A review by natashaarvanitidis
Tender Is the Flesh by Agustina Bazterrica

4.25

What a fucking doozy!!! Wild that I just read the most subtle dystopian novel dealing with the commodification of humans and then stumbled right into this one which was graphically detailed and shouting in your face the whole time. It was really good writing though, particularly once you get into the second half where there’s less body horror for the sake of setting the stakes.

I love that the intention was not for the main character to grow in any positive way and that, actually, he just got worse as the novel progressed! I think this is a key difference between this book and others that I’ve critiqued for their violent misogyny and sexism. Our MC does not unpack literally any of the systems of power that exist as he goes. His perspective evolves, but not in a good direction lmao. And that makes that makes this a phenomenal book for people to unpack and investigate what’s going on - the author actively leaves it to us to make judgments about how we see the characters and their decisions. Hopefully that makes sense