A review by zsabella
Tender Is the Flesh by Agustina Bazterrica

dark tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.5

sadly, I can’t recommend this novel not just because of the violent content and intensely graphic scenes, but because it feels obviously half-baked. if the world-building were better executed and planned out I could have at least praised that, but I feel some regret for reading this.

characterization & narration
heavy usage of pronouns are used to refer to the protagonist instead of “Marcos”. it was hard to keep track of which characters were doing or saying different things, especially when they identified as male or weren’t given unique names. I’m still wondering if this was a tool used by the author to intentionally dehumanize Marcos or if it was a byproduct of translation.

I was left wanting more from all the side characters and exploring their relationships with Marcos. it felt odd that Marcos and Cecilia’s entire relationship and parenthood journey is given what feels like a montage reel in a single chapter in part I. Marcos is just ok as a morally gray character, and serves well enough as a protagonist who grew up already working in an unforgiving industry. however, I was surprised that he wasn't shown having a more active role at the processing plant, like a stunner or assembly line butcher, and felt like an opportunity was missed while reading about him as a higher-up executive instead.

the quality of dialogue and nuance deteriorated as the plot advanced. the author literally skips over what could have been added characterization of Cecilia by writing: 
“Cecilia says that the umbilical cord needs to be cut, and the baby cleaned and wrapped up… Once she’s taken care of these things, Cecilia hands back the baby…”

I would have loved to have delved into Cecilia’s mind, even for just a couple sentences, in those last moments of the book but it barely goes deeper than surface level. Marisa felt under-developed too—it’s obvious she was a representation of the “sheeple” who have blind trust in their government and institutions, but that’s all the author cares to write about with her.

I do want to point out that the narration by Joseph Balderrama was enjoyable and elevated the writing. his voice work for the side characters aren’t overdone or distracting. I like how smoothly the production was edited and it definitely heightens characterization and tension, which I would find lacking without the accompanying audiobook.

plot & themes
the premise falls apart for not being thorough and left me wondering why this society has never solely relied on alternative food sources. it also raises questions about where human and animal rights groups ended up after the transition. were they all steamrolled by the government too? it comes across as if the author was really proud of writing vivid, brutal scenes of assault, animal abuse, and other depraved acts, then wrote in an underdeveloped premise to prop up these scenes.

the way exposition was written becomes heavy handed and oversimplified in part II. part II is less shy in villainizing the government, but doesn’t actually interrogate the end goal of the entire system. essentially, it just points and says “look how bad it’s all gotten! isn’t butchering and eating people so awful?” part I did a much better job of world-building than the second, where every aspect of the special meat industry that is depicted begins to feel gratuitous or stale.

my biggest gripe is with how the ending is handled. Marcos’ decisions to ask Cecilia for help and immediately eliminate Jasmine after labor is purely written for shock value. rather than dissecting how keeping a specimen might further damage his and Cecilia’s relationship, or parsing out Cecilia’s thoughts on raising a half-specimen child in an epilogue chapter, the story stops dead in its tracks. it’s implied that Cecilia would still be glad to raise the newborn with Marcos, even after calling him “crazy”, “sick”, and even though she realizes the potential consequences of him impregnating a specimen. so when I read the following line: “As though his words were magical, she [Cecilia] begins to move and tells him to start boiling water, to bring clean towels...” largely motivated me to drop my rating.
Expand filter menu Content Warnings