This book is a wild and disturbing ride. I’m not sure how to talk about it without spoilers, so if you haven’t read it and want to – don’t say I didn’t warn you.
In the world of this book, all animals have contracted a virus that makes them poisonous to humans. And when I say all animals, I mean cows, pigs, chickens, and other livestock, but also birds, and cats and dogs, and squirrels. And believe me, I KNOW the animals being poisonous was not the point of the book. But two things about this virus freaked me out. My number one boogieman is rabies, so I kind of equated this to all animals having a rabies-like virus. There’s no cure, and you can’t get scratched or bit by any of them or you’ll die, which is terrifying. But perhaps a bigger problem for me – I can’t imagine not being able to interact with animals. Nobody can have a pet. All pets had to be killed for safety, which is heartbreaking. There are very few if any wild animals roaming around. You won’t see a squirrel or a deer in your yard without being paralyzed with fear. I’m writing this as my cat is rubbing his face all over my computer and my hands while I’m typing. I CANNNNOT imagine a world without animals. I probably could’ve read and entire book about this virus and how not having animals around affected people. But like I said, that is not the point of this book.
Since animals are poisonous, governments all over the world made it legal to eat humans. Our main character (I won’t call him our hero) is Marcos. His family owns a “special meat” slaughterhouse. Marcos is very careful to call his meat “head” and “livestock” so that he doesn’t have to think about killing humans. In fact nobody ever calls them humans, or describes their deaths as murder, since they’re food. All of this is disturbing, of course. Throughout the story we watch as Marcos slowly unravels up until the shocking (to me) conclusion that I probably should’ve seen coming.
If you’re in for one of those “interesting read, but never again” books, this definitely fits the bill. Just a warning though – there is a part where dogs get brutally killed. I could warn you how graphic it was if I actually read it, but of course I couldn’t. I skipped through until there was no more mention of puppies. I don’t know what it says about me that I could read about humans getting slaughtered and not dogs, but I’ve always been that way. There’s something about the innocence of animals that makes me very protective. And I’m not saying that I enjoyed the parts where the humans are killed, but they did not disturb me NEARLY as much as the animal parts.
