“The human being is the cause of all evil in this world. We are our own virus.”

Damn, this was a rough read at times. I love a good dystopian tale and the idea of a government-mandated cannibalistic society is perhaps one of the most gruesome dystopian themes I've read about (and one of the most appalling, especially with the ways Tender is the Flesh explores that cannibalism leading to dehumanizing people in other, even more awful ways).

Going into this book, I knew Tender is the Flesh would comment on the obvious themes of animal abuse in the meat industry, but I didn't expect such an in-depth and breathtaking exploration of the ways we "cannibalize" one another through capitalism and the casualties that a capitalist society forces its people to accept as normalized by desensitizing us to them. One of the more shocking moments in the book involved pregnant females being treated horrifically during the "breeding" process, and while the scene itself was haunting, what hit me hardest of all was how completely believable it felt.

I think the most successful dystopian narratives are the ones that hit close enough to home that they strike terror deep into our hearts because, if only for a moment, we can see a vision in our mind's eye of how humanity could actually devolve into what we're reading on the pages, and Tender is the Flesh absolutely excelled at that for me, all the way from the beginning to that devastating, painful ending.

✨ Content warnings for: violence, death, gore, cannibalism, rape, forced pregnancy, imprisonment, torture, infant death, grief, animal abuse

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