Warning: This review contains spoilers for the novel Tender is the Flesh

The metaphor of a caged bird or a caged animal is one often used to describe someone who feels trapped. There is no way out of their current circumstances. They feel a certain frustration, sadness, or anger at being unable to escape and live their life freely. This is the exact feeling I had as I read Agustina Bazterrica’s Tender is the Flesh. This novel is a horror novel. However, it is not horror in the sense that I felt terror or jumped up from my seat. There was a creeping sense of uncertainty, the disturbing feeling of watching everyone treat something as normal that you know is very wrong. I was forced to watch the events of the novel take place just as our main character was forced to live them.

Tender is the Flesh follows Marcos, a man plagued by the loss of his son and estrangement from his wife. But even more so, he is plagued by his conflicting senses of morality. He lives in a society where, in the aftermath of a widespread virus that infected all animal meat, humans have been deemed an acceptable food source. Except they aren’t referred to as humans. And everyone around him seems to have accepted the transition without much thought. He himself works at a processing plant where they prepare those very humans — that is what they are after all — for consumption. Marcos grapples with his disillusionment until one day, someone gifts him a young woman specimen. Soon, he finds his bond with the woman deepening, in a way strictly prohibited by law.

Bazterrica’s description of the dystopian society in Tender is the Flesh is nuanced and yet subtle enough to feel real. Her characters are not so over-the-top and exaggerated that you struggle to suspend your disbelief. In fact, quite the opposite. It is all too easy to believe that this society could be real, that this outcome could be a possibility. The characters push aside morals in favor of pursuing their own selfish interests. Those at the top are for themselves. And those at the bottom are taken advantage of by those at the top.

Even Marcos, who is arguably the most morally intact of the characters, still falls starkly into the moral gray area. His cognitive dissonance reflects on the reader in many ways. Marcos is in the business of human slaughter. And yet he doesn’t eat meat. He hates the people he works with. And yet he continues to work with them. In many ways, Marcos is a caged animal. He is a product of his circumstances. Marcos hates his work but he needs a way to support his father and he is still dealing with the grief of losing his son and wife. Knowing this, we can sympathize with him.

But how much can we justify without falling into the same cycle that Marcos has? How much can Marcos distance himself while still actively participating in this society, before we decide he’s just like the others? Marcos’s “relationship” with the woman specimen begins to answer these questions. The woman starts as “woman,” “specimen,” “head.” But she becomes “Jasmine,” named by Marcos himself. This is where the real disturbance starts.

Agustina Bazterrica does a brilliant job of weaving in real social issues in a society that feels both real and unreal. Jasmine is Marcos’s victim. We watch as he creates what he what like to call a “relationship” with her. In all actuality, this is a hostage captive situation. Jasmine is infantilized as many women are, yet at the same time treated as a product for sexuality. Marcos names her and keeps her chained, all while feeding her, watching movies with her, and cuddling her. Much like an animal, a pet, except without much of the love and agency afforded to a pet.

Yet despite this, there are points when I, as the reader, was tricked into believing that Marcos felt real love for Jasmine. His actions were deplorable, the “relationship” was pure abuse. But was his motive based on real feelings? The book’s premise sets the reader up to believe it may be true. The blurb on the inner cover reads: “Little by little he starts to treat her like a human being.” And I could believe this for a time. Until I couldn’t.

The book’s ending drives one point home: no one here is the good guy. There is no love between the makers and the product. To view another human as a commodity is to sacrifice the ability to truly love them or treat them as a human being. Watching Marcos and his wife rip the baby from Jasmine’s arms and huddle together, reveling in the joys of their rekindled life, was heartbreaking. They ignore Jasmine, Marcos ignores Jasmine who he claimed to love, as she desperately reaches for her baby, no functioning vocal cords giving her the option to cry or scream. Here is another reflection of reality. A woman’s body as a product and a machine. The woman stripped of her agency, having literally no voice to stand up for herself.

As the reader, I realized I was forced into my own cognitive dissonance. Why was there ever a moment when I could try to justify or rationalize Marcos’s actions? I quickly became Marcos. I could see myself reflected in him and that was the true horror of this novel.

There is one moment in the book that I have marked, a quickly scribbled note to myself on the page. It’s the scene when Marcos learns of the game reserve. This is where people hunt the specimen, the “head,” for both consumption and sport. Only those head in the best physical condition are chosen, to challenge the hunters. My note to myself reads: “Even without other animals, humans need something to hunt.” Do humans crave a sense of superiority, of control? Does the prey really matter when the outcome is the same?

This book hunted me with all the elegance of an apex predator, or perhaps a human with a rifle. It tossed me out into unfamiliar territory, watched me run about, caged me, and then changed the rules of the game. The hunter becomes the hunted. The hunted becomes the hunter.