Tender Is the Flesh

By Agustina Bazterrica, Sarah Moses (translator),

Book cover of Tender Is the Flesh

Book description

It all happened so quickly. First, animals became infected with the virus and their meat became poisonous. Then governments initiated the Transition. Now, 'special meat' - human meat - is legal.

Marcos is in the business of slaughtering humans - only no one calls them that. He works with numbers,…

When you buy books, we may earn a commission that helps keep our lights on (or join the rebellion as a member).

Why read it?

5 authors picked Tender Is the Flesh as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

This book has a wonderfully brutal premise, one it doesn’t compromise in the least while exploring it to the fullest, which is brilliant. So many books cop out, not wanting to upset readers. So many books shape a speculative world to make a point or create drama when the world simply wouldn’t develop that way organically. Not this book.

And it has contemporary relevance. Looking at the MAGA push for a white evangelical dictatorship in America, which will start by capturing 10 million Hispanics (who, as a bonus, are also likely Catholics) and putting them in concentration camps, you can…

There isn’t another horror novel written in the past ten years that scratched at my brain as much as this one. Baztericca’s brilliance lies in her writing a story that no one else has thought of before. The subject matter–humans have run out of animals to eat–seems like an obvious one.

What is striking about the book is that it is told in an almost clinical fashion, observing horror with a detachment that is precise and unemotional. The plot follows one man through the routines of his life, but it’s the world in which he exists that haunts you. By…

Very rarely does a novel truly shock and surprise me – in a good way. This one sure did. 

Argentinian Bazterrica has created a dystopian world in which cannibalism has been normalized after a deadly virus depletes the world’s food sources. Out of this horror, a love story of surprising tenderness emerges between a worker in a human abattoir and one of his intended victims. 

It is a work of true originality that makes you question what it means to live in a world where our humanity is becoming increasingly degraded and commodified.

The last line in this novel will tear your heart out, if you can make it past the grim descriptions of legal human-livestock trade when cannibalism is the only source of meat in this dystopian tale.

The prose is cold and concise, just like the reality it depicts. Our main character, a human-livestock dealer, takes us through this new gritty landscape of people raised for breeding and for consumption after a virus renders all animals toxic to humans. Everything has changed, from not being able to own pets to how we deal with the death of a loved one.

It’s…

I would be remiss if I wrote a list of day-ruining books without at least a little bit of cannibalism. Don’t fret though, because this book is nothing but graphic human slaughter and cannibalism! Absolutely no one in this book is having a good time, and you won’t either! I am a filthy meat eater but this book makes a hell of a case for never touching the stuff again. It’s mildly insufferable of me to say, but there are few things that shock me anymore – and this book made me feel physically ill at multiple points. It’s absolutely…

From Leighton's list on to completely ruin your day.

Want books like Tender Is the Flesh?

Our community of 12,000+ authors has personally recommended 100 books like Tender Is the Flesh.

Browse books like Tender Is the Flesh

Book cover of Blood Meridian: Or the Evening Redness in the West
Book cover of Johnny Got His Gun
Book cover of Complete Stories and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe

Share your top 3 reads of 2024!

And get a beautiful page showing off your 3 favorite reads.

1,501

readers submitted
so far, will you?

5 book lists we think you will like!

Interested in dystopian, cannibalism, and evangelicalism?

Dystopian 627 books
Cannibalism 30 books
Evangelicalism 38 books