I didn’t like this book quite as much as I hoped to. I did really enjoy the first half, learning about Maria’s time as a vampire, getting to see Buenos Aires grow up around her. However, I felt like I kind of hit a wall when I reached the second half. I didn’t feel nearly as invested in Alma, and don’t feel like the book really gave me enough time with Alma to become invested. I appreciated how the two halves connected, but the ending also just felt so so rushed — I was left not fully understanding why or believing that Alma would make the decision she did.

The writing was beautiful though, and I LOVE the cover. Ultimately I hope this author gets more of her work translated, because I would be curious to read it.

This was a solid 3.5 stars for me.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for the ARC!

Thirst by Marina Yuszczuk, translated by Heather Cleary #sixteenthbookof2024 #arc

CW: murder, death, vampirism, discussion of suicide attempts

This book follows two women in Buenos Aires. The first half follows a nineteenth century vampire who calls herself Maria, although that’s not her name. She is nameless for much of the book until she is assigned her moniker by a man. Maria details her multiple decades in the city and her deadly interactions with her community, and she ends up living in a cemetery crypt after she’s run out of town. The second half of the book follows Alma, also unnamed for most of her section, who is caring for her dying mother in present day. Maria and Alma don’t meet until near the very end, and I wish there was more that showed their obsession with each other, because it seemed sort of sudden and unearned.

Most of the book is about each woman’s grief and loneliness. The language is lyrical and the translation is beautifully done. I enjoyed the first half more than the second, maybe because there was more vampirism described and that’s my jam. But the second half was heartbreaking in the descriptions of Alma facing her mother’s illness and impending death. I wish the book spent a little more time focused on the two women together, but it’s a lovely story that’s worth reading.

Thank you to @duttonbooks and @netgalley for the advance copy. (Pub date 3/5/24)

#thirst #ladyvampire

While this book is not what I was expecting, it was still wonderful.

I really enjoyed the different emotions and feelings the book pulled from and was quite surprised to have liked it as much as I do. This book may not be for everyone but those who do read will LOVE it

There is something satisfying about a horror that doesn't offer a happily ever after.
Alma sinks deeper into isolation. The dissolution of a marriage paired with a mother's nightmarishly slow death leaves Alma vulnerable.

Or liberated?

Still not sure. But that's sort of what I like about this novel. There is no easy solution.

I really enjoyed this story! I'll admit I preferred the first half to the second half, but about 3/4 in I finally got invested in Alma's story as well. I think it makes sense to a certain point that her story is less interesting because it might feel familiar to so many. The first half we follow the life of a girl turned vampire centuries ago, we see her grow and adapt through time and then finally she finds herself at a point where she knows she can't continue on the way she had been. Then we skip to more modern time and with a woman dealing with the grief of a dying mother, and being a mother herself watching her child become more independent, while dealing with her own frustrations in life. It is a beautiful and many times emotionally draining look at women and how they deal with different aspects of their sexuality, grief and other aspects of their lives that don't get spoken about often. I received an ARC copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

The first half of this book through the vampire's perspective was gory and fascinating. And then much like the other middling reviews here, the second half lost me. When we jump to our human's POV, the story dragged a lot. Perhaps this indicates how different time passes for an immortal versus a mortal woman, but I still struggled to see the connection. And that ending!? I both love/hate it?
I'm torn on this one, mainly because I'm uncertain what our author was trying to communicate through this story. But I know I enjoyed at least half of it.

This was a refreshing take on vampires, and I really enjoyed it. There’s just something about translated fiction that hits different.

There’s a beautiful, gothic ambiance throughout the book that really ties the two stories and characters together. I enjoyed the prose as well; sometimes, you can feel that a work has been translated due to the stiff, unmelodic flow. That wasn’t the case here.

I do wish there had been a third part. I also wish the two stories had had more overlap beyond the one point. And perhaps more yearning. It felt a little bit just like lusting.

This read was short and absolutely worth it for anyone interested in vampires and their requisite eroticism, gothic translated fiction, something literary that leans heavier on the horror, messy bisexual women who can’t help but ruin their own lives, or a combination of the above.

All opinions are my own. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an advanced copy in return for my honest review.

Thank you so much to NetGalley and Marina Yuszczuk for providing me with a complimentary digital ARC for Thirst coming out March 5, 2024. The honest opinions expressed in this review are my own.

