✨ Review ✨ Thirst by Marina Yuszczuk; translated by Heather Cleary

Thanks to Dutton and #netgalley for the gifted advanced copy/ies of this book!

This is Latin American feminist gothic at its best! Blending together historical fiction in Part 1 with contemporary fiction in Part 2, Yuszczuk stiches together different eras and narrators in a way that feels both fragmented and continuous.

Part 1 traces a vampire across centuries from Europe to Buenos Aires as she seeks to stake out (ha pun not intended) a space where she is safe to exist. Finding an extensive cemetery, she eventually makes a home there after a yellow fever epidemic in the 19th century.

Part 2 brings us to contemporary times where a woman has to grapple with the ways her life has not been expected -- an unfulfilling job, divorce from her partner and single motherhood, her mother dying of a cruel disease which is causing her body to freeze up part by part. When her mother gives her a key, it begins to draw the two parts of the story together.

A book about mortality and immortality, the endlessness and limits of desire, and our unceasing thirst throughout our lives (or the "lives" of the undead"), this book would have been so much fun to read through a more critical literary analysis.

Note: this is definitely a slow burn - be prepared!

The focus on cemeteries and death and statues and more made this a true gothic delight, and I can't wait to read more by this author!

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️💫 (4.5 stars)
Genre: Latin American feminist gothic, LGBTQ+
Setting: Buenos Aires, mostly 19th and 21st centuries
Pub Date: March 5, 2024

Read this if you like:
⭕️ slow burn feminist gothic
⭕️ cemeteries and their trappings
⭕️ vampires and mortals
⭕️ Latin American settings

Thirst is about a female vampire told in first person. How she was sold by her mother to a vampire nobleman, who fed off her and eventually he turned her when she became a young woman, her and other women who she began thinking of as her sisters. When the Master vamp is killed many years later, she and her sisters escape, living wild in the forests, feeding off humans. As the years progress and they learn to cloth themselves and seduce victims for their food, her sisters are destroyed and eventually the vampire gets aboard a ship that heads to the new world, arriving in Buenos Aires.

The novel has touches reminding me of classic horror like Dracula and Frankenstein, with whispers of writing not unlike Shirley Jackson, Daphne du Maurier, and other gothic writers.

A blood-soaked novel of unending blood thirst, death, immortality, and desire that pulls you in with its haunting prose, bringing vampires that are not like those in Twilight, but back to the dark, scary ones.

Mixed feelings on this one. I liked it, but sometimes it was kind of boring. Thirst is a sapphic vampire novel with two distinct timelines and perspectives. Most of the first half to two-thirds of the book is an ancient lady vampire recounting her life- how she was turned, how she made her way to colonial Buenos Aires and survived, the people she killed, the women she slept with and then killed. Some of this is interesting, some of it is rather dull. I think it's trying to fit in a lot about different moments in the history of Argentina as she lives through it, which is sometimes to the detriment of a compelling narrative. Or at least it makes it read more like historical fiction which isn't really my thing.

The rest of the book follows a divorced woman and mom whose life intersects with that of the vampire in contemporary Buenos Aires. What this does well is show the classic mix of seduction and brutality of vampires with a protagonist who is at once sympathetic and horrific. I feel like this will be a hit for people who are more into literary fiction or historical fiction who want some vampires sprinkled into their reading. To be fair, the marketing does call this genre-blurring and I think that's very accurate, it's just a matter of what those genres are. I liked this, but didn't love it though I think it will be a big hit with some readers. I received an advance copy of this book for review, all opinions are my own.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ (4/5)
“We never invited death into our home, and yet, there it was.”

I knew I had to read this book the moment I saw the cover. Vampires are a personal passion of mine—I love tracing their lineage throughout history, how their mythos has changed in the past few lifetimes.

THIRST is a book split between past and present. The first half details the complicated lifetime of a young girl who was turned over to a vampire by her mother, who grew to be a monster herself. She bumbles through her story of slavery, freedom, and then persecution once more before her escape to Buenos Aires. I found her ramblings about her life extremely interesting, and I flew through to see what she would do next.

In the second half, we follow a woman living in modern-day Buenos Aires. She shares a child with an ex, works in publishing, and is haunted by the decline of her mother, who suffers from a debilitating disease that is slowly killing her. She faces discontent as she tries to be the perfect mother, daughter, and employee. But when her mother hands her a mysterious envelope, her story is intrinsically linked with another’s ….

