Tender is the Flesh didn't come across as thought provoking as i expected :/ (spoiler free)

I was recommended this book under the premise of it being an interesting and disturbing dystopia with a morally grey character, but I just finished it and honestly i wouldn't describe it that way.

I was pretty surprised to realize that the book has no real plot. That in itself isn't too bad, but i feel like there also wasn't enough worldbuilding or character analysis to justify that choice. To me the book seemed to idle, which was odd since everyone who recommended it mentioned reading it in one sitting or so.

I just didn't find that the world to be much more than the basic description: an alternate world where eating people is normalized. There wasn't much that the book had to say about this concept, and I did think the metaphor was overly ham-fisted all things considered. I was expecting a little more nuance and depth, but most of the visceral moments was simply witnessing a cruelty. I suppose I wanted a little more examination of how a world like this could feasibly come to be, and perhaps some exploration of those supposed moral greys.

Given that the novel was plotless and the world felt more rudimentary, the part that really killed it for me was the main character. Marcos was fine, but when the other elements are so lackluster, a character study is sort what everything defaults back onto. However, the character here is too detached and jaded to be thought provoking. He watches the events unfold with a tempered and blase sort of disgust at times, but that's no more interesting than the reader's actual reaction.

I guess in the end it was sold to me as something it wasn't. I do wish I could go back and read it without expectations.