Tender Is the Flesh by Agustina Bazterrica

Hello beautiful people! Welcome back to another book review! For this review I get into the absolute most mind-twisting, skin-chilling book I’ve read in a while, Tender Is the Flesh by Agustina Bazterrica. This is a book that isn’t exactly fun to read, but it’s so hard to put down.

Main Characters:

• Marcos: Is high up in the ranks at the meat processing plant he works at
• Cecilia: Marcos’s estranged wife who left after the death of their young son
• Jasmine: Marcos’s new girlfriend who he meets at an unexpected time

Some warnings:

• Includes cannibalism… like so much cannibalism… and Augustina doesn’t hold back on the gory descriptions
• Includes murder
• Includes abuse

My Review

I was shocked this book didn’t have higher ratings. Don’t get me wrong a book like this is not for the faint of heart, but Tender Is the Flesh by Agustina Bazterrica, while focusing on cannibalism, is a fantastically written book. I crushed it out in a weekend because I couldn’t put it down. It’s one of those books that makes you put your head in your hands and just let out a sigh but in a good way.

I gave Tender Is the Flesh a 9/10 rating. The book itself takes place in a dystopian setting in which all animals have had to be slaughtered due to a threatening disease they have all contracted. This means that consumable meat is no longer well-consumable, or at least you would think. In a world with no meat, human beings come up with a way to turn human meat into consumable meat. Just saying the word human meat is wild. Marcos started out working in an animal meat processing plant. With the transition to human meat, he continues to work in the meat industry. Except the two are very different.

This dystopian world that Augustina has built is absolutely horrifying. I’ll be real it made me want to be vegetarian. A lot of the practices that the non-edible humans use on the edible ones (also how they determine this is fucked up) are ones that they learned using them on animals in animal meat processing plants. Just reading this and imagining an animal in the place of a human-made me queasy. The edible humans come from a purebred collection in which they are stripped of all humanity. They never learn human interaction, or how to speak, they are removed from most human things, but as Marcos frighteningly tells the reader you can’t take away the fact that they look like people.

Despite the extremely disturbing theme and the pretty unlovable characters in the book, it was a stellar read. I would just read a whole book of Augustina describing this world she created. Her ability to use words to paint a picture is a blessing and a curse. I will say though that I am someone who loves an obscure, gritty, dark book like this. I enjoy when books dive into unthinkable topics and just get me thinking of this place and these people that I could never imagine. I find also in horror books I don’t often find myself overly scared, or shocked, but this one got me. I had to have all the lights on while reading this one. Augustina does this incredible job of taking this already scary topic and manages to ramp it up and make it worse as the book progresses.

This definitely is not a happy book, and there is no light at the end of the tunnel in this one. I found Marcos to be a really interesting choice for a main character for this book because despite how clearly horrible this world is, we aren’t exactly getting that sense from him. Marcos is a weird one and one I struggled to figure out for most of the book. He’s cold. He has some trauma that started before the transition of eating humans, but it doesn’t totally explain the way he is. So yes he’s cold, but in some areas, he’s also not. Marcos is clearly living in this horrifying world and is just trying to do anything to get by. He paints a very different picture of the world for us, and it’s one where this is normal. There are parts when he seems to question what he’s doing but then he just goes back into the natural order like nothing has happened. It’s interesting because while his comfort with killing humans was weird to me, it makes sense that it’s normal to him. If you wanted to survive in this new world, you needed to do what you had to. He needed to make money for his family, and even when that family was gone, he still needed to make money to live. I mean to a degree it’s the same as a drug dealer selling drugs that could kill people, I mean for a lot of people in that work it’s just something they have to do to make money.

This book really speaks to human being’s abilities to be cruel. While I am not fully convinced a world like this could really happen, I am also not fully convinced that a world like this couldn’t. It becomes clear that the consumption of human meat – which they call special meat to dehumanize it – has a lot to do with money. In a world where meat is no longer accessible, who loses out? The big meat processing companies and their investors. While this book does take place in Mexico, and presents that Mexico may have been the first place to legalize eating human meat, other countries follow suit. There is genuinely no other reason for humans to have to eat other humans when things like vegetables, fruit, and grains exist. Also in the book they essentially use women as cows for milk and this made me shudder for sure.

This book makes you think about what you would do in a world like this. I mean if one day the government said that specific humans could be consumed I would never do it. But what if you’re born into a world like this? You don’t know anything different and you don’t question it because everyone else around you acts normal about it. This is the big question that comes up with Marco. While he wasn’t born into it, it’s clear that he also isn’t 100% willing to conform. I mean yeah don’t get me wrong he coldly kills people to be eaten by others, but he does still have some sense of his old-world morals and values. We get the sense that this isn’t really a world he wants to live in, but he makes it work. Even with this loss of his wife and son, he’s cold, and he’s lost a lot of his empathetic ability, but we still do get a little sense it’s there. All around a horrible but at the same time fantastic read. I will say though you got to be tough for this one, it’s rough for sure. So just be sure to have all the lights on if you check this one out.

