A woman writes the story of her life as a member of the Sacred Sisterhood in secret, using dirt, ink, and blood. The world outside of the walls of the monastery is plagued by climate catastrophe. Fires, floods, and disease have ravaged everything that once was, and what survivors are left are fighting to live.

Our narrator, nameless throughout, is at the lowest of ranks inside. She desires to reach the rank of Enlightened, to finally please the terrifying Superior Sister. Inside the monastery, now a convent, torture is the way of life. There are horrible descriptions of blood and punishments for the slightest infractions.

Soon, a stranger arrives over the walls and survives the purification rituals. She joins the Unworthy, and throws our main character into turmoil. Her past starts to come to light, and she's haunted by what has brought her to this terrible place and what is actually happening to the world.
----
Well, it's February 8th, 2025. The current administration is destroying everything: arts, culture, equality, history. North Carolina is still picking up the pieces from the unprecedented flooding from September 2024. Los Angeles is still smoking from the horrible fires from January. Climate change is not in their vocabulary.

THE WORLD OF THE UNWORTHY IS NOT FAR OFF.

This short book could be a cautionary tale or meta-future fiction. Who really knows? Agustina Bazterrica has written a horror story about something that could happen at any minute.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for the opportunity to read and review this book.

The book is set in a world post-climate collapse, where the earth is poisoned and few have survived through starvation and wandering. Our main character, who remains unnamed, is sheltered in a sadistic covenant where there is a "he" whose will is put out by Superior Sister through acts of violence, torture, and murder. There is a hierarchy in this all-female society: servants, the unworthy, minor saints, diaphanous spirits, and the enlightened. The unworthy the book follows wants to be Chosen, however, she does things against the rules such as keeping a journal about what is happening there and what has happened in her life leading up to this moment. Things hit a snag in her plans when she first discovers a female outside while hunting mushrooms for a funeral, and again when she finds the same woman. She creates a plan with her to be found so that she can come to seek shelter. This woman ends up being named Lucia, and once Lucia enters the picture our main character's world starts to change.

This book was a 3.5-star book - I preferred the author's book Tender is the Flesh Over this. I did round up on GoodReads to 4 stars. The book does a good job of showing how the desolation of humanity is on full, dark display. The main highlight for me was the setting of the book both in the church scenes and the past reflection scenes of our main character having to wander through the world trying to survive. The book heavily focuses on religious abuse - it's very cult-like in many aspects such as shunning members who speak other languages besides the one of the sacred sisters, different levels of the hierarchies having their bodies mutilated like the diaphanous spirits having their tongues chopped off. It took me a while to get into the book, which is saying a lot because it is a very short novel, and I felt like the ending could have been flushed out a bit more as everything happened so rapidly.

"The long-awaited new novel from the author of global sensation Tender Is the Flesh: a thrilling work of literary horror about a woman cloistered in a secretive, violent religious order, while outside the world has fallen into chaos.

From her cell in a mysterious convent, a woman writes the story of her life in whatever she can find - discarded ink, dirt, and even her own blood. A lower member of the Sacred Sisterhood, deemed an unworthy, she dreams of ascending to the ranks of the Enlightened at the center of the convent and of pleasing the foreboding Superior Sister. Outside, the world is plagued by catastrophe - cities are submerged underwater, electricity and the internet are nonexistent, and bands of survivors fight and forage in a cruel, barren landscape. Inside, the narrator is controlled, punished, but safe.

But when a stranger makes her way past the convent walls, joining the ranks of the unworthy, she forces the narrator to consider her long-buried past - and what she may be overlooking about the Enlightened. As the two women grow closer, the narrator is increasingly haunted by questions about her own past, the environmental future, and her present life inside the convent. How did she get to the Sacred Sisterhood? Why can't she remember her life before? And what really happens when a woman is chosen as one of the Enlightened?

A searing, dystopian tale about climate crisis, ideological extremism, and the tidal pull of our most violent, exploitative instincts, this is another unforgettable novel from a master of feminist horror."

I don't know, a mysterious convent with no access to the outside world seems nice right about now no matter the horrors inside they can't be as bad as out here.

