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A review by fionamango
Tender Is the Flesh by Agustina Bazterrica
challenging
dark
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Loveable characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
easy read, quite a simple writing style but interesting enough to keep you reading. there isn't a lot of dialogue, and most of it is retold and rephrased through marcos' own understanding. and there is a lot of detached, matter-of-fact description of body horror. also a lot of abandoned zoo description. i understand needing to set the scene, but sometimes, it droned on a bit too much. if zoo descriptions were a gun, im not quite sure it ever went off. might just be me. maybe i need to closely read it more.
the book works really well as social/political commentary. i think it could've had more of an emotional impact, but i understand that it's largely due to the distance created by the use of marcos' narrative voice. i enjoyed his unreliability as well, the morality and his almost imploring way of getting the reader to emphasize with him. woe-is-me manhood fr!
i had to reread the last line of The First Fuck chapter, because i wasn't sure if i understood it correctly. was genuinely shocked at the time jump at the next chap though, seeing that Jasmine was 8 months pregnant. knowing that the book only had a couple pages left and seeing what was happening during the end, it was still a gut-wrenching end.
that last line.... might just be a translation error, but i'm not quite sure if it feels like a rewarding gotcha revelatory moment where the pieces fall together. like yes, we know that marcos was never the moral man he purported to be through his pov, and that much is clear through his contradictory acts, but somehow it felt like the sucker punch could've been expounded on a bit more. maybe a sentence or two would've tied it together. maybe i'm just sentimental. either way, fuck marcoses fr. fun read!
the book works really well as social/political commentary. i think it could've had more of an emotional impact, but i understand that it's largely due to the distance created by the use of marcos' narrative voice. i enjoyed his unreliability as well, the morality and his almost imploring way of getting the reader to emphasize with him. woe-is-me manhood fr!
i had to reread the last line of The First Fuck chapter, because i wasn't sure if i understood it correctly. was genuinely shocked at the time jump at the next chap though, seeing that Jasmine was 8 months pregnant. knowing that the book only had a couple pages left and seeing what was happening during the end, it was still a gut-wrenching end.
that last line.... might just be a translation error, but i'm not quite sure if it feels like a rewarding gotcha revelatory moment where the pieces fall together. like yes, we know that marcos was never the moral man he purported to be through his pov, and that much is clear through his contradictory acts, but somehow it felt like the sucker punch could've been expounded on a bit more. maybe a sentence or two would've tied it together. maybe i'm just sentimental. either way, fuck marcoses fr. fun read!