Tender Is the Flesh

The book has great writing and natural dialogue. The whole premise is very interesting and the world-building is very good and encapsulates a lot of versatile subjects and fields (hunting, butcher shops, pets, abandoned animal residences like zoos, scavangers, the whole bird premise, etc.). Nevertheless, the plot never actually gets developed - it just feels like a long description of this new world after the transformation and of the backstory of the main character. After beginning the book and getting through the exposition, I began thinking, “What is the message? What could be the ending to this book? What is the goal of this piece of literature? Is this whole description for nothing?”.

And let me tell you: The ending failed to redeem the shortcomings of the plot.

Such a weird plot twist, contradicting everything that we've been told about Marcos until this point. Throughout the book we are shown over and over how he is not indifferent to the horrors of the new world, how he still cares about those “heads”, and how he takes care of his demented father (which is the opposite of his sister). We are shown how he is patient with his wife and how he tries to stay strong despite his tragic circumstances.

And yet...

In the summary we are told that he starts to see the “female” as a human little by little, while reading we see how he slowly starts to treat her better, how he tries to teach her manners... and even after all that he simply kills her in the end; Without even letting her hold her own baby - removing her completely from the equation and the process that gifted Marcos his new child.

Of course, throughout the book we see that he still keeps her locked in the house or installs cameras to watch her and other things, but it still seems that things are getting better for Jasmine gradually... Until we realize at the end that that was never the case at all, which makes Marcos not any better than the other psychos and sadists in the book, in my opinion.

In conclusion, great story-telling abilities, but seems that the story itself was a little half-assed and not entirely thought through.