Tender is the Flesh - Book Review

The premise of "there isn't enough food, we need to eat each other" is a very common premise within dystopian works.

Books such as Lapvona and The Road all have a moment of heightened desperation that causes people to turn to cannibalism. In these moments, the change is quick and ravenous.

But what if that change happens slowly, over time? What if the entire world slowly acclimates itself to cannibalism?

Tender is the Flesh, written by Augustina Bazterrica, is set in a world where animals were all wiped out. All animals have been infected with a virus that causes them to be fatally toxic to humans. This includes animals used within the meat industry.

But don't be mistaken, there is still a lot of food in this world. There's no lack of fruits or bread or vegetables. Only meat.
But I guess there are some people who just can't live without it.

Slowly, over time, a new 'special' meat is slowly integrated into butchers and shops. At first, it was only available for the wealthy then slowly became more accessible until it was affordable to everyone. The special meat is made from human cattle meat. We'll talk more about that industry in a bit.
But this isn't a Soylent Green situation, everyone who buys this 'special' meat KNOWS it's people.

They just don't mind.

Enter our protagonist, a meat-plant worker named Marcos Tejo. He's just your average guy, he has a strained relationship with his family, he works a job he doesn't particularly enjoy and he's no paragon of justice. Although he's used to "processing" cows, he's gotten used to the new special meat.
I love the way that Bazzterrica describe the new industry by the way. She describes it as a sterile industry, that the vocabulary gets exchanged for cleaner terms so that it somewhat feels normal. It's very 1984 in that sense.

“there are words that cover up the world.”

Killing is now called "processing", the people in these farms are called "heads", the males "studs" and so on and so forth.
But the thing is, this kind of language isn't new. These are the same words used in the meat industry today.
Also, she describes each step of the meat... gaining? Process with horrific detail. However, if you google it, it's the same processes that are used on cows.

I won't spoil the rest of the plot, it's a short book and a good read so I suggest you go read it yourself! (If you don't mind the topics.)
Now, for some thoughts.

1. I didn't really get the ending? I'm not sure if it was a translation thing (this book was originally written in Spanish) or if I missed something but I didn't quite understand it. I did understand that ultimately they continue to use these people not people for their own gain but the final words didn't really make sense to me.
I checked out some reviews on goodreads and it seemed that everyone was 50/50 on the ending.

2. My own personal issue but there were so much unnecessary sex scenes. Why?

3. Overall, I loved the book. I felt really bad for the people in the stables. If you think about it, where they were born determined whether or not they deserved to be called human.
And for what? Noone was starving. There were still lots of food. It's explicitly stated in the book that at the start, only the rich could eat the new special meat. It reminds me of this quote from the book :

“After all, since the world began, we’ve been eating each other. If not symbolically, then we’ve been literally gorging on each other."

Good read, I recommend it.