Tender Is The Flesh by Agustina Bazterrica

Where humanity turns to meat—Tender is the Flesh is a harrowing dystopian exploration of dehumanization, survival, and the darkness within us all.

RATING: 5/5

Tender is the Flesh by Agustina Bazterrica is a chilling, visceral exploration of humanity’s darkest capacity for cruelty, presented in a dystopian future where society has turned to farming humans for meat. The premise is disturbing: a virus has rendered animals deadly to humans, and in a grotesque twist of survival, humanity begins farming and processing people just as we would livestock.

The novel follows Marcos, who works at a processing plant, where he witnesses and participates in the horrific methods used to breed, raise, and slaughter human beings for consumption. The details of this process are deeply unsettling, from the removal of vocal cords in infants to ensure they remain compliant, to the harrowing accounts of turning human skin into leather. There are moments in the book that are so stomach-turning that you may find yourself needing to put it down and take a breather, but that is part of the power of Bazterrica’s writing—it forces the reader to confront the horrific undercurrents of human behavior.

At first glance, the premise may seem like an extreme work of fiction, but as you read, you can't ignore the uncomfortable truth that this type of exploitation is not entirely out of the realm of possibility. History has witnessed the horrific dehumanization of entire groups, such as the brutal treatment of enslaved Black people in the United States, where their bodies were used for labor, experimentation, and even made into objects like leather goods. In this sense, Tender is the Flesh may be set in a dystopian future, but it holds a disturbing mirror to our past and questions the lengths to which humanity will go when it sees others as less than human.

This is not an easy read, but it is undeniably important. Tender is the Flesh forces us to look at the ways in which we can dehumanize, commodify, and destroy. It is a stark reminder of the cruelty that can occur when society loses its moral compass. If you are not overly squeamish and are open to confronting some of humanity’s most uncomfortable truths, this is a book worth reading.