Summary and Commentary

***Please be aware this section will have spoilers***

The book starts off with Marcos working a shift at the meat processing plant. Marcos speaks on the transition and how it came about. With all animals catching a dangerous illness and all needing to be killed, there was no more meat for the world. Without even questioning it, the farming of humans or as they call them in the book ‘heads’, came into play. Marcos presents it like people just seamlessly moved into the transition, and as long as they had meat on the table they didn’t question it. He seems to present like he isn’t comfortable with it, but at the same time, this comes into question because of his job. If he was really so against it he wouldn’t be working for a company that produced it. Marcos tells us that he’s alone. His wife went to live with her mother after the loss of their son and has yet to return. The two still speak sometimes, but it’s not often, and the conversations aren’t often productive.

While Marcos arguably contradicts himself by saying he doesn’t like the human process for meat but works for it, some parts make it seem like he might not really be all for it. He clearly seems depressed. Just based on how he acts it’s very understandable that maybe this contradictive lifestyle is taking a toll on him. It also seems like he also hasn’t dealt with the death of his son, and his dad’s intense illness, in a good way. Marcos seems like a guy who just pushes everything down and keeps going. Then we finally see why Marcos stays with his job. With his father’s intense illness, the cost of his care is not cheap. Also in this world people are at risk of being killed for their meat, and he has to put his dad somewhere good so he won’t be sold, and this is costly. His job at the meat plant pays very well. It started to seem like to me that Marcos’s coldness was very much a symptom of him trying to survive. It probably seems like everything is against him and there isn’t a light at the end of the tunnel.

It’s explained that in this world, all parts of the ‘head’ go to use. Marcos seems to be the guy at work who deals with issues. The company has some frustrated customers who received dead humans and unusable skin for leather. Just yuck. Marcos goes to work smoothing things out with them. What a terrible role to have for someone who doesn’t like this work. It seems like Marcos is his boss’s right-hand man, and again not a great position for someone who doesn’t agree with eating humans. It seems like all day his job is to convince people it’s cool, but he can’t convince himself. Marcos then gives a walk-through to an interested party from another country. The explanation that is given to how they don’t get the heads to kill themselves, their babies, or each other is just horrible. But I know damn well they do this with animals too and it’s just messed up. Furthermore, it’s presented to this interested investor that the heads can be eaten live. You can cut off an arm, eat it fresh, and have the rest stay alive until it’s cut off to be eaten when ready. I am not even sure what to say. Nightmare fuel. It’s also disturbing to see the change in this potential business partner. At first, it’s clear he’s a bit disturbed. When he starts to hear about things like meat and money, he gets way more comfortable. People are willing to sell their morals for cheap.

After doing such a good job on his work, one of his superiors gives him a gift. It’s a pure bread head, all for him. Having a head at home is called a domestic head, and Marcos can keep her and eat her slowly, or have a big cookout with her meat, none the less she’s his now. This isn’t great and having a domestic head takes work. Marcos also just straight up doesn’t want her. He doesn’t know what he’s going to do with her.

One day at work Marcos is tasked with giving two new potential hires a tour of the factory. The tour is the first test, if the newcomers can’t handle the tour then they can’t handle the work. Marcos is good at sniffing out who would be good at the work and who wouldn’t. As terrible as this sounds I really enjoyed this part of this book. Getting this walk-through of this absolute hellscape is just spine-tingling. It gave such a better perspective as well as to what Marcos is dealing with every day, and why he acts the way he does. I mean shit if I had to see what he had to every day my mental health would be in the gutter too. It’s a cruel cold facility, and the only people who are treated as humans are the workers, everyone else is meant to be sold.

After work, Cecilia calls Marcos. It’s clear their relationship is a mess, and both don’t feel like the other is nurturing what they need in the relationship. It doesn’t seem like she’s going to come back to him anytime soon, but at the same time, it doesn’t totally seem like he wants her to. Marcos gets invited over to his sister’s house for lunch and for lack of a better way of putting it, he hates her. I can see why though, his sister is insufferable. It’s clear she’s trying to live this certain type of life without having all of the resources to reach it, she’s a sad woman living a life that’s a lie. She presents herself as caring about things, but only for other people, she couldn’t care less. Her inviting him over for lunch was more for her to say she did it rather than connecting with him. I felt bad for Marcos because I could see that he wanted her to be different, someone who he could connect to. Her personality is very hateful so I see why he avoids her often.

After lunch, Marcos goes to visit this abandoned zoo that he and his father used to go to. When he goes he finds puppies inside. It’s shocking because all animals were killed in the purge, so it seems these pups and their parents missed out on the killing. This part isn’t huge but it plays a big role in what happens next. Marco is reminded of his humanity, morals, and values by seeing these puppies. He goes back to his home and decides he wants to treat the head in his barn better. He goes home and cleans her up. It seems that he’s enjoying taking care of her, and has missed getting to spend intimate time with someone, even if it’s someone who can’t talk back. We can all guess what happens next. He does something that is forbidden. He has sex with the head, I would argue raping her since she can’t give consent and has zero clue what’s going on. It’s interesting because again he contradicts himself. He goes to this zoo, and is reminded of life, but then does this? It’s odd, and it’s clear he’s off the hinges a bit.

