A review by akaspiderlily
Tender Is the Flesh by Agustina Bazterrica

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

0.0

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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