Thirst follows two women in two separate times as they cross paths.
I will say I GREATLY enjoyed the first part, part 2 lost me a bit as it was more journal entry style and it slowed quite a bit but overall gorgeous writing and yes, sapphic. if you read An Education in Malice and we’re disappointed I think you’d like this a bit better.

thank you to netgalley and penguin for the ARC for my honest review!

Thanks to NetGalley for the advance copy. I found this quite captivating. The writing was beautiful and I enjoyed the split between time periods. There were a few moments that seemed really out of place, but overall thought this was a great read.

3.5-4 stars!! This was engaging to read and super fun. Always down for sapphic vampires. This was written beautifully and translated beautifully, I really have nothing bad to say other than I think the ending was a bit rushed.
I thought it explored relationships and motherhood (and daughterhood) really well and overall I really enjoyed this and would probably recommend it to people on TikTok!

I've never been to Buenos Aires, but I feel like I went through a journey in space, time and sexuality. I had no idea what to expect from this quick read about a vampire who somehow ended up in Argentina in the 19th century, but it's about something we can all relate to -- dealing with loneliness, survival and grief. There are a few steamy scenes. How could there not be given the title? The scenes set in the current day in the cemetery feel like a bit of a throwback when people had picnics in cemeteries, a place to visit to contemplate. Overall, I would recommend it and would be open to reading it in Spanish too.

Full disclosure: I read an advance copy of this book through #NetGalley

I had high hopes for this but sadly, it was a miss for me. Let's face it- the prospect of a queer vampire moving through time and a woman who meets her in a graveyard in modern Buenos Aires sounds really great. The two unnamed women are intriguing but their characters didn't gel for me. There are some wonderful phrases but on balance, it was less than it could have been. Thanks to netgalley for the ARC. Over to others.

I was really intrigued by the premise of this book, but I was ultimately disappointed. This didn't really seem to bring anything new to the genre and felt a lot like other vampire books I've read before. I was lacking a reason to really care about any of the characters, and the ending felt too rushed so her decision didn't really make sense to me. The story was fine, but nothing special.

Immediately drawn in by the cover, the premise of queer vampires, and a setting of a gothic Buenos Aires.

Centuries separate two women in Buenos Aires: one a mortal mother and the other an immortal vampire. Yet their stories intertwine in the present day with themes of desire and womanhood intermingled in.

The prose was beautiful, but I nevertheless felt as though there was a gap between myself and the author, merely because I was reading a translated version instead of the author's native language. Although I applaud the translator for doing an exquisite job of making the author's words just as lyrical, I could still tell there were dialectical nuances and/or key pieces of Argentinian history I was missing. I hope to one day reread this in the author's native language and hopefully drastically improve my enjoyment of this novel in the process.

That being said, the plot was unexpected in contrast to the synopsis on the inside cover. I expected the story to alternate between past and present, but Thirst is told in a mostly linear fashion. While there was a distinct voice given to both characters, the second half of the book --which focused on mortality and the present day-- seemed to drag in comparison to the first half (the classic vampire bit).

All in all, I don't have a strong feeling of like or dislike towards this book. I enjoyed it as is, but by no means is it bad or great. I would recommend this to anyone looking for a quick, literary piece to devour and make you think.

As always, my greatest and deepest thanks to the Penguin/Dutton marketing team (especially Isabel!) and the author for offering me a chance to read an advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I didn’t like this book quite as much as I hoped to. I did really enjoy the first half, learning about Maria’s time as a vampire, getting to see Buenos Aires grow up around her. However, I felt like I kind of hit a wall when I reached the second half. I didn’t feel nearly as invested in Alma, and don’t feel like the book really gave me enough time with Alma to become invested. I appreciated how the two halves connected, but the ending also just felt so so rushed — I was left not fully understanding why or believing that Alma would make the decision she did.

The writing was beautiful though, and I LOVE the cover. Ultimately I hope this author gets more of her work translated, because I would be curious to read it.

This was a solid 3.5 stars for me.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for the ARC!

Thirst by Marina Yuszczuk, translated by Heather Cleary #sixteenthbookof2024 #arc

CW: murder, death, vampirism, discussion of suicide attempts

This book follows two women in Buenos Aires. The first half follows a nineteenth century vampire who calls herself Maria, although that’s not her name. She is nameless for much of the book until she is assigned her moniker by a man. Maria details her multiple decades in the city and her deadly interactions with her community, and she ends up living in a cemetery crypt after she’s run out of town. The second half of the book follows Alma, also unnamed for most of her section, who is caring for her dying mother in present day. Maria and Alma don’t meet until near the very end, and I wish there was more that showed their obsession with each other, because it seemed sort of sudden and unearned.

Most of the book is about each woman’s grief and loneliness. The language is lyrical and the translation is beautifully done. I enjoyed the first half more than the second, maybe because there was more vampirism described and that’s my jam. But the second half was heartbreaking in the descriptions of Alma facing her mother’s illness and impending death. I wish the book spent a little more time focused on the two women together, but it’s a lovely story that’s worth reading.

Thank you to @duttonbooks and @netgalley for the advance copy. (Pub date 3/5/24)

#thirst #ladyvampire

While this book is not what I was expecting, it was still wonderful.

I really enjoyed the different emotions and feelings the book pulled from and was quite surprised to have liked it as much as I do. This book may not be for everyone but those who do read will LOVE it

There is something satisfying about a horror that doesn't offer a happily ever after.
Alma sinks deeper into isolation. The dissolution of a marriage paired with a mother's nightmarishly slow death leaves Alma vulnerable.

