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caffeinatedwaffle 's review for:
Tender Is the Flesh
by Agustina Bazterrica
challenging
dark
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
This book is disgusting - in the most deliberate, artful, and unbearable way. Bazterrica doesn’t rely on shock for its own sake her prose is surgical, her world-building suffocating. The horror here isn’t otherworldly. It’s systematized, bureaucratic, disturbingly plausible. What an awful awful dystopia.
I had to finish the last chapters sitting on my stoop. I literally had to leave my house, like I needed air. I read it fast not because I loved it, but because I couldn’t bear to draw it out.
The protagonist is slightly sympathetic, and that makes it worse. His numbness, grief, and flickers of resistance cut deeper than any gore. He exists “…like a caged beast born of caged beasts born of caged beasts,” to borrow Beckett’s line. You feel that claustrophobia in your bones.
No one else could have written this book. It’s singular, sickening, unforgettable.
Five stars. I hope I never read it again.
I had to finish the last chapters sitting on my stoop. I literally had to leave my house, like I needed air. I read it fast not because I loved it, but because I couldn’t bear to draw it out.
The protagonist is slightly sympathetic, and that makes it worse. His numbness, grief, and flickers of resistance cut deeper than any gore. He exists “…like a caged beast born of caged beasts born of caged beasts,” to borrow Beckett’s line. You feel that claustrophobia in your bones.
No one else could have written this book. It’s singular, sickening, unforgettable.
Five stars. I hope I never read it again.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Gore, Miscarriage, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Slavery, Suicidal thoughts, Torture, Violence, Medical content, Cannibalism, Murder, Pregnancy, Sexual harassment