Agustina Bazterrica has such a rich mastery at balancing darkness and beauty. This story was moving and incredibly page turning. In my opinion this was even better than Tender Is the Flesh and I personally loved Tender Is the Flesh.

I can't say I've ever read a book like this. The closest comparison I have is "At Night All Blood is Black"

This is a stream of consciousness told from a nameless woman's journal. She's in some sort of convent with other women and a "God" no one ever sees, only hears. There are hints throughout the text that some end of the world events has happened and the world is in chaos. These women believe that through sacrifice and obedience they can become "Enlightened" and keep their little chunk of the world safe. Boy oh boy is there some real messed up stuff going on. It's very obvious to the reader that these women are in a cult, they're being manipulated. But there's also hints of mystical things that could mean maybe there's something to the miracles. (Honestly I don't believe that particular narrative)

Overall this is just bleak and messed up and sad and gross. And hesrt breaking, it went where I was suspecting it to go and it wasn't a satisfying "ah-ha I knew it!" moment. But after all that I didn't hate it. It's a good commentary on effects of climate change, the power religious zealotry can have on people and how women are used every damn day.

A well written but ultimately ho-hum post apocalyptic tale told from the point of view of a woman living with a group of survivors following a weird new religion. The book has some cool ideas, but it's lacking the details that I love about these kinds of tales and that suck me into the story.

Read it for the great writing and if you are interested in an almost Handmaid's Tale type world. I would be willing to give this author another shot and hope to read Tender Is The Flesh sometime in the near future.

Thank you to Netgalley for providing this digital book, all thoughts are my own and I am leaving this review voluntarily.
Summary: A large climate collapse leaves the earth poisoned and the world struggling to stay alive. Those who have survived are struggling to maintain their survival while plague, weather conditions and starvation runs rampant. While seeking shelter, our unnamed protagonist finds her way to a religious convent governed by an unnamed "He" who has taken over the position of God. While "He" may be in charge of the convent, the day to day operations are truly run by a mother superior of sorts who rules the female subordinates with an iron fist of torture and murder. These female subordinates are split into three levels of varying importance regarding their holiness and rank. Our protagonist details the horror of her day to day life in a forbidden journal. Our protagonist has aspirations of climbing the holy ladder until an unsuspecting new member upends the group and things are never the same.

This short book really packs a punch. The anticipation of what happens next really grabbed me and captivated me throughout the whole book. I was rooting for our protagonist the entire way through, and even with not getting a clear backstory I really felt for her character.
The beginning of this book is a bit confusing and almost like a big dump of knowledge, we as the readers, are in no way eased into this dystopian universe that Bazterrica creates. The convent has a religious feel to it but is obviously something darker in nature. The different branches that are thrust upon us are confusing at first, and remain that way through a majority of the book. None of the different levels of sisters are ever really detailed as their roles. We quickly do discover that a woman named The Superior Sister is in charge of all the tiers of women. The Superior Sister likes to inflict torture onto every one of these women for sometimes the most minor infarctions. There are really no rules described throughout the book, so we never know what the women are atoning for or why they are being punished. The women self punish themselves a lot throughout the novel but once again we never really quite understand for what. A lot of things just aren't explained to the reader, such as how the convent came to be or what the purpose of the convent is. The one thing I really wish the author had done is go into more detail on what the Enlightened where and why they were being essentially bred. What were they doing with the kids, assuming they had them and survived. This may have been a five star read if our protagonist had went through the black door sooner and attempted to discover the convents secrets.
While I will say the majority of this book is a bit confusing and I was desperately hoping we would get more of a back story or some questions answered, I really don't think it hindered the story or the ultimate vibes of the book. It's a well written end of the world horror book with some religious, cult horror mixed in. The body horror and religious horror were just enough to make this a toned down splatterpunk horror novel. The writing is captivating in that way were it really just makes you so uncomfortable that you can't stop reading. Not only did we have the horror elements we also had the underlying elements of morality. This book goes to show you that sometimes the best people with the best intentions might be swayed into doing terrible things to survive, and just how easy peer pressure really is. We see throughout the story just how far these women will go in hurting each other to get the attention of a faceless man who is in control of their every need, but of course these needs come with a cost and some of these women are prepared to pay a much higher cost than others.

