Tender Is the Flesh by Agustina Bazterrica

This gripping, internationally bestselling novel follows Marcos, a man working at a processing plant where humans—now called “special meat”—are slaughtered for consumption. Everything changed after a sudden viral outbreak made all animal meat poisonous, triggering a global “Transition” in which governments legalized the farming and eating of humans. Marcos goes through the motions, trying to separate his work from the rest of his unraveling life: a wife who has left him, a father declining into dementia, and a world that feels increasingly unrecognizable.

He focuses on numbers, shipments, and procedure—never on the humanity of the product he helps create. But everything shifts when he is given an unexpected “gift”: a live female specimen of the highest quality. Personal contact with specimens is strictly forbidden, yet Marcos finds himself slowly treating her as a person rather than property. As boundaries blur, he confronts the haunting question of what has been lost—and what, if anything, can still be saved in a world stripped of its humanity.