emma's Reviews > Tender Is the Flesh

This was so disturbing but oh so incredibly good. Could not put it down!

Heather wrote: "This was so disturbing but oh so incredibly good. Could not put it down!"

my kinda read!!

Not lunch break😂 I am a little hesitant to start this one……

one of the best books ive read all year fr ! good luck with that hideous end

I felt so differently! This book was an inditement of the horrors of factory farming. It was also an inditement of people who ignore injustice and embrace cruelty if it benefits their own personal comfort, personal profit, and/or social conformity. It made me think of trump fans who revel in cruelty to "others" as an almost in-group bonding thing, and defend policies like beating the cr+p out of peaceful protestors and separating little kids from their parents at the border. (Not to mention weakening already weak usda oversight of the meat industry.) don't think this book would have impacted me so much five years ago, but I used to believe more in the humanity of most other people...

G wrote: "I felt so differently! This book was an inditement of the horrors of factory farming. It was also an inditement of people who ignore injustice and embrace cruelty if it benefits their own personal ..."

i got the factory farming and indictment of humanity but honestly it differs from my worldview! i don't think people and animals are the same and i don't think humans are so unfeeling

lei wrote: "one of the best books ive read all year fr ! good luck with that hideous end"

one of the best books and you three starred??? you're crazy wildcat

sp wrote: "Not lunch break😂 I am a little hesitant to start this one……"

i would say that hesitancy is warranted

I want to hear more about what you think! Looking forward to the review.

This went beyond factory farming for me. That wasn't the lesson it felt like it was trying to teach.

History is filled with humans absolutely abusing each other based on arbitrary criteria. With capitalism the dominant system (and arguably unsustainable system), the author is showing that money and class makes injustices and inequities like "fresh" human meat an acceptable norm.

Compare that to people bragging about "owning" slaves.

This world is possible because it had happened. The author takes the scenario to its extreme by forcing the eating of people's flesh (because we already have a history of breeding people and taking their children).

SAME. also not a big fan of how the author explains everything as if we couldn't understand on our own

While I agree with you, I think it is important to know that the author is from Argentina and their attitude toward meat there is a lot more...intense.

Amanda wrote: "I want to hear more about what you think! Looking forward to the review."

here she is!

Selena wrote: "This went beyond factory farming for me. That wasn't the lesson it felt like it was trying to teach.

History is filled with humans absolutely abusing each other based on arbitrary criteria. With ..."

i'm glad this book worked for you and i don't think authorial intent matters as much as reader perception - but this book is intended to be about factory farming

Mary wrote: "SAME. also not a big fan of how the author explains everything as if we couldn't understand on our own"

it felt like the world's most obvious allegory truly

Amber wrote: "While I agree with you, I think it is important to know that the author is from Argentina and their attitude toward meat there is a lot more...intense."

interesting context!!

I agree it’s about the worst possible extremes of money and class as well as how precarious holding onto our humanity in desperate circumstances can be. The author did a brilliant job of making us feel some empathy for Marcos living in such a society, participating in the horrors of the meat industry, dealing with traumatic personal loss, and supposedly only feeling alive when he was with Jasmine or with the puppies. Then that gut punch of an ending.

I had the same problem with this book, I would've loved it if horror was its main genre and just for the horror itself, but I could sense the vegetarian speech throughout the book, it ruined the book for me.

I feel like it’s sadistic for the sake of being sadistic. I also find it weirdly tedious. Almost DNFd after the end of chapter 6 - just WHY?? Will try to finish because apparently the ending is interesting but damn.

Did you live through the pandemic? I could 100% see this being a potential in our future, whether a virus like this actually occurs or the government convinces us it exists

This sorta reminds me of several books I’ve read lately, one being Stephen King’s The Stand which I only read bc so many people had raved about how it’s so similar to how the pandemic played out and there were so many parallels between it and our reality. But I can’t get down with the dramatics or people claiming such extremes are ‘relatable’. Like there’s a significant difference between a relatively small portion of the population panic buying toilet paper and human meat farming. It’s just nonsensical and making these comparisons is just as ridiculous as panic buying toilet paper.

I definitely didn’t see it as an essay on “ why you should be vegan”
It seemed much more on the level of dystopian exploration of to the extremes propaganda can brainwash ppl

Was I the only one that thought this book had nothing to do with animal consumption? In no way did I think the author was trying to horrify us into suddenly realizing that eating animals is wrong.

In my opinion, this book it about propaganda, complacency, and the dangerous lengths we will go to when we successfully “other” groups different from ourselves.

Remember the book is from LATAM, and yes we are THAT susceptible to propaganda

I would personally suggest this is not so much about factory farming but more so about femicide? The book mostly focusing on violence against the female "cattle" and how... There are a lot more avenues for men to exploit them in comparison to the males. Especially in the end with how his sister keeps her personal FGP, that's not a way anyone keeps their animal so I doubt it is a critique on that.