Such an interesting and unique read! Part post-apocolyptic, part love story. I've heard great things about this author's first book so I am very excited to now read that one! Very excited to have this new, inventive writer and storyteller among us.

Thank you Netgalley for this beautiful and horrifying book! This review is my own and unbiased.

Another hit from Baterrica. A hard read in today's world, but a good one. Beautiful prose and hits really hard.

"Helena died in the dark, she died in the disaster. She was the one who taught me that disaster means living without stars, or celestial bodies, or comets, without the light of night, in complete darkness. (In the mouth of God?)"

The Earth has turned to decay. Our narrator somehow found The Sacred Sisterhood, a walled refuge run by the Superior Sister and Him. The women worship Him with complete obedience, sacrifice, and pain. They are told it's the only way to survive. A life of darkness and distrust is all she can remember. Until a new woman arrives. Lucia. She awakens something within the narrator that makes her question everything about the Sacred Sisterhood. How had she arrived there? And what is the truth behind all the locked doors?

I was fortunate enough to receive an ARC of The Unworthy by Agustina Bazterrica from @netgalley and @scribnerbooks. I was so excited because I loved Tender Is the Flesh, and this one did not disappoint. It's another small novel that packs a real punch. The atmosphere was terrifyingly believable. Where do you go when the world as you know it has ended? (What will we do when the planet dies?) And after fighting through hell to find refuge, what might you be convinced of? What acts would you commit in the name of safety? In the hope of a better world? (In the name of God?) And think of the people who would take advantage, who would assault and abuse, who would trick and twist.

The Unworthy covers quite a lot in such a short book, so some things felt incomplete and I would have loved to see some ideas expanded on. Still, I genuinely loved it. The cultlike obedience religion can foster and demand is always interesting to me, and the things these women would do to one another was heartbreaking. I could not stop reading, I could not turn away.

The Unworthy comes out March 4th!

#Scribner #dystopian #bookstagram #bookreview #arcreview #theunworthy #AgustinaBazterrica

Not for me, I just couldn't get into this one. DNF at 60%. I think Tender is the Flesh was a one-hit wonder.

This author is clearly talented and has a creative way with words but I did not enjoy the story itself. It lacked any real plot, which may have just been a side effect of the book being the journal pages of the MC, but I needed a bit more in that area. I am a big horror genre fan, but this felt like a story that just wanted to include tons of violence and abuse against women, and I'm a girl's girl so I didn't enjoy it.

The Unworthy is a dystopian horror novel in which a woman is part of a religious convent called the Sacred Sisterhood. The outside world is essentially going through an apocalypse. Our main character writes about her life before the convent. This book is disturbing and has scenes of torture, assault, and other violent acts. I got very emotional reading about the main character navigating this apocalyptic world. Circe's story really got to me.

Agustina Bazterrica's writing is truly beautiful and I consider her a queen of literary horror.

Thank you to Scribner and NetGalley for the e-arc.

Summary: A member of a religious order details her life in a forbidden diary. The admission of a new member upends the daily, horrific existence of the group and new terrors are unleashed in the aftermath.
Genre: Horror
Content Warnings: body horror, religious horror, animal abuse/animal death, sexual assault

Thank you to Netgalley for providing this digital book. I am leaving this review voluntarily.

The opening of this book is intriguing and a tad confusing. The unnamed narrator catalogs her days in a forbidden diary, written on stolen pages using stolen ink or even her own blood. The place she resides in is convent-like, a cloister of sorts where an order of religious devotees lives and worships. The structure and workings of the organization is Catholic in nature, but decidedly not. It is something darker, notably stranger. My first question was, what is happening? We enter the story in what seems to be a future on Earth where the sun is blocked, the weather is cold, cities are drowned, and the women of this order fend off some kind of bad omen. It’s obvious some kind of climate catastrophe has occurred and this order formed, as they tend to in the wake of such disasters.

