(No spoilers)

I just finished reading this book after receiving a very strong recommendation. Reviews for this book are overwhelmingly positive but I really don’t know why.

If you’re not familiar, Tender is the Flesh is a fictitious novel about a dystopian future where (almost) all animals have been killed, due to a deadly virus they pass to humans, so the government’s solution is to now breed humans for human consumption. This also has the added benefits of solving homelessness and overpopulation since we now just kill and eat all the “undesirables”. Talk about a diplomatic solution!

Now you may be asking yourself, without the necessary animals to support our ecosystems, how will anything grow or survive? If humans are eating humans, what are we feeding the humans that are meant to be eaten? If we’re not feeding them human meat, then why can’t we all just eat the same non-human based diets? Why do we even have to eat meat at all? Rest assured that these questions, and more, will not be answered.

It becomes aggravatingly clear in the first few chapters that the author gave little to no thought about the actual biological or ecological impacts this fantasy future would have on the world. Instead the book sweeps the necessary details under the rug and instead chooses to indulge itself in the treatment (i.e. mistreatment) of these humans who only exist to be eaten, purely for shock value. Even this it does not do well. In the moments where the book attempts to shock and disgust its audience, it merely falls flat and flounders under its ridiculous and unbelievable premise. Like a magician with no sleight-of-hand, there’s no mystery here.

The story at times teases that it might address broader topics like factory farming, animal abuse, human trafficking, misogyny, drug addiction, homelessness, overpopulation, government-overreach, or any number of other social issues. Instead we get meaningless characters that show up then are never mentioned again followed by atrocious acts with no redeeming value other than to make you feel sick.

The real shock of this book is how transparent and unlikeable the characters are. I’m not going to spoil anything, despite my recommendation that no one wastes their time reading this book. I will however say that the ending is a real Game of Thrones season 8 slap in the face. If the author thought they were being clever, they weren’t.

The only good thing about this book is that is wasn’t longer. I was glad to find this book at my local library. I would have been mad had I paid for this book. I was curious to find my library only had one copy, but now I’m thinking one was too many.

EDIT: In the spirit of fairness, I’d like to add that I do believe the author has story telling talent, which is evident in the writing. I do however still feel like it was wasted on this story.

EDIT 2: For anyone who feels like I missed the point, I will respectfully disagree. I understand the point (or points) the author thought they were making, I just feel like they did a really poor job of it. You can't expect me to suspend my disbelief indefinitely.