A review by onthelam
Tender Is the Flesh by Agustina Bazterrica

dark sad tense
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.5

Normally I enjoy grotesque disgusting descriptive books but this was just pointless and insensible? Most of the scenes didn't add to the story and were just dragging. It felt like a short story stretched to fit a whole book. Also, there was some stuff included to make the twist believable but there was so much more against it.
If he didn't care for jasmine at all then why did he name her, treat her as a human and all that? He could have just raped her and kept her in the barn dirty till she gave birth if that was all he wanted. And the things that point to him not being the somewhat moral person as portrayed in most of the book can also be explained by the sense of helplessness prevalent through it like the puppy scene and the fact that he killed his dogs. So really there was no good foreshadowing and it was just there to add shock value.
. I liked the idea a lot and some of the things early on especially the commentary on humanity in general but the execution could have been much better.
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