The sisters are divided into different classes of varying importance. They have innumerable names and ranks, identifying holiness and worth. It all ran together a bit. The only male character was the mysterious He, the ultimate leader of this order, held to a god-like status by the members and aided in ruling by the Superior Sister, a woman who controls the women in the cloister with an iron fist. There is no rhyme or reason to what happens in the cloister. Any small infraction can result in intense torture. The Unworthy are blamed and made to pay for environmental conditions outside of their control. I didn’t understand the rules, the lore, the meaning of anything. Often, the narrator would hint that something of importance had happened, but the reader can’t participate in the anticipation because what happened is never fully explained. Being epistolary, I understand that some information can’t be provided organically, but I think some finesse in the details would be helpful.

There are some beautifully written lines in this book. I enjoy religious horror. While the majority of the story is so cloaked in mystery that it took me out of the book too often for my liking, the story picked up with the entrance of a new member to the order. I felt newly invested in where the story was headed. I started feeling the horror and anxiety more poignantly. And the death of a particular character hit me extremely hard. I cried many tears.

Ultimately, this book is a reflection of a world in which women are held in extreme subservience to a faceless, all-powerful man, in exchange for what they need to live: protection, shelter, food. And yet, this is not without cost. There are body mutilations in the name of ‘sacrifice’ for the betterment of the order, there is manipulation and jealousy, sexual assault, physical abuse, torture. It is not an easy read. However, give the book a chance and you’ll fall easily into the sway of the narrator’s diary entries, the suspense of the lives of these women in the cloister, the depth of their fear and commitment to each other, and just how far one will fight to survive and to love.

3/5 stars

95/100 or 4.75 stars

This was amazing, brutal, and chaotic; I loved every page. I had not gotten a chance to read "Tender is the Flesh," so I wanted to check this out to see if I would like Bazterrica's writing style, and I loved it. I will say this is a book that warrants me letting readers know about the content warnings, as there are quite a few present here. It was difficult at times to read, but it was done so well and with purpose to the story.

I would recommend this to anyone who wants a good horror dystopian novel.

Oof, this was a tough one. I thought the story and the premise was fun, but many, it was not easy to read. So dark and depressing and, though maybe I missed something, was very confusing in what was left at the end of thes story.

I will say i read (and enjoyed) „Tender is the Flesh“ and was hoping it would be kind of the same writing style/storytelling, but this was much different. The way the MC speaks / voices her thoughts was a little difficult to get into and also sometimes hard to understand for me.
Nevertheless I found myself interested in what is happening in her life and what is going on. This is a unique novel but might not be for everyone. This reminded me more of the authors book "nineteen claws and a blackbird". To be honest if i would have known about the journal writing style of this i probably wouldnt have read it. But im glad i did and i finished it.

I was really into the description, name, and cover for this book, but I personally found a lot of the imagery very grotesque. This is a beautifully written book, but I am not the target audience for it. It is definitely a gritty, grimy book and if that’s what you’re on the lookout for I think it’s worth picking up. I just don’t think I’ll pick this up again.

I was intrigued by Tender is the Flesh—it was bizarre, unsettling, at times tough to read and scary in a way that kept me hooked. Unfortunately, The Unworthy just didn’t do the same for me. From the start, both the reader and the main character are completely in the dark about what’s going on and what this world is, and that confusion never really clears up. So many questions are left unanswered, and there’s no real payoff in the end. The setting was bleak and depressing, but instead of being gripping, it just made the book feel like a slog. I kept waiting for something to click, but instead, I was just waiting for it to be over.

The random, sporadic writing style was an interesting choice that left me confused for the first third of the book and wondering what was actually happening in the story and what was told to the characters involved in this "cult" to move along the leaders' agenda.

The main attention to detail is given to the punishments or "sacrifices" the women of this story have to endure. Otherwise everything is deliberately vague, even to the point where I didn't realize Circe was a cat and not a deranged child until 50 pages after she's introduced.

While I somewhat enjoyed the writing style (it read as the ramblings of someone potentially losing their mind, as I'm sure it's meant to), there was no coherent story that I felt invested in. Everyone was inexplicably cruel, and the ending was so predictable it's a wonder only one person there saw it coming.