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A review by glitterdeww
Tender Is the Flesh by Agustina Bazterrica
challenging
dark
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? It's complicated
2.5
To be fair to this book, it is hard to give it an overall rating. From a critical lense, I feel that it was broadly mid, with a few aspects to which I can lend praise.
From a personal lense, I disliked it immensely.
Anyone going into this book needs to understand that this will be a spectacle. That is the point. Spectacles can be enthralling, and that is the one things I believe this book does well. It is wholly compelling, from start to finish. But I would not anticipate plot, characters, nor world building to be well developed or make rational sense. As I read, the plot points answered the question, "how can I be shocking and terrible next?" Some of the most difficult passages lent nothing of value to the (story?), and as I worked through the disgust I was meant to feel, I found little else. The spectacle itself pulled me through this book and left only frustration.
The overarching metaphor of Tender is the Flesh is not just the world of factory farming, but how humans view and treat different sorts of life, including each other. The excess of the story makes this extremely heavy handed, taking what the readers gets from the first 20% of the book and beating them over the head with it until the last page.
People are cruel. They justify atrocities in their daily life over and over. They blind themselves willingly through selfishness. Digging into these aspects of humanity is useful, but I think where I was left most irritated was that there was nothing to pit these negatives against. And that does not make a well-rounded story. At the end of the day, that's why I disliked it. If this was written as a short story, a creative essay digging into just this topic, I would probably view it differently. But there was something lacking here that cheapened the overall product.
From a personal lense, I disliked it immensely.
Anyone going into this book needs to understand that this will be a spectacle. That is the point. Spectacles can be enthralling, and that is the one things I believe this book does well. It is wholly compelling, from start to finish. But I would not anticipate plot, characters, nor world building to be well developed or make rational sense. As I read, the plot points answered the question, "how can I be shocking and terrible next?" Some of the most difficult passages lent nothing of value to the (story?), and as I worked through the disgust I was meant to feel, I found little else. The spectacle itself pulled me through this book and left only frustration.
The overarching metaphor of Tender is the Flesh is not just the world of factory farming, but how humans view and treat different sorts of life, including each other. The excess of the story makes this extremely heavy handed, taking what the readers gets from the first 20% of the book and beating them over the head with it until the last page.
People are cruel. They justify atrocities in their daily life over and over. They blind themselves willingly through selfishness. Digging into these aspects of humanity is useful, but I think where I was left most irritated was that there was nothing to pit these negatives against. And that does not make a well-rounded story. At the end of the day, that's why I disliked it. If this was written as a short story, a creative essay digging into just this topic, I would probably view it differently. But there was something lacking here that cheapened the overall product.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Medical content, Medical trauma, Physical abuse, Animal cruelty, Confinement, Gore, Injury/Injury detail, Pandemic/Epidemic, Sexual assault, Gaslighting, Rape, Violence, Animal death, Blood, Body horror, Cannibalism, Child death, Murder, Slavery, Torture, Forced institutionalization, Genocide, and Sexual violence
Moderate: Pregnancy, Alcohol, Car accident, Excrement, Infertility, and Infidelity