Nuns being freaky and degenerate in a dystopian society. There's nothing I love more. This wasn't my first book by this author. I've loved everything else I've read from Bazterrica. I love dystopia and horror, and she does it perfectly every time.

Listen, I feel like I can't miss when it comes to anything that this author writes.

All there is to say about this story is that we are following a woman who is living in a sisterhood of sorts where ideological beliefs are *extreme* and the world outside the walls of this potential haven may be the best or the worst decision that our main character can face.

Bazterrica has exceptional prose. There is nothing that can be said otherwise. Every single time I pick up something that they have written I find myself immediately sucked into the world and horrified from the literal first sentences on the page. The amount of tension and discomfort seeps under your skin and leaves you feeling perpetually itchy and nauseated the entire time you are reading. It also ends with a culmination of reveals and violence that feels both breath taking and mundane all at the same time.

We definitely explore themes of grief, repression, extremism and misogyny in this book and through the lens of some inherently flawed and unlikable characters. I don't think that this is anything terribly new for the horror genre - post apocalyptic and religious horror heavily saturate the market - but this felt so unrelenting for such a short book. Highly recommend. Be warned though that if Tender is the Flesh had your tummy turning or your skin crawling that this new book will leave you in no better condition.

Agustina Bazterrica has such a beautiful but calamitous writing style. She dives into the darkness of your mind while focusing on real world issues—this time climate change, cults, religious hypocrisy, etc. This was not as shocking as Tender is the Flesh but equally as impactful and possibly better writing. If I could have a conversation about LIFE with any author, it would be Agustina because the darkness she puts out resonates somewhere in me. You decide if that’s a good thing or not.

Thank you Netgalley and Scribner for a copy of "The Unworthy" by Augustina Bazterrica in exchange for an honest review. This book blew me away! I've noticed a recent rise in religious critique recently, and this itched the right spot that I was looking for. It's scary, it's disturbing, right from the get go. Something about Bazterrica's writing is so rhythmic that it almost flows like water. It's hypnotic and I found myself struggling to put the book down. "The Unworthy" is compulsively readable for any horror and/or post-apocalyptic fan! I was also very happy to see sapphic representation. It's a book that will stay with me for a while, and has struck me as one of my top reads of the year.

Bazterrica is such an amazing author with a unique writing style I have not found anywhere else. Her stories manage the balance of dystopian settings and complicated main character so well. I didn't enjoy this book as much as Tender is the Flesh but I believe on a second reading I would truly enjoy it more. The pacing for the plot is a little slow in the beginning but compliments the pacing towards the end of the book so well. I believe Bazterrica's books are underappreciated for how short yet dense they are. I would definitely recommend this to others!

First book of 2025 and I already know it will be in my top 10 for the year. The beautiful prose and poetic writing was very well done. The way the author does flashbacks and especially the way she captures nature is wonderful. This book was moving, emotional, and creepy in the best ways.

Well, this book is classified as post apocalyptic horror. I didn’t not really find it to be horror in nature. Some of the content was very and or somewhat disturbing, but not to the level that I would say it was horror in my opinion. It didn’t unsettle me. I did very much like the writing. And the concept behind the book, The Unworthy.
This is a post apocalyptic tale yet we do not know what happens to cause it to be a post apocalyptic time. We do know that our main character is a female character and that she lives in a convent/church type place that is called House the Sacred Sisterhood. Here she and others are led by the top sister called the “Superior Sister”. And that they give sacrifices and depending upon the hierarchy what happens to them.
I thought the story started very interesting, but I did kind of lose my interest a little bit in and then it started picking up again. I really just do wish there was more information about the world and what happened and what caused this. We do find out that our main character is keeping a journal throughout that and I do feel that we are actually reading this and what is happened throughout her life lead leading her to the end of the story. Our main character is nameless we never know her name and when her name is mentioned, we don’t actually find out what it is. I thought that was very interesting.
There were times in the beginning I thought there was whole sentences missing at the end of a paragraph when it broke into a new part of the chapter, but that was intentional so if you go into reading this, it’s kind of like our character was writing and stopped in the middle of thought while they were writing, so it is not a mistake and do not report it.
Also be aware that there is some triggering content in here that is not along the lines of a regular horror story including SA on page.
Overall, I give it 3.75 stars

I adored this book. It reminded me a lot of The Handmaid's Tale, but way more cult-y. My only complaint is that I really want to know more about what happened to the world and why some of the "miracles" happened and just... everything! My favorite parts were learning about the narrator's past, although it took me an embarrassingly long time to realize Circe was a cat. All in all, very entertaining read, especially for one that's so short.

Thank you Bazterrica, Scribner, and NetGalley for the ARC!

I'm slightly disappointed by this. I absolutely loved Tender is the Flesh, but this book felt rambling, repetitive, and too confusing to even make me feel horror? I understand that this is supposed to be stylised as the diary of a lost woman in an unconventional situation, her painful story written out in a method that makes sense to her, but as a reader, we are dropped into the middle of the story with zero explanation.

The first 2/3rds felt like a mess of random current and past stories before "action " finally started, but even then, it didn't catch me. I wanted to like this book SO much, but it just...fell flat for me. Disappointed because I was so excited to be approved for this ARC, and it just left me feeling like I may have wasted my time.

Thank you to NetGalley and Simon and Schuster for this eARC!

This is a bleak post apocalyptic dystopian novel about an unnamed woman in a convent called the Sacred Sisterhood. You follow her as she recalls the events on her journey in this convent and her attempt to document them by writing though it’s forbidden. You go throughout this novel trying to figure out what exactly is going on and what’s happened to the world and its people. As you reach the end of the novel / her journal she inevitably explains her findings and in hopes her words and experiences aren’t forgotten.

