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.

What a fascinating post-apocalyptic world Agustina Bazterrica has given us a glimpse of in The Unworthy. I loved the way this novel played out - from the protagonist’s journaling (including snippets of what ink she is scrounging together to write with) to the fragmented view of the outside world her recollections gave us.

While I didn’t find this as gruesome or horror-filled as Bazterrica’s prior work Tender Is the Flesh, I found it to be haunting and engrossing — definitely a read I’ll be thinking about for days to come. The religious themes were spot-on and the lead up to the end felt like a natural progression. I think it ended perfectly and I wouldn’t change a thing.

Thank you to NetGalley and Scribner for access to this eARC in exchange for an honest review!

Bazterrica has the skills to pull us into worlds that feel drastically different from our own but once you step back from her novels you’ll begin to see them as reflections and portents. Here we have another novel that’s a mirror being held up for us to see what’s happening to us whether we realize it or not. We live in a society that is often just as bleak and cruel as the world that the unworthy inhabit.
The writing style succeeded in making me feel detached from what was happening. I felt numb and because I never connected with the characters when they meet with their cruel demises it was just another thing that happened. It’s kind of like how desensitized we often are when hearing about atrocities in current events. They often don’t feel real until they happen to us. So, this book is a gift to us all - will we open our eyes and our ears to heed its warning?
Thank you to the publisher and NetGallery for letting me read!

Quick synopsis: A woman sheltered in a violent religious convent is writing about her life while the outside world is complete chaos, trying to remember all the details from before she found herself there. When a new woman stumbles upon the convent, the two women grow closer rapidly and starts questioning everything.

Review: I’ll be honest, the first maybe 40% of this was confusing and boring? However once I got the hang of the story and basically when the second girl showed up in the convent I was locked in. Bazterrica does it again with the dystopian story, this one being about climate crisis, ideological extremism, and of humans most violent and exploitive instincts. Initially I didn’t care for our MC but as she was uncovering more of her story’s past and present, I was really attached to her and wanted to see her thrive. It felt like reading a diary and super authentic in the rushed writing, scratching things out, and not finishing complete thoughts — but not overdone (maybe the scratching out part but that’s ok). Don’t talk to me about Circe because that wrecked me. The ending wrecked me as well but hey this is a Bazterrica novel after all.

As a lover of Tender of the Flesh, of course I was excited be read an arc copy of this! I honestly don't even think I read the description, so I went in blind. The story gives you the feel of floating through a hazy dream. It's dark slow and disorientating, yet it feels so darkly beautiful that you can't stop. A lot is left up to interpretation but we are in some sort of dystopian land within a cult. I can't say I quite understood but of the storyline itself or what exactly was happening, despite that I still found it interesting to read and wanting to see the story though. I enjoyed the unsettling cult vibes, the sadistic nuns, and the all consuming forbidden love.

I loved her previous novel, but just couldn't connect with this one. Same dark dystopian subject matter but far too impressionistic and insubstantial for my liking. .

Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC.

Agustina Bazterrica really has a way of creating an uncomfortable brutal world like always. Immediately you’re shown what to except from this book so there’s no sugar coating anything.

Despite this I feel like this book wasn’t for me. There however is an audience out there for this piece.

Thank you once again for giving me the chance to read this

Loved this one! Eerie, suspenseful and relevant to the political state of Argentina and the use of pesticides that harm its land and people. The storline was intriguing and spooky. Highly enjoyable!

It is hard to put into words how an Agustina Bazterrica book makes me feel. I'm always struck by the amount of longing and loneliness that comes through in her work even though it is objectively a horror or dystopian story. This one in particular struck several nerves, especially in struggling to remember traumatic experiences as well as crying over things that you would never get to experience. Overall this story was a wonderful internal narrative, one that is going to stick around for a while. It's also terrifying in the way that it strikes as a definite possibility, especially in today's world and political climate. I think it definitely needs to be added to the list of dystopian books to read and watch if you are trying to become more aware of society around you, because while it doesn't explain a whole lot about the larger universe it is more accurate to the way that everyday people would be affected. I also appreciate that the horror aspect of it while graphic was not so graphic that it was unreadable. I was horrified but not so horrified that I couldn't read it. All in all another wonderful work from a favorite author.

