Tender Is the Flesh

De: Agustina Bazterrica

Narrado por: Joseph Balderrama

Working at the local processing plant, Marcos is in the business of slaughtering humans - though no one calls them that anymore.

His wife has left him, his father is sinking into dementia, and Marcos tries not to think too hard about how he makes a living. After all, it happened so quickly. First, it was reported that an infectious virus has made all animal meat poisonous to humans. Then governments initiated the "Transition". Now, eating human meat - "special meat" - is legal. Marcos tries to stick to numbers, consignments, processing.

Then one day he's given a gift: a live specimen of the finest quality. Though he's aware that any form of personal contact is forbidden on pain of death, little by little he starts to treat her like a human being. And soon, he becomes tortured by what has been lost - and what might still be saved.

©2017 Agustina Bazterrica. English language translation ©2020 Pushkin Press Limited. Originally published in Argentina in 2017 by Alfaguara as Cadáver Exquisito. All rights reserved. (P)2020 Audible, Ltd. All rights reserved.

Excellent worldbuilding, lacking in plot

This book can either be an amazing listen or just sort of mediocre depending on the mindset with which you approach it.

If you approach this book as social commentary, it will be pretty lacking, and very superficial. The author tries to get a message across about "Eating meat is bad. Because the meat industry + capitalism are bad, so what if the meat was people." The problem is, I don't think any person with half a brain would consider eating and cannibalism to be the same or similar things. Nobody ever walked out of Soylent Green suddenly vegan. so this particular interpretation of the story was my least favorite, which is why I much preferred the other one...

If you look at this as a soft dystopian world building exercise, it's beautiful. While the plot itself is very thin because it only takes you from one vignette to the other being experienced by a main character whose questioning eating meat and seeing the barbaric practices done by the meat industry and related shady activities. The author questions how each of these things would work "If it were people" and does paint a very interesting world that I wish I could know more about, but this is a soft dystopia, so you get very rough drafts without much analysis of the reasons or the logic behind the things that are being done. You're being presented with horrifying, graphic, revolting situations which are more than worth the price of admission, but at times it just feels, again, like proposing "this but it's people".
It sounds like I'm being overly critical of the book, and it does deserve criticism for its thin plot, and not answering very very big questions of the world it creates, but that world is so interesting and so horrifying that I thoroughly enjoyed living in it for a while because of how much it appalled me.

Worth a read. Take off your social commentary hat. Enjoy the world building.

oh mah gah

Holy moly. I did not see that coming... that is all I have to say.

Disturbing but definitely lacking

I absolutely love the premise of this book. But the writing and plot is just flat to me. It feels like gore just for the sake of gore. Definitely disturbing, but it doesn't really add anything or go anywhere. The ending was so disappointing. Not a waste of time but I wish the story would have actually went somewhere.

SHOCKING!

This was the most beautifully written and captivating monstrosity I've ever read. I am in absolute shock. I don't even know what to do with myself!!!

Meh

Story is decent enough for you to finish but it just didn't do much for me.

What in the dystopian future

This is one of the best dystopian future books I've ever read. It's unforgivingly shocking, disturbingly captivating, and the performance of the narrator is incredible. I will absolutely be listening to this again, as soon as I get over the ending. Wow. 5 stars, I'd give more if I could.

AHMAZINGGG

Gut wrenching, sickening, mind warping masterpiece that takes away all hope from beginning to end. Can it get worse? Surely it can’t, right? Nope. It does. Best story I’ve heard this year.

I guess I'm pretty warped already

Yes, this book was gruesome. The body horror was on point, but I wasn't as impressed as I thought I would be. It defiantly checks all the boxes, but I wasn't shocked or appalled.

The narrator was very good, but incorporated some very interesting pronunciations that became slightly annoying.

I don't feel like the story dragged like some of the reviews say, in fact I felt the opposite. The world Bazterrica creates has so many nuances, and I feel like these nuances could have been developed further. I would be interested in hearing more about the virus itself, more about the religious cults and sacrifices, more about the canned hunting... I feel like these were mentioned in passing and under cooked... however, I understand that perhaps an average listener would not agree...

Truly disturbing

What an amazing ride. I can't remember anytime a book has made me truly contemplate the way I live my life. A lot of books claim to be disturbing, and there are a lot out there. But this really left me with a sense of unease and distrust of others around me. It was written so well and the story was so tense and engaging. What I think made it so disturbing is that is seems like this could happen, maybe even in my lifetime.

The ending shocked me and I did not see it coming. At all. I finished this about 2 months ago and I'm still thinking and talking about it.

Highly recommended!

That ending though….

Fantastic book in every way. Superb narration. Wanted to throw my phone across the room when the book ended.