Tender Is the Flesh

Carnal, intimate, raw. Terrific world building within an incredibly brisk read that immediately made me think of a Fahrenheit 451 meets Soylent Green. Now before some of you look up the latter, do yourself a big favour and go into it blind. It's nowhere near disgusting enough as much word of mouth has indicated, but then again I'm just used to whatever is thrown at me. What I really love is the way Augustina Bazterrica weaves her dystopian narrative where human meat has been made legal in order to help with overpopulation, starvation, and various after effects of a global pandemic—there were a handful of pages that got a little too close to our COVID plagued reality. And if you think generally accepted cannibalism is where it stops, you'd be sorely wrong. Bazterrica treats us an assortment of twisted yet not too unbelievable scenarios like human poaching fields, sex clubs where dinner is the show, slaughterhouses that detail the efficient slaughtering of humans now called “heads,” and much more. If Goodreads allowed it, this rating would be a 3.5, not 3. I mentioned 451 earlier, and I do think the story and our protagonist Marcos, could have benefited from a Captain Beatty foil. My biggest gripe is that it wraps up a little too fast and despite its subtle thematically mind lingering coda, is rather anticlimactic.

Tender is the Flesh is very ready to be adapted to the screen, HBO miniseries or film, but I'm picturing Diego Luna as our lead, Ana de Armas as Marisa.