I loved this modern take on gothic literature. I love gothic lit but often feel that after reading Jane Eyre and Dracula, I’ve read them all. Yuszczuk managed to breathe—ironically—new life into the genre. I did have some complaints about the end. Not necessarily because I found it bad but more that it was lacking. The character development seemed to peter out right at the end, and I felt like everyone’s actions started to feel a bit staged, not quite thought out. Like she’d known how she wanted it to end but wasn’t quite sure how to get the characters there.

I’m immensely glad I found this book when I did. Its themes of death and grief came at a particularly difficult time, and I felt like the author had somehow opened my chest cavity and peered into my soul. I can’t believe this is the first of Yuszczuk’s first novel published in English—I hope to see many more translated soon.

I’d recommend this book to anyone who loves gothic vampires and women.

**I received a free e-arc of this book in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts are my own.

The prose is beautiful. It held up really well in translation and is absolutely breathtaking. The two main female characters are really interesting and complex. They contrast in really neat ways and that is used to drive the plot, especially in the second half. There is a lot of attention paid to character motivations and relationship, which I really like. I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It’s a wonderful meditation on loss and change and grief. It portrays depression in a cool and unique way, through the vampire motif. I wasn’t entirely sold on the ending. I think that the actions of the characters make a lot of sense, but the fact that one of the characters has a son is really throwing me. Overall, however, I loved this book and highly recommend it.

I desperately wanted to like this and I’m disappointed that I didn’t enjoy it as much I was hoping. There is no doubt that Marina Yuszczuk is a talented writer - it isn’t often that you come across writing this ethereal and beautiful. I will be thinking about her writing style for weeks, if not longer.

However, her prose wasn’t enough to save the story. Thirst is split into two parts and I liked each half equally but because they felt so different from each other, there was a slight disconnect. I can’t put my finger on exactly what I found lacking in the story except for substance itself. I am the greatest admirer of unlikable female characters and both of our “protagonists” fit the bill for that title so I was wholly fascinated by their characterization. Normally a character study is something I seek out but in this case, it wasn’t enough.

Although I was enthralled by Yuszczuk’s dark, mesmerizing atmosphere, I wanted more from this. The layers of grief and how they can affect your innermost self were explored very well but it wasn’t quite enough to keep me enthralled.

Thank you to Marina Yuszczuk, NetGalley, and Penguin Group/Dutton for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This book had the romantic essence and feel of the movie version of Interview with a Vampire, in the way of elegance and living amongst the living seamlessly. I loved how the character that calls herself many names was essentially an undead human, with some vampiric abilities/faults. This book went from modern day in the prologue, was from her point of view for the first half and then tied back into modern day. It was an easy, wonderful connection that the author did with ease. It had a wonderful fluidity when it came to love and attraction as our main character cared not about gender, embracing her sexuality. I fell in love with this book and its main undead character, I just wish the story continue further than it did.

The first part of this story felt like a throwback to Dracula and the atmosphere of the classic tale. However, the plot quickly moves to Buenos Aires, Argentina. Here, the story reminded me much more of Frankenstein because you have a monster who barely knows herself trying to survive in a world where she will never be accepted. Seeing her try to find her way and take advantage of colonialism, sexism, and classism was compelling but also made me uncomfortable, which I think was the point. Our vampire preys on women who have lost their status in society, on men who no one will miss, but there is a reason all those people make for the perfect victims.

Our main character is not a "good person," she's not a person at all, but she is compelling and exciting.

However, there is a point in which the story transitions to a modern setting, and we start following a human woman grappling with her mother's fast-deteriorating health. For a significant chunk of that section, there is no vampire, and it is unclear how the story will connect to our vampire. That was frustrating. However, the connection is finally made, and the story is again compelling. If you can make it through that section, then the book will be very much worth it. On the other hand, if you have recently been through the death of a loved one, especially if it was a slow death due to illness, I think that section will feel much too real and difficult to read.

Actual rating 3.5

The writing in this story was gripping in places, but in others it left me a bit flat. The descriptions of the savagery in the first half were intense and unlike what I might have expected, but it all fit the story and kept things moving along. The second half wasn't quite as engaging, and for a long time I wondered why it was part of the book. It was a good story on its own, don't get me wrong, but it just didn't seem to fit. The stories do marry closer to the end, but I didn't love it as much as the ending felt unrealistic for both main characters. Beyond that, Yuszczuk is an excellent writer, and I'd be interested to see if more of her work gets translated.

