A review by holdenwunders_
Tender Is the Flesh by Agustina Bazterrica

3.0

This may be the hardest book to rate so I went with a solid three because I’m truly not sure if it deserves a five or a one. Perhaps sitting on it longer will make me more decisive but I have a feeling that this is one of those books that sits with you and sinks into your mind and stays there forever. I typically have a high tolerance for gruesome things and I read the first half in one sitting, although it was disturbing, I didn’t feel grossed out or even fucked in the head. Don’t get me wrong this book starts off brutal but it’s all there in the title and in the synopsis so I knew what I was getting into. I took a long break and came back to my second sitting and finished it and man, if I weren’t writing about it right now I’d say I was speechless. We have a main character tethering us in this fucked up world where we eat humans and treat them like we do the meat on our plates today. Our protagonist keeps us grounded albeit his job is pretty fucked, we know there are good people still out there. This is the kind of book that needs some sort of empathy tying us to the book otherwise it would just be a gore fest for the sake of it and what’s the point then?  This book was masterful to say the least. Horrifying to say the obvious. And I’m not sure how I feel except it was done expertly. I’m disturbed. Horrified. Bamboozled. And I know some of these images will stay with me for life.  Grab some Soylent Green and get to reading folks.
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