The book then transitions into part two. We can assume it’s been sometime later, how long, it doesn’t say. Did you read the character list I put at the start? Notice how I mention Jasmine? You’ll never guess who she is. Jasmine is the head that was living in the barn. After having sex with her Marcos takes he into the house and really domesticates her. He essentially moulds her to be his partner. She’s a chore though because she wasn’t raised as a human, she was raised as an animal. Her vocal cords were removed so she will never talk, and she just doesn’t know how to live at all. He has to teach her to be a human. There’s something else. Ms. Jasmine has a bun in the oven. God damn. I didn’t know how to feel about this. Apart from me was happy that he was treating her as she deserved and was letting her be a person, but something felt icky about it to me. It almost reminded me of grooming a child. Her brain is so empty that he can mould her to be what he wants and needs. She really can’t do much, but she can be a warm body, a comfort, and a babymaker. Still, Marcos even says that if he was caught he would be killed and sold for his meat.

Jasmine and his unborn baby become a bit of a problem. All he wants to do is spend time with them, and his work performance has been slipping. He doesn’t really seem to care though because all he wants is Jasmine and his baby. With his love for Jasmine now he can’t eat meat, and that’s also making people raise a brow at him. He really isn’t playing it cool in my opinion and is very much making it seem like he’s up to something. In the next bit, we get to see all these scenes of Marcos showing his love for Jasmine. He wants her to have a good life and wants to treat her well. There was a degree though to which I questioned if he cared for her, of the fact that she carried his baby. If he just wanted her to be happy and safe for that fact and nothing else.

As the book went on I really struggled to decide what I thought Marcos felt about Jasmine. There are lots of sweet kind parts, but then there are other parts where he’s very dismissive of her. I think I settled on half and half. He liked her to a degree, but probably liked what she could provide to him most. If she wasn’t able to give him a baby and be so affectionate and loving, he wouldn’t treat her the way he does. Marcos’s father dies and this is where he gets a bit dismissive and neglectful with her, seeing her more as a burden to a degree than a partner. With his father dying his wife is often reaching out to him and checking up on him. I wondered if she would end up coming to their house and would be in for a surprise. With the loss of his father Marcos turns a bit cruel. Not so much with Jasmine but definitely with his sister which in all honesty is fair.

After his father’s funeral, Marcos gets home after being gone for a lot of the day. When he gets back he’s surprised to find Jasmine in labour. It also doesn’t look good as her water is an unsafe colour and is insinuating trouble. Marcos panics knowing he can’t take her to the hospital and has no idea what to do for her. He calls Cecilia because she’s a nurse. He gets her there with little information and then drops the bomb on her. Cecilia was not as horrified as I would have been and just sprang into action to help Jasmine.

I honestly even hate to say the ending. It’s one of those ones that makes you so mad but at the same time given how everyone in this book is it should have been expected. Cecilia helps Jasmine have her baby. When Marcos meets the baby for the first time who is a boy it becomes clear to him that the baby is in the arms of the only person who could raise him, and he isn’t in Jasmines. With Cecilia coming back to him, he doesn’t think about Jasmine again in the ways he did before. It’s just so fucking cold but before Jasmine can even hold her baby, Marcos kills her. All Cecilia can say is that she could have given them more babies. It doesn’t even seem like Marcos thought twice, he tossed Jasmine out like the trash once the baby was here. Maybe that was his plan all along though to get Cecilia back, I mean who the hell knows. I know it’s stupid but I wanted Jasmine and her baby to have a happy ending. It also felt like any of the good parts we saw of Marcos weren’t real, he was putting on this show, just like his sister to pretend to be this person he wasn’t. This person who values human life. The truth is once he got what he wanted he couldn’t care less. Given how this book was though for all the rest I shouldn’t have thought that would be a possibility. I honestly don’t think Marcos ever really cared for Jasmine, just what she could provide for him. A filler until he got what he wanted back.

Overall it was a terrible ending to a terrible (terribly good) book. In a world of this crew, why would Jasmine and her baby ever be free from the control of others? It was their destiny always. I mean it’s the same when we think about animals though. Which was why I definitely haven’t been eating a ton of meat since I read this book. It just got me thinking a lot about how we as humans like to tell ourselves that animals and things don’t have the same awareness and consciousness as we do so it’s okay to treat them as we do. I mean even in this dystopian world they tried to tell themselves it was fine to eat humans because they aren’t as aware as regular humans but they are literally HUMANS! It’s so contradictory, and our practice with animals is too.

I hope you enjoyed this review! Have you read Tender Is the Flesh by Agustina Bazterrica? If so what did you think? If you haven’t read this one do you think you’ll check it out? Feel free to follow me on all my socials @baddiebookreviews to be kept up to date for when I release a new review!