In a post-apocalyptic world after climate change destroys civilization, a woman keeps a secret journal in the mysterious and brutal Sacred Sisterhood.

The writing is brutally evocative of the end of the world. The horror and narrators rushed secrecy permeate every line. It was an unsettling read that will stick with me.

This is my 3rd book written by this author and it did not disappoint. I was left speechless and couldn’t put it down. This was very interesting and impactful. Thankyou for the arc i had to preorder immediately

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“Without faith, there is no refuge.”
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“Words that are forbidden. Words with sharp edges. Words of fire.”
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Sharing with you some thoughts on 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐔𝐍𝐖𝐎𝐑𝐓𝐇𝐘 by @agustinabazterrica
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This story is told in an epistolary format, weaving together scattered memories and clandestine experiences from the POV of an unnamed novice living in a religious order in a post-apocalyptic world devastated by ecological collapse. A new member’s arrival prompts the MC to reflect on faith, doubt, and disillusionment within the sanctum.
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I needed to take a couple days after finishing to realign my expectations for this one, I’d advise NOT anticipating the same shock value as Tender. Bazterrica’s prose is still strikingly powerful, functioning as both testimony and confession. Through fragmented, visceral, staccato-like sentences, she captures the MC’s shattered memories, fractured identity, and the urgency of a secretive diary-style format. This style mirrors the dehumanizing and oppressive world she inhibits, while hauntingly poetic and atmospheric moments provide a stark contrast to the brutality, illustrating fleeting hope and the indomitable spirit of survival.
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Like Tender, Bazterrica once again delves into the darker corners of human behavior set in a bleak, dystopian world, offering a sharp critique of power structures and societal complicity. 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐔𝐍𝐖𝐎𝐑𝐓𝐇𝐘 delivers a thought-provoking exploration of humanity’s capacity for both cruelty and resilience. Thank you @netgalley and @scribnerbooks for this ARC in exchange for an honest review!
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Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️.5/5
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“The truth is changeable, it contracts, implodes, it’s powerful like a bullet. And it can be lethal.”
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Included in monthly horror round-up at BookTrib: https://booktrib.com/2025/03/13/the-chill-quill-march-belongs-to-women-with-these-gripping-new-reads/

Agustina Bazterrica is back with a new novel and I liked it, even though it starts out a little too slow. The Unworthy is set in a dystopian world that has been decimated by climate disasters and wars over water, leaving nothing but a wasteland of disease and violent weather events. In the House of the Sacred Sisterhood, women seek refuge but end up trapped in a brutal cult. The Mother Superior rules with an iron fist, and above her is “Him," a mysterious figure no one is allowed to look at. The story is told through secret diary entries and they are bleak.

If you've read Tender Is the Flesh, you know how this author writes. It's all dread, all the time. The Unworthy is about survival in a world where hope is a dangerous thing. Even though it's a short novel at 192 pages, it takes a while to get a good feel for exactly what is going on. The second half of the book saves it and is worth the slow buildup to get there.

I think my review is going to be as messy as this book. The first part was like getting cold water thrown in my face. It was shocking, and left me confused. But I was also willing to give the book time to help me understand.

The cruelty and horror at the beginning eventually levels out and becomes less psychedelic, but the horror doesn't stop. Check for content warnings!

Eventually, the narrator starts having flashbacks, and begins to remember her life before the convent. It was interesting, and I could have read an entire book about the narrator's survival story. But she ends up in the crazy convent and it felt like the book is two different stories.

In the end, I think a lot of horror fans will love this book. I'm glad I read it, and would recommend to readers who like lyricism mixed with their horror.