Thank you Scribner and Netgalley for the ARC.

This was a unique take on cult horror. We normally see more perspective of the leader yet this focused on those that carrier out his commands. Only in the very end did we meet the "Him" that entrapped the women. It was a fascinating exploration of victims becoming perpetrators, all while still being victims.

I enjoyed the diary style of writing, but at times, it felt a little too cerebral for me. I enjoy slightly more straight forward writing, but the themes and stories Agustina Bazterrica tells are fascinating.

The ending was great. I loved the representation of queer love, and I actually did enjoy not giving power to the man in this book by allowing his story to be told.

4.25 rounded down to 4.

Thank you NetGalley and Simon & Schuster for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

This was violent, stressful and extremely relevant to read at the moment. The Unworthy takes place in a dystopian future, where it is never explained, but assumed that massive weather due to climate change, along with the downfall of technology/electronics and potentially AI, leave the world in ruins. It seems like disease is also running rampant. Humans are mostly wiped off of the earth, but there is this little religious cult that seems to accept only wandering young women. In this "convent" of sorts, the women fight to become one of the "Enlightened Ones," and there's this entire structural system in place based on the amount you sacrifice and atone for.

I don't think I've read a bleaker book - the main character is secretly writing a journal about her experience at this convent, and while she writes she remembers events that led up to her current situation. In her flashbacks, you see how the world came to be, what she endured, and how her current situation essentially brainwashed her. We are thrown into this story with no explanation whatsoever about the current state of the world, or what the purpose of the convent really was. It took me a little bit to get into the rhythm of the writing style, but once I did it was hard to put this book down. A lot of the story came together as it progressed, but I was still left with some questions about this religious cult - what were their motives? What exactly happened that caused the world to end up the way it did? When did this all happen?

This was a very effective, terrifying glimpse into what the world could become. I thoroughly enjoyed the brutality and bleakness. I also liked the internal struggle we got to see with our main character, and how she fought the brainwashing she seemed to have succumbed to.

Mild spoiler, there is a bit of a violent animal death, among other types of abuse and torture that might be triggering.

Thank you so much to NetGalley and the publisher for an ARC of this book! I loved Tender is the Flesh, so I was excited to see that the author was coming out with her translated version of The Unworthy. Similar to her previous book, this book centered themes around environmental disasters, dystopian societies, and power struggles between classes. I was very confused at the beginning of this book as it did not give much context to how they became this dystopian society. Some information about this is peppered in later on. No significant character development or world building happened, which was disappointing because this story had a lot of potential. The author’s writing is poignant yet vague and skims over valuable details. Nothing significant happened until the end of the book, although it was predictable to me.

I still have every intention of eventually picking up <i>Tender is the Flesh</i>, but as a first experience with this author, it could've gone better.

Unfortunately, I found myself very bored with this book. It was a lot of beautiful -- if repetitive -- prose, but nothing really happened and there aren't enough answers given or world-building developed, and so every time I sat down to read this, I found myself regularly either falling asleep or thinking about other things. My mind shouldn't wander when reading a literary horror book and yet it did, a lot.

I kept hoping something would happen, especially after she found the wanderer in the Tower of Silence, but it was more of the same. And the ending? So meh.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC in exchange for an honest review!

Well, well, well. This was my first Agustina Bazterrica novel, as I couldn't quite stomach Tender is the Flesh (I was bound eventually to find my threshold). That being said, I can understand why people love her work, but I don't think it's for me. I will always be interested in queer horror, religious perversions, and the intersection of the two (hence the still decent rating), but both the pacing and the lack of world-building lost me here. It's a good story - don't get me wrong - but fell short of the high expectations I had for the author.

It took me weeks to shake the haunting images from my mind after reading Agustina Bazterrica’s Tender Is The Flesh. Naturally I jumped at the opportunity for another visceral, disturbing, entirely believable tear through the worst of human nature. This book is all at once about the slow moving climate disaster, post-apocalyptic dystopia, religion as a manipulative tool, mutilation, feminism, patriarchy, suffering, love, confinement, sacrifice and liberation. There truly remains nothing scarier than the darkest recesses of deranged humans, I’m grateful to have found an author who so beautifully puts those thoughts together and a translator who capably carries the meaning without losing the effect. Thanks to the author, Simon & Schuster the publisher and NetGalley for the advanced reader copy.