I received this directly from NetGalley. This is the first book I’ve read by this author. I love vampiric novels like most people. But I wasn’t sure what to expect from this novel. I really loved the first part of the book. I love historical fiction, so it was really interesting to me to see a vampire live out their life and the passages of time. The second half of the book is where the author lost me. I found it not as interesting. I was having a hard time seeing the connection between the two stories, and I really didn’t like how it ended up. I just thought the tone was a little weird in second half of the book. I do love translated books and will check out other books by this author.

Thanks to Netgalley for my advanced copy.

I was absolutely sucked into this story. The writing was rich, evocative and erotic. It was a beautiful vampire story which was so much deeper and thought provoking than I ever expected. Character work was done very well. There was plenty of time spent building and examining everyone, which made the story feel raw and real.

I would easily recommend this to anyone that enjoys vampire tales with deep themes and beautiful writing.

Review posted to StoryGraph and Goodreads on 2/22/24. Review will be posted to Amazon on 2/22/24.

What a delightfully odd book about grief, longing, and mortality. The structure of this book allowed for us to witness two parallel stories play out and recognize patterns of loneliness and yearning repeating themselves decades apart. There were multiple scenes throughout the novel that were absolutely heartbreaking and had me in tears. This is a book I’ll be recommending to all my friends who love horror (be it through the supernatural or just the trudge of being a human at times).

Thirst by Marina Yuszczuk, translated by Heather Cleary, is a modern Gothic that took me by surprise from the very first page. The narrative unfolds in two distinct yet interconnected parts:

First we are introduced to our vampire protagonist; she's feral, seductive, elegant and utterly wicked. Forced to relocate from Europe to Buenos Aires during the 19th century, she learns to survive and adapt using the height of the Yellow Fever epidemic to her advantage. What's more, she is vengeful.

Part two is told through diary entries by a contemporary woman grappling with her mother's brutal terminal illness while balancing being a mother herself. She inherits a key that leads her to a crypt at the famous La Recoleta Cemetery, where she encounters a beautiful and monstrous creature of the night.

Thirst is a testament to the talent of both the Argentinean author and the translator, with Yuszczuk's moody prose skillfully brought to life by Cleary's translation; its atmospheric writing is dark and seductive. My only minor complaint is the jarring pacing shift at the halfway mark. I devoured the first half easily, but the second half moved quite slower. I eventually got into the flow of it, but I think this might cause issues for future readers.

In all, Thirst is an unapologetic work in gothic feminist literature, and I recommend it to anyone who loves reading about complex and feral women.

Thirst was a book that I thought was going to steal my heart. A queer vampire tale is what everyone is missing in their life. We have seen everything else in the vampire world but this is what we really need more of and I'm here for it!

The first part of this book was amazing and that was the part where I couldn't put it down and then the second part appeared. That was the hardest to get through. Both parts show their vulnerability to being alone and the ending of one's life. Both were heavy topics and ones we could all connect with but something was missing. I thought that this was going to stand out a lot more than it did but it's one that I'll soon forget after reading.

This was such an interesting read for me because it felt like each half was written by a different author. The voice changed drastically between the historical and contemporary narrators, which is quite the skill. I did find the relevance of some passages a bit confusing and wonder if they’ll remain in the final edit, but overall I enjoyed the connections between the past and the present.

I really liked this book! I would say if you like books like Let the Right One In, and other stories of vampires in a modern world this is worth a read! It explores grief, motherhood, sexuality in a way that felt real and relatable.
I think the pacing between the two sections was a bit inconsistent, but it does follow along with the characters and their distinct voices. I enjoyed the descriptions of Buenos Aires throughout both time periods, I felt that I could picture the scenery and how it informed both characters’ lives.
Overall, I enjoyed this book and thought it was a unique take on some of the classic vampire elements.

Rating: 4.5/5 ⭐

I will also start off by saying that this was a book I mentioned earlier as something I wanted to read this year and was so happy to get the arc. And got exactly what I was expecting a deep tale of being a woman.

I loved this book so much, the first half of the book had me in a chokehold. I could not put it down, the story was action packed but also complex and really showed the range of emotions one might expect from a vampiress. I was absolutely consumed by the story and would reread that part over and over if I could. I wanted to cry and was relief and the relationship of the vampiress and Mario was one of the best friendships and companionships I have ever met. Like I said this part was amazing 5 stars.