I was excited to pick up The Unworthy, having been deeply affected by Agustina Bazterrica’s Tender Is the Flesh and its disturbing vision of a dystopian society. Once again, Bazterrica crafts a chilling, thought-provoking world—this time centering on a ruthless religious order operating in the midst of global turmoil.
The novel centers on an unnamed young woman confined within a rigid and oppressive convent ruled by the Sacred Sisterhood. Branded as an "unworthy," she is forced to endure harsh rituals and strict hierarchies while desperately striving to earn a place among the revered Enlightened. Isolated and silenced, she secretly records her thoughts and experiences in a forbidden diary, scrawling her truth with whatever materials she can find—discarded ink, dirt, even her own blood— no matter how crude or desperate.
Bazterrica’s writing is both haunting and poetic, pulling readers deep into the grim reality of the protagonist’s existence. She has a rare talent for crafting dystopian worlds that feel disturbingly plausible—less like an imagined future and more like a hidden truth lurking beneath the surface. Her storytelling doesn’t just depict bleak realities; it immerses you in them, making every brutal detail feel urgent and unavoidable. The Unworthy once again blurs the line between fiction and foresight, leaving readers unsettled by how easily her nightmarish vision could become our own. Told through diary entries, the narrative feels intimate and immediate, heightening the novel’s emotional impact—I couldn’t put it down and finished it in one sitting!
Having grown up Catholic, I found that the religious rituals in The Unworthy, though grotesque and extreme, struck a deeply unsettling chord. Agustina Bazterrica draws from her own experiences in Catholic school, where she witnessed a stark contrast between the ideals of love and the often cruel reality of human behavior. While some aspects were definitely hyperbolic, they didn’t lessen the novel’s impact—though they may be more divisive for certain readers.
Overall, The Unworthy is a harrowing and hypnotic read, one that lingers long after the final page. Bazterrica masterfully weaves horror and social commentary into a narrative that is both visceral and thought-provoking, forcing readers to confront unsettling questions about faith, power, and survival. Her ability to create immersive, nightmarish worlds makes this novel an unflinching and unforgettable experience. Fans of Tender Is the Flesh or dystopian fiction that pushes boundaries will find much to admire here.
Thank you to NetGalley and Scribner for the opportunity to read this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Agustina Bazterrica has done it again! First off, the cover is incredible and stunning. I liked that Agustina went in a completely different direction from Tender is the Flesh. The beginning was confusing for me but paid off as far as setting the scene of this apocalyptic "convent". The pacing felt intentional and well executed. One of my most anticipated releases for this year and I wasn't disappointed. I love Bazterrica's prose. Will review on. my page when I pick up the physical copy.

3.5 Rounded Down!

After "Tender is the Flesh", Augustina Bazterrica has become an author whose works I will pretty much automatically seek out. However, it seems like her standout novel has already been written...

"The Unworthy" only partially worked for me and I had to get close to the end to enjoy it. The first half is very slow, methodically explaining how the covenant operates and infused with generously detailed scenes of self-flagellation. There's no real plot to be found until halfway through the book, and then things finally start to pick up.

Once the ball got rolling, I was really enjoying the world building. Like "Tender is the Flesh", "The Unworthy" is set in a world ravished by environmental disasters and diseases. Our narrator describes her wandering expeditions before finding the covenant and it's extremely bleak. I thought it boded well with the introduction of Lucia, a new member of the covenant that our narrator is inexplicitly drawn to. Lucia embodies what our narrator has lost- mercy, love, hope. I loved this character and this arc for our narrator. It gave the novel the necessary emotional aspect it was lacking in the beginning.

Eventually, the novel wraps up without too much explanation. There's sort of a twist that I had guessed at, but the purpose behind everything is never explained. Personally, I felt like a little exploration of the why and the how would've been really interesting. However, I think that our narrators journey had an appropriate character arc and eventual end. I'm not mad, but I'm not in love with this one.

Was very good, I feel like all of Bazterrica's books have a different vibe to them and this one was no different. I felt incredibly stressed for the main character but loved the world built.

There is quiet horror, and then there is The Unworthy.

It is a dreadful feeling throughout the entire story. There is very little gore (if any, as a matter of opinion), but there is a lot of dread. Did I mention it is a dreadful story? No? Well… it is. If you are looking for a fast action-packed, gore-infested, high-octane story… this is not it.

Now that is out of the way… I enjoyed the story quite a bit. It is nothing like Tender Is The Flesh. But the writing style, the *dread* and the angsty feelings are loud and proud. I devoured this story in two days. I could not stop thinking about it when I had to pause to be an adult.
It’s a dystopian story with a bit of science fiction. A young girl is protected against a destroyed and tainted world. She keeps a hidden journal detailing what her life is like. A stranger comes to her commune and presents another level of *dread* and angst.

A *dreadfully* a delightful story. But it will not be for everyone.

The Unworthy by Agustina Bazterrica is a dark, unsettling, and deeply strange novel that lingers long after the final page. Set in a dystopian world where survival hinges on brutal rules and twisted hierarchies, the story is both disturbing and thought-provoking. Bazterrica’s writing is sharp and unflinching, pulling readers into a nightmarish society that challenges notions of humanity and morality. While the bleak atmosphere and graphic elements won’t be for everyone, I found myself captivated by the raw emotional undercurrents and unique world-building. A solid 4-star read for those who can handle its intensity.

When the book starts with this, you know you are in for a ride: "Someone is screaming in the dark. I hope it's Lourdes. I put cockroaches in her pillow and sewed up the slip. So they struggle to get out, so they crawl under her head or over her face (and into her ears, I hope, nesting there, the nymphs damaging her brain). I left small gaps between the stitches so the cockroaches would escape slowly, so it would take effort, like when I trap them (imprison them) in my hands. Some of them bite. They have flexible skeletons; they can flatten themselves and fit through tiny spaces, live without heads for days, survive underwater for a long time. They' re fascinating."