So, the narrative style in this one didn’t quite click with me, which made the first half feel like a bit of a slog. It’s told through the protagonist’s secret writings, covering both past and present events in a dystopian world. The tone is really bleak, almost monotone, and that made it tough to get through at first. But I stuck with it, and by the time I hit around 40%, things finally started to pick up. I guess I’m stubborn—after Tender is the Flesh, I wanted to see where this one would go.
The story takes place in a future that feels pretty hopeless, mostly set in a convent with a heavy, suffocating atmosphere, kind of like The Handmaid’s Tale. It also gave me the same unsettling vibe as The Village and Junji Ito’s Madonna (from Liminal Space), but with Baztericca's own twisted, dark spin. The writing really captures that sense of despair and confinement. It wasn’t my favorite, but I can appreciate how unique it is. I’d give it 3 stars for being dark, eerie, and memorable in its own way.

I think this would flow a lot better as a graphic novel! I would love to see that!

Probably the best opening paragraph to a story I have read in a long time. It definitely sets the tone of the book and we get a very engaging story of a dystopian world where the main character has found refuge with a convent that has very untraditional and horrifying practices. The main character's way of thinking was written very well and matter of fact, especially when discussing what led to her finding the convent. I think anyone who enjoyed Tender is the Flesh, will enjoy this as well. Bazterrica is an author I'm always excited to read from.

I honestly have no idea how to sum up my thoughts on this book. It was both utterly horrific and beautiful. You will be confused and adrift but every so often you’ll get glimmer of what’s going on and it will keep you glued to the page. I’m just at a loss for words 😅 This will stick with me for awhile.

A huge thanks to Netgalley,, Agustina Bazterrica, and Scribner for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Rated 4.75 stars on StiryGraph. The Unworthy is a beautifully disorienting book. The novel takes place in an incredibly violent convent of a mysterious religious order while the outside world seems to be undergoing an apocalypse. The unnamed narrator secretly records the happenings of the convent; sometimes with ink left behind the monks who used to inhabit the convent and may be haunting the place, sometimes with ink she makes, sometimes dirt, and other times with her own blood.
I enjoyed this book so much. I rarely had any idea of what would happen next, but it felt inevitable anyways. It was gorgeously written, it was lyrical, disturbing, and sucked me right in. The narrator was incredibly well written, I knew her so well but at the same time knew nothing about her. The plot was so interesting, I couldn't bring myself to put it down, I read it all in one sitting. It also had what I think was the perfect ending.
I would definitely recommend this book. The graphic violence may be a deterrent for some readers, but to me it was perfect.
Thank you to Scribner and NetGalley for this advanced copy.

The Unworthy by Agustina Bazterrica is an intense, thought-provoking novel that plunges readers into a chilling, dystopian world where the unthinkable becomes a routine part of life. Bazterrica's writing is both haunting and masterful, blending an eerie sense of unease with sharp social commentary.

The novel explores a society in which the "unworthy"—those deemed unnecessary or undesirable—are systematically marginalized and ultimately sacrificed for the greater good. It takes place in a stark, almost clinical setting, and Bazterrica’s stark descriptions of the dehumanization of these individuals is unsettling but undeniably powerful. As the protagonist navigates this grim reality, the lines between morality and survival blur, leaving readers to question the very nature of worth, humanity, and ethical responsibility.

What struck me most about The Unworthy is how it lingers in the mind long after reading. Bazterrica doesn't just craft a gripping narrative; she presents a deeply disturbing social critique that forces readers to confront uncomfortable truths about our own society. The tension in the book is palpable, with each page turning up the heat as the protagonist’s fate becomes increasingly uncertain.

I agree with your view—it is absolutely a brilliant read. Bazterrica’s ability to combine disturbing themes with insightful reflections on societal structures makes this book a standout. The pacing is tight, the atmosphere is heavy with dread, and the emotional and intellectual payoff is immense. It’s a novel that challenges you, makes you think, and stays with you long after the final page.

If you're looking for a read that combines horror, psychological depth, and sharp social commentary, The Unworthy is an outstanding choice. It’s the kind of book that doesn’t just entertain; it makes you think deeply about the world and our place within it.