This book wasn't at all what I expected. I would personally sooner call it speculative fiction than horror, because while the setting was certainly a bloody dystopian cannibalistic society as expected (and seriously, look up content earnings because it does get pretty repulsive), the focus of the story itself seemed to me more about how a morally grey individual would move within that world. This is a crazy comparison but it was almost like a slice of life story, but cursed. I just wasn't expecting nearly so much focus on the main character's internal world and personal life compared to the external one.

Regardless of expectation, I found many of the ideas being explored really compelling, and I really liked how the book prompts the reader to consider how close our own society is to the one described and to question what their own role would be in it. Essentially, what moral and ethical lines would be crossed when you are afforded significant personal benefits from crossing them? I think that's something we unconsciously weigh every day, and this book brings those questions more to the forefront. I also wish I had more of an understanding of the cultural context since this is a translated work featuring an intentionally international cast, and I could tell there was something important there that was going over my head.

That said, while the concepts were terrific, the execution didn't totally work for me. I really feel that there were some places where the horror elements were meaningful and functional and well thought out, while in others they were just there for the shock and gore of it all and don't actually stand up to scrutiny and therefore require some suspension of disbelief. There are discussions of grief, capitalism, overpopulation, poverty, government, science, veganism, even religion all in the mix, many of which were touched on but explored in very little depth. Most of the character were also present for only one or two scenes and then totally left aside. I'm left feeling like either the book needed to be longer to properly tease out everything introduced, or it needed to be shorter and bite off less.

All in all, I am not that disturbed and won't be having nightmares or going vegan over this, but I'll probably think about it now and again in those moments where I get the uncomfortable feeling that I'm contributing to a system against my own interests and beliefs.