The back story is a climate crisis where the world turned into this uninhabitable, stripped off of daily technology we take for granted, scarry place. But I'm not sure if the life Sacred Sisterhood leads with their new man god who is the definition of post atomic bomb level toxic patriarchy is any better. I might choose dying in dystopian regular hell hole of world than within the walls of Sacred Sisterhood compound eating cricket based food.

Told from one of the unworthies point of view, horrors woman face as part of this cult is going to hurt your soul. Bazterrica has an extremely creative but equally scarry imagination, and I'm here for it. She creates readable gore, and that's a thing on its own.

I dnfed this book at 30%. It might be because it was translated, but I had a hard time following the story.

This was absolutely incredible—dark, unsettling, and so gripping from start to finish.

Her writing has this raw, intense quality that makes even the most disturbing moments impossible to look away from. It’s a brutal look at power, control, and dehumanization, and just like *Tender Is the Flesh*, it forces you to sit with the discomfort of its world. I loved every second of it—easily a 5-star read!

Agustina Bazterrica’s latest novel is a feverish dream about a not-too-far dystopian future and the brutality of which man (and women, but especially men) will still be capable, even with the world collapsing.

Honestly, at first, it wasn't easy to feel involved in it, nor was it to follow the back-and-forth narration with little to no context but, once you get the hang of it, you won’t be able to put it down.

Thanks to Scribner and NetGalley, who provided me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest opinion.

Am I glad I read it? I was prepared to be disappointed by this one by the end of the first half, but I stuck it out and am ultimately glad that I did.

Thematically, this book is right up my alley: I love critical explorations of religion and how, at its extremes, it can warp itself and its followers into something violent and judgmental and oppressive. It's like catnip to me! I'm writing this review about a week after having finished the book, and I've found that this book resonates with me more as I sit with it. Like with 'Tender is the Flesh', Bazterrica doesn't shy away from putting horrifically gruesome imagery directly one the page, which is one of the things I enjoy about her writing. I think she's particularly skilled at showing how individuals, sympathetic individuals even, can come do terrible things as part of the institutional machine they exist within. A religious cult, then, ostensibly a place of safety, of refuge, is the perfect setting to probe the manipulation of supplicants into violence unto themselves and their fellow supplicants and self-erasure in the pursuit of virtue, of "worthiness." That the narrator, the writer of the diary entries, remains unnamed, is *chef's kiss*.

The secret diary entry format serves the story really well. The close narrative focus lends the story a suffocating feel, like dense haze that threatens the Refuge, and facilitates the book's exploration of fragmented memory and trauma and warped truth nicely.

My one major complaint about this book, and the reason that I nearly DNF'd it early on, is that I found it quite difficult to get into. The diary entry format, macabre slice-of-life narrative approach, and the immediate introduction of so many figures (e.g., Minor Saints, Chosen, Enlightened, Superior Sister) and places in the House meant that I felt lost and disconnected from the story for a good chunk of the beginning. In short, this one required patience.

Side note: I also really appreciate the 'hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil' iconography of the Full Aura, Minor Saints, and Diaphanous Spirits, respectively. Clever, subtle bit of imagery there. Yet another reason I'm glad to have stuck it out.

Rating: 👍🏻 (liked)

I loved Tender is the Flesh, but this was a flop for me. Incredibly slow and repetitive with a boring plot.

I wanted to love this one but I just couldn’t connect to it. The writing felt stiff and I just wanted more from the story.

In an apocalyptic future where climate change and AI have ravaged the Earth, there lies a secret Eden where some women are invited in to show their devotion and piety to an unknown religious hierarchy in hopes of becoming one of the “chosen.” Naturally, we start to see the threads unravel while showing us the depths of depravity in which the last dregs of humanity have sunk.

I got a little confused keeping some of the characters straight with the weaving of past and current timelines. I’d suggest powering through, because it reveals itself full circle the further you read. For such a straightforward, somewhat predictable premise, it’s no less terrifying as a reader especially as a woman.

If you liked Tender is the Flesh, I think you’ll like this one too. There’s a smidge more hope in this book (a miniscule amount, really) but it’s going to piss you off just as much as Tender - if not more. No matter how the subject matter of her books make you feel, you can sense the author’s strength and defiance in her writing even if it’s frustrating to read. Her books are short, but heavy. I’m hoping it’s cathartic for the author to write these things.

The Unworthy will definitely clench your butt so please make sure to observe some proper self-care while reading this one.

Thank you to Scribner Pub and NetGalley for the gifted e-copy in exchange for an honest review.