Thirst was more highbrow than your typical vampire novel and I really loved the direction this book took! It was very interesting and kept me guessing. I can’t wait to read more from this author!

3.5 stars

Very enjoyable! I think it needed a bit more… something though. I was missing something by the end of the book. Queer vampires always has me at the start- but I just needed something more.

I wanted to adore this book as much as I expected to, but I felt like the two halves were too disjointed and there wasn’t something catching to keep everything in line. It was a fun read, but missing anything deeper.

Marina Yuszczuk’s Thirst is an unusual vampire story, following two women (one human, one decidedly not) in Buenos Aires. The first section of the novel follows the vampire as she flees Europe for the new world and tries to survive, undiscovered. The second half details the life of a young woman raising her son and dealing with her mother’s terminal illness. Thirst was billed as a “feminist Gothic” and lives up to the title, with lush, opulent descriptions of tombs, blood, and sex. I enjoyed reading it but didn’t love it, though I would gladly read another novel by Yuszczuk. (And shout out to the translator for such an excellent, readable translation.) I was interested to note that several readers found the vampire tale more interesting than the second half. I was the opposite--I really enjoyed the young mother’s life and struggles, whereas I kept waiting for the payoff in the vampire portion.

Thanks to the publisher & NetGalley for a copy of the book.

4.5/5 stars! A compelling, sexy, dark, tragic, controversial little novel that I really enjoyed! I found the two different points of view equally compelling, and I was surprised by how much it made me cry!

The title is what 100% drew me into requesting this work. Excellent writing done by Marina Yuszczuk. I will be on the lookout for more of her work for sure.

Thank you to Netgalley and the Publishing Team for this Advanced Digital Readers Copy, I thoroughly enjoyed this book!

A slow burn of a novel, but the compelling and rich characters and the short length made it...devour-able. I think it is for the queer readers who love a slightly different spin on the vampire story.

This book was quite a trip. I love the first 50% of it. The first part follows a woman from her creation all the way to her darker days. You get a timeline description of the events that happen to her life that lead to her finding hope and love in the new world that she is living in. The second half follows a woman as she struggles with her mother's life ending disease and the effects it has on her family but mainly on her daughter. The writing style was pretty easy to follow and to be engage with the story. I found myself sitting down for long periods at a time to get the most of it. A quick read If the style and vampire is your stuff.

Thirst by Marina Yuszczuk, translated by Heather Cleary, will appeal to those who enjoy historical, literary, and queer fiction. Yuszczuk is an Argentinian film critic who has published novels, short stories, and poetry collections. This is her first book published in the United States.

Thirst is an idea novel exploring death, aging, grief, and longing through the interiority of its two central characters.

The first protagonist is a woman who had been turned into a vampire long ago in Eastern Europe. She eventually makes her way to the New World and lands on the shores of Buenos Aires when it is little more than a jumble of buildings on a muddy shoreline. She watches it evolve into a cosmopolitan city as she learns how to feed herself discreetly. As the population increases, a cemetery is needed, and the vampire, who “had conquered death, but never my thirst,” entombs herself in a mausoleum. She thinks about the cemetery,

“Bodies rest below; the most important thing about the cemetery, its entire reason for being, is that it directs the gaze upward.
The cemetery opens and closes, like an oyster on the ocean floor, to reveal its contents and offer this promise to all who aspire to rest in its embrace: You are no grain of sand; you are a pearl” (ch. 8).

One day, weary and bored, the vampire is instantly intrigued by a woman she sees in the cemetery. This modern woman has sorrows and thirsts of her own, some that she is just coming to terms with. Sitting on a bench in the cemetery during a work assignment (photo for a magazine cover), she finds peace in the quiet.

“I felt something in me soften, despite my earlier worries that I might find the place depressing. But sitting there under that perfect blue sky, even if I couldn’t help thinking how all that beauty was only there to keep the corpses out of sight and out of mind, I noticed that I felt more at home than I had for a long time and that my mind was clearer, or something like that” (Part Two).