My thanks to Penguin Group/Dutton, the author, and NetGalley for the opportunity to read this ARC in exchange for an honest opinion.

Thirst is a sprawling epic that will call to mind Anne Rice and Italo Calvino, though this is not a combination I'd thought likely. Part one follows a woman cursed as a vampire, describing in first person how she has witnessed first hand the cruelty of trying to exist as an (immortal) woman in the patriarchal, hyper religious landscape of medieval Europe and later 1800s Buenos Aires. There is beautiful, painstaking attention to environmental and architectural details throughout. Part two introduces a new main character living in modern times who writes with a more confessional voice, using the format of a diary. Her lush descriptions sometimes extended longer than I wished; as I was piqued with curiosity about how her story would intersect with that of the first MC. Thirst takes an intimate look at just a few examples of what it means to be alive.

I really loved the way that Mariana Yuszczuk was able to portray the loss and grief of two female characters with wildly different lives. Time was truly the villain in this story and the way these women were able to come together in the end, accepting their fates, was the most wonderful piece of literature as of late!

This sexy, grim novel follows two women, Maria a bloodlorn(is that a word?) pansexual vampire and Alma, a single mom grappling with coparenting and the decline of her terminally ill mother. Their stories intertwine during part 2 after we hear the richly described history of Maria's life in Europe and Buenos Aires. I found it poignant, despite the sex and violence throughout both characters' stories, as both women sought companionship and fulfilment.

Thirst by Marina Yuszczuk is a queer, feminist, and gothic work set in Buenos Aires, Argentina. This story follows two women in two different times. The first being a vampire who will do whatever necessary to quench her thirst. I haven’t read many vampire novels but I have never read one where the vampire is so unapologetically their self. Quenching her thirst leaves a trace and we see the consequences of this in the first part. In the second part we follow a mother who is fascinated by the cemetery, a place she visits often. Her mother is terminally ill so she is learning to live with the knowledge and grief that her mother does not have long to live. In this novel we explore two perspectives of death and grief, one from our vampire who is immortal and one from a mother who is seeing this all unfold slowly, day to day. We see how these two women are connected and how they both have learned to live with two inevitabilities and the choices they make. This novel was interesting and different and I appreciated that. 3⭐️

The first half of this was MY JAM. I could not get over how much I loved it... Unfortunately, I kind of wish the first part had never ended. The second half was not terrible by any means, but it just felt lackluster following the first part. And unfortunately, the ending felt rushed to me. AND YET... I still can't imagine giving it anything less than a 4/5. So clearly, I am still feeling a little conflicted haha I would definitely still recommend!

Torn on this one. Such an intriguing little book that offered a lot of complicated and cool ideas up for the reader to grapple with. Something about it just never reeled me in though.

I felt like this book was having a little bit of an identity crisis. The dual POV's were both well written and interesting in their own right, but felt underdeveloped and at odds with each other. The characters lives don't truly cross over until about the 80% mark, and I wish that had happened a lot earlier because it really ramped up once they did. I just overall think this should have been a much longer and more fleshed out book.

The writing was really stunning though, and I think the way the vampire is addressed here, with complete carnality yet stark vulnerability, is really compelling. I would probably read from this author again, but this didn't really land for me. (I also feel like this cover is just really at odds with the vibe of the book?? It's what mostly drew me in, so just a personal let down.)

Thank you NetGalley and Penguin Group Dutton for an e-ARC.

This female Vampire Gothic tale was very good and it kept me entertained and reading. I loved that it had more of a Gothic horror vibe to it than the teen bop vibe. This was good and I enjoyed it very much!
I just reviewed Thirst by Marina Yuszczuk. #Thirst #NetGalley
[NetGalley URL]

At face value, Thirst is a vampire story. Gothic, claustrophobic, and merciless, it feasts upon your fear and feeds your darkest desires. It is, however, so much more.... a sapphic love story wrought with unquenchable desire, a story of mothers and daughters, a story of grief watching someone you love to die a slow and agonizing death, a story of fear for the same fate you will likely meet and the emotional hardship your child will one day face, and a story of alternative choices one makes when tested to their limits. The book, in my opinion, is really about moral dilemmas. Sometimes making the right decision feels so wrong, and the wrong decision feels so right. It is not a feel-good book. There are no happy endings... and sometimes no endings at all.