When a book cover looks like the poster for an Almodóvar film… I’m really grateful for the review and thoughtful discussion which follows.

YES

I understand your perspective. Have you read Upton Sinclair’s “The Jungle”? Classic!

welp, i'm glad this book worked for so many of you! and i'm not even being sarcastic <3

Erika wrote: "I understand your perspective. Have you read Upton Sinclair’s “The Jungle”? Classic!"

not in years, might be time to revisit!

"i don't believe that humans are this unendingly susceptible to propaganda and unempathetic in their hearts."

The author of this book grew up during a period of dictatorship in Argentina, with thousands killed by state terror. Obviously that's not necessarily the entire basis of Bazterrica's creative choices, but I think it's worth keeping the difference in experience in mind for readers from wealthy and relatively stable Western countries.

"i don't believe that humans are this unendingly susceptible to propaganda and unempathetic in their hearts."

You must have missed the Trump administration, when people bought 100% into obvious propaganda and became unempathetic, terrible beasts. Or... like 99% of history class. Human slavery still exists in this world. In 2023. As does human trafficking.

If you don't think our treatment of animals is this bad or that we could be this unempathetic you should watch Dominion on YouTube. It is this bad and they desperately need strong animal rights messages like this.

The point of the book isn’t that cannibalism is the same as eating other animals. You’ve missed the entire point of the book.

It’s an analogy about how YOU, as an animal eater, can so easily turn off all obvious moral and ethical signs of extreme distress that you’re literally ripping off limbs of a sentient being (that’s much more similar to you and me than you and other animal eaters care to admit to) because you want to fit into society and are just that goddamn greedy, even when the entire violence can be switched off with a bean burger.

You described it as horror lit, correct? So the situation depicted in the book is horrific? Then, by that standard, what you and every animal is forcing onto the animals you eat is literally horror and you’re the villain in their lives. And all it takes to stop it would be for people like yourself to eat a bean burger or another plant based option instead. And the reason you don’t - that’s where the book gets interesting. And that’s the real question to ask yourself. What does that say about you? What does that say about the people around you? Are you a good person? They are serious questions posed by the book.

@ Nicolas - I’m pretty sure it’s about Nazism and how Marcos is a hypocritical “middle man” who doesn’t think he has any culpability whatsoever even though he helped design the system, perpetuates the system, does nothing to defy the system but judges everyone else IN the system he helped create. It’s an argument against the “just following orders” excuse a lot of Nazis used. At least that was my interpretation.

Totally disagree with the initial comment (it's even insensitive and ignorant) by Emma but agree with all responders. This book is powerful and has a strong message.

Also there are culture that are cannibals and for you to say that the book is silly because YOU dont think that people have that much hate in their hearts to do these types of things, makes me feel that you have not educated yourself nearly enough to comment on this sort of book. But go back to your hot girl list or whatever lol

I wish I had your positive view on humanity!

Slavery in the American South, the Holocaust and many many many other genocides. Colonization. Capitalist exploitation in the global economy - people living in poverty working in dangerous conditions, burning alive in the factories where they work long hours making our clothes. Women who can’t afford to have and care for their own kids but who can sell their eggs or become surrogates for the wealthy. I don’t think this book is primarily/solely a commentary on how we treat other animals. It’s a look out how we already treat our fellow human beings because we think we are entitled to get everything we want, which inherently involves dehumanizing others and taking away their autonomy.

You missed the point of the book. You also have a very limited view on humanity. Just take a look at history- we are VERY susceptible to propaganda.

I think the beauty of this book is it both a dive into how far would humans go to protect their personal livelihood and the theoretical. The “cannibalism” portrayed in the book has already played out is a less literal sense in the real world (garment workers working 17 hour days so we can buy fast fashion for example) and the detachment people can feel from these other, very human people is represented beautifully in the book. It’s also a dive into how far we’d go to protect something we think we deserve, such as eating meat. Eating meat is seen not only as a part of a healthy diet in most countries, but also a status symbol. The rich eat meat, the healthy eat meat, or from a potentially feminist perspective, men and people in power eat meat. Meat being seen as we are eating “people” is interesting in this sense, because it is representative of the lengths people will go to to maintain power and control, of their world, their lifestyle and others.

This review did not age well. We are watching thousands and thousands of innocent people being slaughtered and starved to death in the name of a country “defending” itself. So dehumanized that they are referred to as “human shields”. Humans are this cruel.

Where is the hot-girl-books shelf for not-hot-girls to read?

everyone this review is 2 years old and about factory farming. it is not my intention to say that genocide is not currently going on — i didn't mean to add this review to my update feed and i've removed it since. all i meant in 2022 is that i believe humans are more good than bad. sorry i've offended so many people and that this review isn't phrased well — i will go back and edit it