{"id":773,"date":"2025-06-28T23:57:40","date_gmt":"2025-06-29T06:57:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/soundsnews.com\/staging\/6766\/?p=773"},"modified":"2025-06-28T23:58:19","modified_gmt":"2025-06-29T06:58:19","slug":"https-soundsnews-com-tender_is_the_flesh","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/soundsnews.com\/staging\/6766\/https-soundsnews-com-tender_is_the_flesh\/","title":{"rendered":"Tender Is The Flesh\u2014Atrocity, Inclemency, Excess and Sadism"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>This entire book is graphic. Do not skip the Trigger Warnings.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Cannibalism, Animal Cruelty, Gore, Child Death, Rape, Murder, Death of a Parent, Infertility, Human Trafficking, Misogyny, Dehumanization.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Proceed with Caution, this is not a book for the faint of heart.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This year the Book Club decided that rather than reading a specific book every month, we would recommend books to each other in genres we don\u2019t typically read. Despite my love of reading, I\u2019ve never read a horror novel or anything particularly gruesome. That said, I have been interested in expanding my horizons. This is where \u2018Tender Is The Flesh\u2019 by Agustina Bazterrica comes into the equation. To preface all of this\u2014I went into this book blind. I didn\u2019t do any research beforehand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In a world where humanity has resorted to cannibalism to satiate an ever-increasing desire for meat, we meet Marcos Tejo, a boss at a \u201cspecial meat\u201d processing plant. It\u2019s a plant that processes humans for meat. After a bit he is given a \u201cprime specimen female\u201d who he names Jasmine. The rest will be left up for the reader to discover when they read the book.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This book retails for $17.99 at Barnes & Noble (or free if you go through the Timberland Regional Library).\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I overall have mixed feelings, but let\u2019s start with the good. The worldbuilding is extensive and detailed. Bazterrica clearly thought this through and did a lot of research into meat processing for this book. It\u2019s all incredibly gross, but gross in a good way. It\u2019s poignant. I am a sucker for good worldbuilding; It\u2019s one of my favorite hobbies. So I appreciate the level of detail and work she\u2019s done in creating this dystopian world. The sheer reminder that these people are talking about other humans as livestock is chilling. A particular quote I feel illustrates this best happens rather early in the book on page 72.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>\u201cIn another, smaller room, they see red entrails hanging from hooks. The workers inspect them, wash them, certify them, store them.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It plays in the back of your head that these aren\u2019t just animals, they were humans. Who, if born to a different family, would have lived full lives. Gone to school and played with dolls. Instead, they were slaughtered for the meat on their bones. Their skin flayed and sent to become leather. Their organs are <em>certified <\/em>and <em>sold<\/em> for profit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Our main character also plays into this. Marcos is someone who kills humans for his job. He doesn\u2019t like it, but he still does it. He gets <em>paid<\/em> to do it. He, and basically everyone else in this world, excuses cruelty to satisfy their appetites and pocketbooks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It\u2019s haunting, really.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It raises questions about the treatment of animals in our reality. How, if we wouldn\u2019t accept this treatment for humans, why should animals be treated any differently?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">However\u2014despite my appreciation for the gore and world, I still have some problems. Firstly, and I\u2019ve never said this before with a book, it felt like worldbuilding overtook the entire novel. Feeling more like it was switching between worldbuilding, then vignettes of plot, worldbuilding, then vignettes of plot. I still enjoyed it, but I would have appreciated more actual story rather than info dumps disguised as scenes (even if those scenes were pretty funny, see pages 144-150).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">That said, my biggest gripe was the ending\u2014in that it felt completely unearned. The Marcos we follow for 99% of the book would not have made that final decision at the end. And the more I think about it, the more frustrated I get. A twist for the sake of a cynical, cruel twist. If Bazterrica wanted such a gut-wrenching twist then she should have <em>written<\/em> the build up for it, not a blink and you\u2019ll miss it moment near the end. It would have added more pages, but it would have made the ending both sensical and well earned.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But I must add that this might be a translation choice\/issue. \u2018Tender Is The Flesh\u2019 was originally published in Spanish and translated into English by Sarah Moses. Languages are inherently tied to culture and cultural contexts. Some words in Spanish do not have the same connotations that they do in English. For example\u2014Spanish has two words for \u2018to know\u2019, conocer and saber. Conocer denotes a more personal connection, while saber denotes a more factual knowledge. You\u2019d use conocer when discussing your family or hometown but use saber when discussing academic or business information. Both would be translated as \u2018know\u2019 but they don\u2019t <em>exactly<\/em> mean \u2018know\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This might explain some of the stilted prose and dialogue. Context and information lost in translation. It\u2019s stilted for American readers but may be perfectly fine in the original Argentinian context. This might just be a case where the original is better than the translation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Overall, while I really enjoyed the book at the start, the ending kind of ruined it for me. I gave this book 2.75 stars\u2014close to average but falling short due to the ending.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">If you are interested in \u2018Tender Is The Flesh\u2019 then by all means explore and find copies. I may not have enjoyed this book, but you may.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This entire book is graphic. Do not skip the Trigger Warnings. Cannibalism, Animal Cruelty, Gore, Child Death, Rape, Murder, Death of a Parent, Infertility, Human Trafficking, Misogyny, Dehumanization. Proceed with Caution, this is not a book for the faint of heart. This year the Book Club decided that rather than reading a specific book every [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-773","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.8 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Tender Is The Flesh\u2014Atrocity, Inclemency, Excess and Sadism - Sounds News<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/soundsnews.com\/https-soundsnews-com-tender_is_the_flesh\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Tender Is The Flesh\u2014Atrocity, Inclemency, Excess and Sadism - Sounds News\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"This entire book is graphic. 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