I highly recommend this translated book by Argentine author Marina Yuszczuk. Buenos Aires and its transformation over the years is a breathtaking backdrop to this heartbreaking tale.

4.5 stars rounded up for its mesmerizing atmosphere.

Thank you to NetGalley and PENGUIN GROUP Dutton for the opportunity to read and review this ARC.

Big thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Thirst is a deeply haunting speculative fiction gothic told from the perspective of two women across time. One woman, a vampire forced into her life and left to deal with the horrifying inevitability of the forever-future, details her arrival in Buenos Aires—a strange new world, a dangerous new playground. It is there that she finds herself in a seductive dance with her more animalistic nature, locked in a battle of hungry existence in a world moving faster than her thirst can be quenched. The other story, told centuries later in Buenos Aires, follows a woman in the midst of immense grief; her mother is dying, her son is growing up, and she can't help but feel precariously balanced on the precipice of life and death. When she is burdened with a key to an unknown crypt, she finds herself tumbling over the edge, down into the bloody embrace of the unknown.

This was a deeply poignant read. On line level alone, the prose was obscenely powerful. Marina Yuszczuk is so wildly adept at this level of storytelling—wierd, obsessive, dire, sensual, and brutal. Heather Cleary does such a spectacular job at translating it for an english-speaking audience. Thirst is so honest in its narrative. It reads like diary entries—letters to the future or whoever comes next to possess the key—a pained warning, a whispered invitation. The perspectives in this book felt distinct and powerful, both women stumbling towards death the only way they know how: shouts and whispers and the clawing of their souls to grasp the fear hidden there. Buenos Aires feels almost like a third character here. The descriptions of the city, its plazas, its intricate graveyards spanning centuries felt lush. There's a distinct atmosphere about this book that's hard to describe without having read it. It's like feeling empty lungs and needing one long gasp of air, but you can't seem to find the power. You know that if you only breathe in, it'll be there. It's heavy, enthralling, and addictive. It is all at once the violence of an open artery and the tongue that soothes the wound.

Thirst is paced exactly as it needs to be, and though it's told over hundreds of years, you'll find you only need a small chunk of time to read it. If you like macbre narratives, the slow violence of existence, sapphic vampires, and feel compelled to wander the intricate maze of the statue-laden graveyard for a short while, this is for you.

A literary queer. sapphic, vampire book?! Obviously that is just calling to me!!

This novel is split into two parts. The first follows an unnamed vampire who dates back hundreds of years from her creation to the time she travels to Buenos Aires, Argentina in the early 1800s. The Yellow Fever pandemic breaks out and we follow her through her journey of existing in the city undercover and undetected.

The second half of the book takes place during the modern times. We follow a young mom navigating single parenting and being present for her mother, who's health and function is rapidly declining. When a key to a family crypt is passed on (with minimal instructions) to her, the intertwining of these characters unfolds.

I felt completely engrossed in this story, especially the first half. Our vampire MC is just so animalistic and instinct-driven, while basically just being biologically created to completely enthrall humans. I also appreciated the way these two stories were intertwined, and enjoyed seeing the connection between the two unfold.

It's gory, it's sensual, it's unhinged with beautiful (and nauseating) prose. Fantastic! 5 Stars.

"The cemetery was a field sown with corpses; the whole world is, though we rarely see it that way."

READ THIS FOR: sapphic characters, vampires, obsession with death + other macabre themes, elements of historical fiction

Taking place predominantly in both past and present-day Argentina, Thirst follows the lives of a woman named Alma and an unnamed vampire who arrived in Buenos Aires about 200 years before her. Both women bear witness to death: for the vampire, it's the Yellow Fever that swept through Argentina in the late 1800s; for Alma, it's the slow, devastating march of her mother's illness.

This is the second book l've read from an Argentinian author in the past couple of weeks! It was a faster read than I was expecting, but I didn't feel like the pacing was particularly rushed. The two perspectives were written with fairly distinct narrative styles, and I found myself gravitating more towards the sections in Alma's voice, which are essentially the prologue and the second half of the book. In contrast, details seemed richer from the vampire's perspective, which I LOVED, and which helped establish a lush atmosphere for the rest of the book. It reminded me a bit of The Historian, by Elizabeth Kostova, but that might just be the 18th/ 19th century vampires talking.

Thank you to @duttonbooks for the opportunity to read and review!