Showing posts with label Bazterrica (Agustina). Show all posts
Showing posts with label Bazterrica (Agustina). Show all posts

Sunday, March 17, 2024

REVIEW: Tender Is the Flesh (book) by Agustina Bazterrica, translated by Sarah Moses

Tender Is the Flesh could be considered a blend of horror and speculative fiction. I bought my copy brand new.

Review:

Marcos is the son of a butcher whose primary focus, right now, is ensuring that his father, who has dementia, gets the care he needs and is respectfully cremated after his death. In this new world, where an infectious virus has supposedly made all animal meat and products poisonous to humans, it's not an easy goal. Meat for human consumption is supposed to come from genetically modified head, bred to age faster, or from First Generation Pure (FGP) head. Special meat isn't supposed to have a name, but it's not unheard of for deceased people to end up sold on the black market, and Marcos wants to make sure that never happens to his father.

We're given detailed descriptions of what Marcos' job at a meat processing plant is like, as he talks to tanners, breeders, and others his company works with, and gives potential new hires a tour of his plant. He can barely stomach this work anymore, to the point that he secretly stops eating meat altogether, and it nearly pushes him over the edge when a client gifts him an FGP female.