Reviews with content warning for Animal death - Tender Is the Flesh

Reviews tagging 'Animal death'

Tender Is the Flesh by Agustina Bazterrica

2411 reviews

teo_lex's review against another edition

3.75

dark sad tense fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Content Warnings

angbonk's review against another edition

3.5

dark mysterious sad tense 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: Yes

Content Warnings

weirdodari's review against another edition

4.5

dark emotional sad tense fast-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: Yes

That ending is gonna haunt me for a while

Content Warnings

kelseypoisal's review against another edition

3.25

dark tense medium-paced

thought-provoking and intriguing, for sure, but I was expecting more from the ending. it ended the opposite way than I was expecting. but I suppose that's the whole point... in the end,

Marcos conforms just like everyone else, even if you thought he would be better. all he wanted from Jasmine was a baby, but Jasmine herself was still just another head to him.

Content Warnings

wolfheart289's review against another edition

4.5

challenging dark emotional tense fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

The way Marcos experiences sounds like people talking to him is very cool. It sets up every conversation to be a synesthetic nightmare of superiority and sadism. The majority of the plot is just him going around to different sites for his job and taking orders from them, which you'd think would be boring, but the way every interaction is described, the way each person has their own unique way of speaking, makes them so memorable.
Even though Marcos said that he gave up on hating everyone after Leo died because it wouldn't do anything, the way he acts and thinks about most of the people in his life still shows that he carries that disgust and vitriol with him. By the end, it shows how hypocritical he is. He ruminates on how the heads aren't called humans by those in the business because it would add some humanity to them and the rest of the businessmen don't want to think of them like that. He cringes and looks away from the pregnant females who were amputated. He's given a female who he starts growing attached to and he starts teaching how to do stuff like wearing clothes and eating food with proper utensils.
And yet at the end, it's clear he's the same as everyone else. Even when Jasmine starts living with him and doing things, there's still a divide between her and Humanity. She's still treated like an animal and breeding stock, then discarded at the end because of how all she'd learned with Marcos. Throughout the last couple of months that we see of Jasmine and Marcos together, it starts to become clearer and clearer that he thinks more highly of the child than her, and everything he ends up doing to keep her safe is just to keep his new child safe. And since she's a FGP, her genes will be great and she's meant for carrying a healthy child to term. When the Inspector comes by and when she's at home alone, he's worried, but moreso about the fact that he could get caught violating the law and that his unborn child will get taken away to slaughter than anything else. He immediately calls Cecelia when Jasmine starts having problems in labor. Cecelia is disgusted with him at first and then starts to help Jasmine and bond with her, take care of her during labor. And yet at the end, they both ignore Jasmine when she wants to hold her child. Her animalistic fear was replaced by humanity by Marcos, and then she's ignored and killed because of it.
Cecelia and Marcos likely after the story ends get back together and raise their new replacement son, and Jasmine just gets forgotten about (and likely eaten that same night as part of a celebratory birth meal). Cecelia doesn't care about Jasmine beyond a breeding female, even saying how Jasmine could be used to give them more children, which honestly I would expect. Even with going through labor together, she's still seen them as meat first for years, and hasn't seen Jasmine before that day. But Marcos's betrayal and hypocrisy really stung.
I imagine that he'll have less mental/moral issues dealing with suppliers now, given that he's been brought out of his year-long grief and disgust because he now has Leo 2. And he'll have Cecelia with him again and they can play the loving husband, wife, and son again. All of the sadness and rage inside of him that had been fueling his disdain for his work has been clubbed in the head and slaughtered with the birth of his son.
Taking a step back from Marcos and looking at the actual world, damn. I do also believe that the "virus" wasn't real, or at least its effects were blown out of proportion - like if the H5N1 virus was suddenly being described as a world-killer. The cannibalism in general does seem like something that may end up happening as a result of overpopulation - it has already happened previously in history and likely still happens in some places under the radar.
But the way it's been commercialized, with people being dehumanized and reduced to meat is horrifying to read. The tours through the facilities were very descriptive and gory. It's easy to forget about the fact that we eat ham, beef, and chicken a lot, but then when actual people are slaughtered and cut into similar portions, it's harder to deal with. The tour through the breeding facility was particularly bad imo. The tannery was at least just a brief look into the horrors but didn't go into much detail (aside from the Head being very creepy and sadistic). But I think that was just getting us geared up for what would be coming afterward in the breeding facility and then in the actual processing facility where Marcos works. It was just enough to start telling us how disgusting and disinterested the people are with their jobs, and then it slowly ramps up once we start getting more into the story and more desensitised to the previous horrors. The breeding facility where they roast children as a celebratory, expensive meal like veal was horrible to read about. My brain kept protesting the fact that these are humans getting treated like nothing, *children* getting slaughtered and eaten as a delicacy.
I do find the Scavengers really interesting though and wish we'd gotten more information about them. It seems like the "special meat" is addictive, whether naturally or because of some of the enhancements that are done during breeding and processing. I was a bit worried about people starting to eat the brains due to the prion disease, but I guess their medicine has advanced enough to be able to gain resistance to it. Even without that though, it's mentioned in passing how tasty the meat is compared to animal meat. Expensive products combined with addictive meat may have resulted in people no longer able to afford their addiction, become homeless, and then they join a Scavenger group where they can sometimes get their cravings satisfied. In the society though, they're barely a step above the heads in terms of humanity, and worth much less in the society in general. They're still people in the broadest sense until they make too much of a nuisance of themselves when they *try to survive from their addition that Meat Processing Companies made them have*. Once they got to that point, then they were easy to treat like animals - poison, scare, and kill a few of them and the rest will learn fear and will stay away.

Content Warnings

fayziekaywolf's review against another edition

3.5

dark tense medium-paced

Loveable characters: No

Tender is the Flesh effectively explores themes of human brutality, desperation, and moral decay. Through Marcos, we witness a man grappling with impossible ethical dilemmas, strained family relationships, and an unsettling descent into both madness and apathy. His struggle to reconcile personal morality with the horrific world around him is deeply compelling.

That said, I found the book to be somewhat overhyped. While the premise is undeniably disturbing and thought-provoking, the execution didn’t fully live up to my expectations. The ending, in particular, felt rushed—after such a slow, methodical build-up, I was hoping for a more satisfying or impactful resolution.

If you’re drawn to dystopian horror that forces you to confront uncomfortable questions, this is worth a read. Just be prepared for an abrupt conclusion that may leave you wanting more.

Content Warnings

i_love_clifton's review against another edition

3.5

dark

The ending was just… wow

the way he treated Jasmine despite pretending to love her was disgusting. As soon as he was like she’s pregnant I was like nope. No sir you did not just do that! But he did, he pretends to be so disgusted with cannibalism and how “head” are treated but he’s no better than the people who treat them that way honestly.

I get the point of the book, it was just gross at times and I didn’t enjoy the animal abuse. That being said I understand why it written and why it’s important to read so 3.5 stars I guess, I don’t even know any more

Content Warnings