picture of a white colonizer with human heads in Africa as a point of reverence, yet only this present-day dystopia is horrific? Terrible. 0 stars. This is why I stay away from white authors.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Colonisation, Injury/Injury detail, Pedophilia, Abortion, Body horror, Child death, Domestic abuse, Torture, Violence, Mental illness, Miscarriage, Cannibalism, Confinement, Death, Death of parent, Drug abuse, Emotional abuse, Excrement, Forced institutionalization, Gaslighting, Genocide, Gore, Medical trauma, Murder, Pandemic/Epidemic, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual harassment, Sexual violence, Stalking, Suicide, and Trafficking

cinderpot's review

challenging dark emotional sad fast-paced

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

5.0

Good book, pretty fast pace but the translation does not do it justice. Translated version was a bit hard to follow. Very dark and gruesome though which was exactly what the book entailed!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Pandemic/Epidemic, Child death, Death, Drug use, Forced institutionalization, Injury/Injury detail, Sexual content, Animal death, Blood, Cannibalism, Death of parent, Dementia, Gaslighting, Gore, Grief, Infertility, Murder, Pregnancy, and Sexual assault

royalwaves's review

dark tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No

3.5

This is a tricky book to review for me personally. 98% of all the horror I read or watch doesn’t affect me so I mostly consume them for the spooky plot and the writing. Basically, I’m extremely critical about things in the thriller and horror genre.

Now this book is tricky because I felt very meh about it most of the time except for a few areas where I scrunched up my nose in disgust. This isn’t a new concept to me so the shock wasn’t there and I do believe that if we end up in a similar circumstance this wouldn’t be that far off. Which usually terrifies people but personally I’m so disconnected from everything that I’m unbothered by that thought- I should really talk to a therapist about this. Emotionally this book would either be 2.5 stars or 3 stars.

But, the reason it’s not getting that low of a score is because of the writing. The way this book was put together and crafted is great. And I want to read more from Agustina Bazterrica. That being said if this wasn’t so hyped, especially by one of my favourite Booktubers aka Katie Colson I don’t know if I would have finished this. I just did not care about Marcos or his family at all.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Cannibalism, Torture, Body horror, Death, and Murder

Moderate: Animal death, Gore, Gaslighting, Infertility, Blood, Pregnancy, Grief, Child death, Dementia, Violence, and Animal cruelty

Minor: Sexual assault and Rape

glitterdeww's review

challenging dark medium-paced

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

2.5

To be fair to this book, it is hard to give it an overall rating. From a critical lense, I feel that it was broadly mid, with a few aspects to which I can lend praise.

From a personal lense, I disliked it immensely. 

Anyone going into this book needs to understand that this will be a spectacle. That is the point. Spectacles can be enthralling, and that is the one things I believe this book does well. It is wholly compelling, from start to finish. But I would not anticipate plot, characters, nor world building to be well developed or make rational sense. As I read, the plot points answered the question, "how can I be shocking and terrible next?" Some of the most difficult passages lent nothing of value to the (story?), and as I worked through the disgust I was meant to feel, I found little else. The spectacle itself pulled me through this book and left only frustration. 

The overarching metaphor of Tender is the Flesh is not just the world of factory farming, but how humans view and treat different sorts of life, including each other. The excess of the story makes this extremely heavy handed, taking what the readers gets from the first 20% of the book and beating them over the head with it until the last page. 

People are cruel. They justify atrocities in their daily life over and over. They blind themselves willingly through selfishness. Digging into these aspects of humanity is useful, but I think where I was left most irritated was that there was nothing to pit these negatives against. And that does not make a well-rounded story. At the end of the day, that's why I disliked it. If this was written as a short story, a creative essay digging into just this topic, I would probably view it differently. But there was something lacking here that cheapened the overall product. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Medical content, Medical trauma, Physical abuse, Animal cruelty, Confinement, Gore, Injury/Injury detail, Pandemic/Epidemic, Sexual assault, Gaslighting, Rape, Violence, Animal death, Blood, Body horror, Cannibalism, Child death, Murder, Slavery, Torture, Forced institutionalization, Genocide, and Sexual violence

Moderate: Pregnancy, Alcohol, Car accident, Excrement, Infertility, and Infidelity

livlamentloathe's review

challenging dark reflective 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

I don’t think words would do this book justice. It says so much without saying anything. Engrossing. I was forced to disassociate from my body to read the details.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Cannibalism, Gore, Murder, Trafficking, Pandemic/Epidemic, and Violence

Moderate: Animal death, Child death, Grief, Rape, Excrement, Animal cruelty, Blood, Death, and Religious bigotry

Minor: Death of parent, Infertility, Gaslighting, Infidelity, Rape, and Vomit

emmie2468's review

dark fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? No

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death of parent, Torture, Murder, Cannibalism, Child death, Dementia, Rape, Death, and Gaslighting

simp4sneks's review

challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense fast-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

I highly recommend looking at trigger warnings before reading thism it goes in depth on the butchering, tanning, breeding process of HUMANS in a cannabalistic world. I dove into this without looking at proper TW, and even though I enjoyed the writing and the author very much, I wish I took a proper look into what I will be reading.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body shaming, Confinement, Death, Emotional abuse, Pedophilia, Pregnancy, Racial slurs, Racism, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual harassment, Sexual violence, Slavery, Torture, Toxic relationship, Ableism, Blood, Body horror, Cannibalism, Child death, Classism, Domestic abuse, Gaslighting, Medical trauma, Mental illness, Misogyny, Murder, Rape, Self harm, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Child abuse, Death of parent, Dementia, Excrement, Forced institutionalization, Genocide, Hate crime, Medical content, Miscarriage, Pandemic/Epidemic, Panic attacks/disorders, Violence, Vomit, Fatphobia, Gore, Grief, Infertility, Infidelity, Suicide attempt, Trafficking, Cultural appropriation, Eating disorder, Abortion, Adult/minor relationship, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Antisemitism, Injury/Injury detail, Kidnapping, Physical abuse, and Sexism

jupitermaybe's review

challenging dark emotional reflective tense fast-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gaslighting, Sexual assault, Physical abuse, Racism, Classism, Blood, Medical trauma, Murder, Death of parent, Cannibalism, Child abuse, Confinement, Death, Pregnancy, Slavery, Torture, Gore, Body horror, Child death, and Dementia

Minor: Infertility, Pandemic/Epidemic, Excrement, Medical content, Dementia, Vomit, and Grief