Reviews tagging 'Toxic relationship'

Tender is the Flesh by Agustina Bazterrica

78 reviews

marisa_n's review against another edition

challenging sad tense slow-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

1.0

Too slow & graphic. DNF at about 75% mark.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Toxic relationship, Miscarriage, Infertility, Gore, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Suicide, Body horror, Cannibalism, Violence, Sexual violence, Death, Blood, Torture, Rape, Pregnancy, Grief, Mental illness, Death of parent, and Child death

feedog02's review against another edition

dark sad medium-paced

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

5.0

Most (as in all but two) characters are all morally gray, leaning into morally black.

Unhappy ending, last sentence confused me, I interpreted it as " She had the hu­man look for a do­mes­ti­cated an­i­mal." instead of "She had the hu­man look of a do­mes­ti­cated an­i­mal."

Irregardless of the final line, the ending itself was chilling and dark. 👍

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Cannibalism, Child death, Death, Death of parent, and Pregnancy

Moderate: Animal cruelty, Sexual content, and Animal death

Minor: Torture and Toxic relationship

angela_iseli's review against another edition

dark tense medium-paced

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

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Torture, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexual content, Pregnancy, Slavery, and Toxic relationship

Moderate: Mental illness and Medical content

Minor: Infidelity

kyrstin_p1989's review against another edition

challenging dark sad tense fast-paced

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

3.5

Disturbing doesn’t even begin to touch the surface. I definitely didn’t anticipate the ending. I thought the protagonist had changed but ultimately this book proves that people will do heinous things to get what they want. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Blood, Cannibalism, Colonisation, Confinement, Death of parent, Dementia, Grief, Violence, Pregnancy, Medical content, Classism, Death, Toxic relationship, Torture, Sexual assault, Murder, Infidelity, Infertility, Child death, Gore, Slavery, Sexism, Physical abuse, and Medical trauma

verbamatic's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional sad tense medium-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Gun violence, Cannibalism, Rape, and Murder

Moderate: Toxic relationship and Kidnapping

sar_a_i's review against another edition

dark reflective tense medium-paced

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

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Death of parent, Infidelity, Cannibalism, Toxic relationship, Pregnancy, and Grief

Moderate: Child death, Sexual assault, Dementia, Rape, Trafficking, and Slavery

aformeracceleratedreader's review against another edition

challenging dark tense fast-paced

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

3.0

Read trigger/content warnings! There is a lot of unsettling content.
Overall, a good, horrific book. Not horror in the tradition sense of some mystical spooky creature or one bad guy lurking, but because it is something you could see actually happening in the world on such a massive scale. cannibalism is a scary thing to think about and in this book it is government sanctioned. It's also horrific because this is what the meat industry does to animals on the regular which we as consumers don't think about. So seeing humans being treated like cattle or pigs is quite jarring in many ways. Like how could you get to a point to treat people like this and how did we get to the point to treat ANIMALS like this right now, today.
The ending was a little shocking but also a bit disappointing. I had to read other discussions on the ending to really understand and think about how the story led to that moment. So it made sense when I really thought about it but it was a bit unsatisfying at the same time.
Also, there was brief mention of specifically black men being hunted for sport that I felt was kind of unnecessary and using black people's trauma/death as an unneeded detail. The author could've gotten the point of a specific character being creepy/dangerous/unsettling without using black trauma. I just want to warn any reader who doesn't want to see that in the books they want to read.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcohol, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Blood, Body horror, Death, Death of parent, Dementia, Gore, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, Sexual violence, Torture, Cannibalism, Child death, Classism, Confinement, Miscarriage, Misogyny, Trafficking, and Violence

Moderate: Alcohol, Drug use, Excrement, Misogyny, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Slavery, and Toxic relationship

thereaderfriend's review against another edition

challenging dark mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

4.5

This book is haunting. So gory and graphic. Calls out how disgusting humans can be. The way that people treated humans (mainly women, and lower class members of society) that were discarded or chosen to be "special meat" was insane. They even bred "heads" -- "special meat". Some even "sacrificed" themselves, but the readers were raised to question if it's really sacrifice; "a sacrifice generally requires consent from the person being sacrificed..." But what really got me was how easy it was for people to transition from animal meat to human meat because of the supposed overpopulation, impoverity, etc. I don't know how anyone can justify cannibalism. It seemed like the transition took place through a matter of months! That's so short! Definitely seemed like many were very prepared. The things you do to live... and what that means to people is astronomical. This book raised many hard questions and reflections. I was so uncomfortable most of the time and rightfully so. So glad I read this. Definitely recommend to those that can handle gore and analyze through it. Definitely took time to read. Was slow in some parts too but didn't hate it.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Cannibalism, Animal cruelty, and Child death

Moderate: Death, Death of parent, Gore, Rape, and Torture

Minor: Vomit, Violence, Toxic relationship, Sexual content, Pregnancy, Infertility, Grief, Fire/Fire injury, Excrement, Confinement, Alcohol, Blood, Body horror, Cancer, Animal death, Miscarriage, Medical trauma, Infidelity, and Dementia

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

callikat's review against another edition

challenging dark slow-paced

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

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Pregnancy, Rape, Cannibalism, Death of parent, Body horror, Toxic relationship, Murder, and Slavery