I thoroughly enjoyed my experience reading this. I love films that involve cultish-religion and once I read the description of this I knew it was right up my alley. It’s actually my first horror novel and first by Augustina despite her other book also being on my TBR, Tender is the Flesh. The writing transported me into this world and I couldn’t put it down. It kept me wondering what the heck was happening and what it all meant. I did kind of piece things together 80% through and so the secret didn’t surprise me. Despite that I still had a great time and highly recommend this read!

This was utterly compelling, bleak and sad and I could not put it down. Bazterrica is a force to be reckoned with with such beautiful and haunting prose. I believe if you are a fan of her work, you will be absolutely enthralled with her latest. I am already anticipating whatever comes next!

I have been trying to read this one for a month. I think I'm only half way and I'm not really sure what exactly is going on or what the main the plot is. I think if there were a more clear plot (or maybe one that was more clear to me) I would be able to follow it and would have really enjoyed it, but I am putting it down for now.

The narrator of the story is an unnamed woman born into a loveless, ravaged world where from a young age was left to fend for herself own survival. The story is told from her writings in The House of the Sacred Sisters where she found supposed refuge from the cruel world outside the walls of this former pagan temple. Inside these walls it is actually a cruel world of its own, a women’s hierarchy led by a man only known as Him. There are servants, The Unworthy, The Worthy, The Chosen Ones, The Enlightened Ones, Minor Saints, Diaphanous Spirits, and a Superior Sister who are all tortured physically and emotionally in different ways. The narrator has little remembrance of her past until a mysterious woman finds her way to The House that has special powers. She upsets the existing relationship dynamics and sparks old memories and new emotions for the narrator to write in her hidden journal. Memories of the past and current events cause her to question her existence behind the walls and what the world may be outside. This book provokes uncomfortable questions about identity, worth, love, male dominance, and religious extremism. It blurs the line between the human and inhuman, and has a very emotional ending. It’s a bit of a slow burn but well worth the time. I highly recommend this book for a unique take on a post apocalyptic world told by an amazing writer. The book will be released in English in the US March 4, 2025.

I enjoyed Tender is the Flesh and was thrilled to receive the ARC on NetGalley for this book! The unworthy is a dark, graphic, atmospheric, short novel about life in a cult in a post-apocalyptic world. I enjoyed slowly learning more about this world and the main characters background. The occasional incoherent, paragraphs cut off mid-sentence just added to the dread and confusion of this book.

An incredibly bleak story about a woman at a convent, going through insane amounts of abuse with the backdrop of the apocalypse. We get flashbacks of her trying to survive this apocalypse as a child, and her time in the convent, secretly telling her story. One day a woman arrives at the convent and they begin to develop a relationship in secret, as they would be facing punishment or worse if it were to come to light.

Expect to be emotionally devestated.

This one was hard for me - I really liked the concept as a dystopian speculative horror following a climate crisis. I also thought the structure of the book was incredibly interesting. Writing in a diary format always makes a book feel more "real" to me. This was a really interesting take on the questions "What happens when the world ends?" and "What lengths will you go to in order to stay alive?" given most dystopian worlds generally take more of a sci-fi approach to the "What comes after." I really like a character study, but this fell a little flat for me given I didn't feel that I knew the character well enough to root for her. As a fan of Tender is the Flesh, I was hoping to be left with some big moral and ethical questions, and I didn't feel that this gave me what I was looking for there. That said, this is a unique take on a dystopian world and the realness of it really hit home for me. I think fans of speculative fiction will find something to love in this book.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for the eARC of "The Unworthy!"

The setting of this story was immaculate. Especially in the beginning, I really enjoyed getting snippets of this strange and unnerving world that our protagonist is living in. Around the halfway mark though, I did find the story to be dragging a bit. I wish that the actual "meat" of the story would have been presented a little bit sooner than it was. I think that because it's already a short book, and it took so long to get going, that ended with a somewhat rushed ending that I would have liked to explore more. I found this world to be super interesting and would have loved to get more from it!

This is a short but very dark and violent novel from the author of Tender is the Flesh. If you read that book, you know what to expect here. This is another apocalyptic tale, but the apocalypse itself is told only in bits and snatches, whereas the story focuses on a small commune that can only be described as an extremist religious community, and they do unspeakable things to punish and keep followers in line. It is a sad and brutal story that has just the faintest glimmer of hope at the end.

Nobody does dystopian horror like Augustina Bazzterica! With The Unworthy, she delivers yet another dark, thought-provoking story that explores themes of religious corruption, environmental collapse, and societal decay. The writing style is one of the things I love most about the author’s work. While bleak and unsettling, it immerses the reader in the text, transporting them to her carefully crafted dystopian world.
While the story took some time to connect for me, the ending tied everything together beautifully, leaving me with a message I won’t soon forget. I enjoyed Tender Is The Flesh, and this book is another excellent showcase of Bazzterica’s unique prose and skill. This is a truly gripping read that will impact you long after you’ve finished it.

Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC!

Wow, where to start. I was super excited to jump into this novel since I have read Tender is the Flesh. I have to say though it was a bit confusing. It took me a little bit to grasp the writing and once I did I enjoyed most of it. It could get a little repetitive and I feel as though we never get a full picture of the main character. Either way I found some part of the writing amazing and enjoyed the book overall even though it left me slightly confused. I just have to say if that’s the apacolypse this world is heading towards…count me out.