She becomes intrigued by the vampire. It all happened rather fast, and I felt I had missed something.

Thirst is written in the first person, which I sometimes found tiring, but that may be the point—to make the reader feel the characters’ feelings and situations more strongly. Whereas The Gathering and So Thirsty had some humor, Thirst is more philosophical and sensuous. I was not prepared for it. It is one of those novels that I felt the need to re-read immediately upon finishing.

[part of a joint review, link below]

A dual timeline is also going to reel me in! I wouldn't say I love vampires, but I was wholly enamored with this one. The past timeline was quite atmospheric, engaging and fast-paced. The violent, savage characteristics of the unnamed character really drew me in and had me enthralled. The second, present day time line was much slower paced and focused a lot on loss and filling that empty space. I wish the character in the second timeline was as captivating as the unnamed character. I think that would have made the second half more entertaining for me. But still had a good time with these queer vampires in Buenos Aires.

This novel covers two points of view from different time periods. The first woman recounts her tale of being given over to keep a monster at bay who turns her into a vampire. She tells of her travel to Argentina and eventually burying herself away for all eternity. In the present time, we meet another woman who is listless, who left an unhappy marriage, trying to come to grips with her mother's deteriorating illness. They meet and a connection is formed when a family secret is revealed.

Excellent translation. I enjoyed that this was a novel about choices and going for what they wanted. No one, no man held them back.

This book explored intriguing themes! However, I had a hard time connecting with the story and that is obviously on me and not the book. I recognize that it has great potential to appeal to other thriller readers and I encourage others to try it out! Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for providing me with a copy of this book.

Genuinely just not for me, this is an excellent book with excellent structure and content. I just personally happened to not like it. 10/10 recommend to people who enjoy split narrative time-weaving and historical elements in sapphic fiction.

Thank you, NetGalley, for this book.

I also received this book from the Nightworms book subscription service under the books like Frankenstein concept, but that’s not accurate. This is a vampire story through and through. The unnamed vampire, who calls herself Maria at one point so I will too, lives for centuries and preys upon the people of Buenos Aires.

In the present day, Alma struggles with the impending death of her mother while managing life with her ex-husband and young son. Alma generally struggles with life when a long-forgotten key comes into her possession. At this point, Maria and Alma’s live converge.

This is a really beautiful story of love and loss. The parallel between Maria’s immortality and Alma’s mother’s decline was critical to the story. I loved all the characters and the story moved forward perfectly. Excellent book.

Thank you NetGalley and Dutton for this ARC!

I really enjoyed this book and I found the prose to be beautiful. I love a good vampire and Thirst certainly is one! I liked how the author split up the two parts and continued the story. It flowed well and I thought it was super interesting.

I would definitely read more from Marina in the future!

An incredibly atmospheric and well written book. I really enjoyed the perspective of the main character as she navigates her eternal life. Sapphic and gorgeous, though it felt a little short on speed it is worth the read.

Thirst by Marina Yuszczuk offers a captivating and unconventional take on the vampire genre, intertwining themes of grief and identity. Set in Buenos Aires, the narrative unfolds across two sequential timelines, allowing readers to deeply understand the contrasting lives of a bloodthirsty vampire and a grieving human mother. Yuszczuk's exploration of her characters is rich and layered, especially in depicting the human experience of loss and the allure of the supernatural. With its blend of literary depth and genre elements, Thirst promises an engaging read for both horror enthusiasts and those seeking poignant emotional connections.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for an ARC in exchange for an honest review of Thirst. Unfortunately I did not get to this before it was archived. I'm looking forward to checking it out at my local library!

I very much enjoyed Thirst. I'm generally a fan of Vampire fiction, but I'm also a fan of history and authors who provide rich, detailed, pictures of different periods of time. I appreciated the dark, gothic feel of the book as well.