The second part was in another woman's pov it was ripped my heart out. Grief is such a strong emotion and loss is never anything you can prepare for so this narrative pit me also in a sadder mood. This part wasn't as amazing at the first part but still we got to explore the idea of loss and motherhood which is something I always love to be explored by Latinx characters because I feel seen.

My only complaint and the only reason I am not giving it 5 stars is that I felt it wasn't long enough, the ending made sense but also I wish it was built upon.

I loved this book so much and once it releases I am definitely going to be buying it mostly to annotate my feelings as it really was an exploration of self for me. I would recommend this to anyone it's new and refreshing but also touches of many topics of womanhood and the complicated feelings of just being a person.

Stunning prose and a diabolical character quickly add up to an atmospheric thriller that comes across like poetry! Thirst was a winner despite lacking some depth and feeling stilted at times!

A story of loss, loneliness and finding someone to share these feelings with, and VAMPIRE. This novel was beautifully macabre in its prose, and poignant in its observations of how society treats not only women, but those who are not well understood. In one timeline, a woman (our vampire) travels across the sea to flee persecution and sure death from those in her village, leaving behind her traumatic life and starting anew in Buenos Aires. Navigating the new world while trying not to get caught while constantly searching and yearning for something (blood, probs! Lol) or someone to date her thirst. The other woman, dealing with the slow and painful death of her mother in a more modern time, feels lost and disconnected despite having her family- she is drawn to a cemetery, to a mausoleum that will change her life and alter her perspective even more! Beautiful, sapphic, and haunting!

Thirst by Marina Yuszckuk a breakout novel published for the first time in the United States brings a fresh taste for queer feminism. I really tried to love this book HOWEVER, for an experienced novelist this book felt incomplete or that it needed a few more rounds of editorial help. I found myself skimming pages or skipping days in part 2 due to this fact.
OVERALL, I LOVED the idea of this book on separate timelines with the common interest being the MC lady vampire from the 1800's. It was giving twilights Rosalie Cullen. The artistry and imagery was top notch I felt like I knew exactly what the cemetery looked like to the inside of the darkest part of the mausoleum. I wish I was more well verse in a foreign language because if I was able to read Spanish I feel like part of the beauty of this novel would not have been lost.
3 stars to Thirst and thank you again to Penguin Group Dutton for the privilege to review this book.

Thank you so much to Netgalley and the publisher for an e-arc of this novel! Thirst comes out March 5, 2024.

Thirst follows two women across different time periods dealing with loss, grief, and loneliness, yearning for something that they can't quite explain. Our first narrator, an unnamed vampire wandering the streets of Yellow Fever ridden Buenos Aires; our second narrator, a woman grappling with her mother's progressing degenerative disease, while simultaneously trying to work and co-parent her son.

I really enjoyed this! The first half of the novel is so atmospheric, dark, and gritty as we follow the vampire's journey through Buenos Aires. I love how the author depicts her constant obsession with blood and her never-ending thirst that she can't satiate. She's not a brooding Romantic vampire, but rather a vampire that's animalistic and uncontrollable. I loved that take.

The story definitely slows down a bit once we shift to the present day, but I thought the way that the author depicted grief and the loss of someone who isn't gone yet was authentic and heartbreaking.

I wanted just a bit more from the ending, but the way that the two characters come together is so well done.

I would highly recommend if you're looking for a good vampiric queer horror story. Shout out to the translator, Heather Clearly, who I think did a fantastic job.

"No one knows what it means to be as I am. No one can imagine. Humans have invented countless stories in which those of my kind have no life of our own; if I might be permitted a moment of lyricism, we exist only to populate their nightmares. They could never understand this insatiable thirst."

This is a story in two parts. In part 1, we follow a nameless woman as she is turned into a vampire. She at first is brought into a group of vampires, but they're all killed except for her. She is forced to fend for herself in the shadows and flees from Europe to Argentina.

Part 2 follows a mortal woman named Alma who is distantly connected to our vampire. She is related to a cemetery worker who befriended and protected our vampire. Alma's mother is slowly and painfully dying. Before she does pass, her mother gives Alma a key... A key that opens our vampire's coffin.

This is gothic and very lyrical.

3.5 stars rounded up.

Thank you Penguin Group Dutton for giving me an advanced review copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.