Or liberated?

Still not sure. But that's sort of what I like about this novel. There is no easy solution.

I really enjoyed this story! I'll admit I preferred the first half to the second half, but about 3/4 in I finally got invested in Alma's story as well. I think it makes sense to a certain point that her story is less interesting because it might feel familiar to so many. The first half we follow the life of a girl turned vampire centuries ago, we see her grow and adapt through time and then finally she finds herself at a point where she knows she can't continue on the way she had been. Then we skip to more modern time and with a woman dealing with the grief of a dying mother, and being a mother herself watching her child become more independent, while dealing with her own frustrations in life. It is a beautiful and many times emotionally draining look at women and how they deal with different aspects of their sexuality, grief and other aspects of their lives that don't get spoken about often. I received an ARC copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

The first half of this book through the vampire's perspective was gory and fascinating. And then much like the other middling reviews here, the second half lost me. When we jump to our human's POV, the story dragged a lot. Perhaps this indicates how different time passes for an immortal versus a mortal woman, but I still struggled to see the connection. And that ending!? I both love/hate it?
I'm torn on this one, mainly because I'm uncertain what our author was trying to communicate through this story. But I know I enjoyed at least half of it.

This was a refreshing take on vampires, and I really enjoyed it. There’s just something about translated fiction that hits different.

There’s a beautiful, gothic ambiance throughout the book that really ties the two stories and characters together. I enjoyed the prose as well; sometimes, you can feel that a work has been translated due to the stiff, unmelodic flow. That wasn’t the case here.

I do wish there had been a third part. I also wish the two stories had had more overlap beyond the one point. And perhaps more yearning. It felt a little bit just like lusting.

This read was short and absolutely worth it for anyone interested in vampires and their requisite eroticism, gothic translated fiction, something literary that leans heavier on the horror, messy bisexual women who can’t help but ruin their own lives, or a combination of the above.

All opinions are my own. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an advanced copy in return for my honest review.

Thank you so much to NetGalley and Marina Yuszczuk for providing me with a complimentary digital ARC for Thirst coming out March 5, 2024. The honest opinions expressed in this review are my own.

I received this directly from NetGalley. This is the first book I’ve read by this author. I love vampiric novels like most people. But I wasn’t sure what to expect from this novel. I really loved the first part of the book. I love historical fiction, so it was really interesting to me to see a vampire live out their life and the passages of time. The second half of the book is where the author lost me. I found it not as interesting. I was having a hard time seeing the connection between the two stories, and I really didn’t like how it ended up. I just thought the tone was a little weird in second half of the book. I do love translated books and will check out other books by this author.

Thanks to Netgalley for my advanced copy.

I was absolutely sucked into this story. The writing was rich, evocative and erotic. It was a beautiful vampire story which was so much deeper and thought provoking than I ever expected. Character work was done very well. There was plenty of time spent building and examining everyone, which made the story feel raw and real.

I would easily recommend this to anyone that enjoys vampire tales with deep themes and beautiful writing.

Review posted to StoryGraph and Goodreads on 2/22/24. Review will be posted to Amazon on 2/22/24.

What a delightfully odd book about grief, longing, and mortality. The structure of this book allowed for us to witness two parallel stories play out and recognize patterns of loneliness and yearning repeating themselves decades apart. There were multiple scenes throughout the novel that were absolutely heartbreaking and had me in tears. This is a book I’ll be recommending to all my friends who love horror (be it through the supernatural or just the trudge of being a human at times).

Thirst by Marina Yuszczuk, translated by Heather Cleary, is a modern Gothic that took me by surprise from the very first page. The narrative unfolds in two distinct yet interconnected parts:

First we are introduced to our vampire protagonist; she's feral, seductive, elegant and utterly wicked. Forced to relocate from Europe to Buenos Aires during the 19th century, she learns to survive and adapt using the height of the Yellow Fever epidemic to her advantage. What's more, she is vengeful.

Part two is told through diary entries by a contemporary woman grappling with her mother's brutal terminal illness while balancing being a mother herself. She inherits a key that leads her to a crypt at the famous La Recoleta Cemetery, where she encounters a beautiful and monstrous creature of the night.

Thirst is a testament to the talent of both the Argentinean author and the translator, with Yuszczuk's moody prose skillfully brought to life by Cleary's translation; its atmospheric writing is dark and seductive. My only minor complaint is the jarring pacing shift at the halfway mark. I devoured the first half easily, but the second half moved quite slower. I eventually got into the flow of it, but I think this might cause issues for future readers.

In all, Thirst is an unapologetic work in gothic feminist literature, and I recommend it to anyone who loves reading about complex and feral women.

Thirst was a book that I thought was going to steal my heart. A queer vampire tale is what everyone is missing in their life. We have seen everything else in the vampire world but this is what we really need more of and I'm here for it!

The first part of this book was amazing and that was the part where I couldn't put it down and then the second part appeared. That was the hardest to get through. Both parts show their vulnerability to being alone and the ending of one's life. Both were heavy topics and ones we could all connect with but something was missing. I thought that this was going to stand out a lot more than it did but it's one that I'll soon forget after reading.

This was such an interesting read for me because it felt like each half was written by a different author. The voice changed drastically between the historical and contemporary narrators, which is quite the skill. I did find the relevance of some passages a bit confusing and wonder if they’ll remain in the final edit, but overall I enjoyed the connections between the past and the present.