Death and loneliness remain a constant presence for two women navigating life in different centuries in Thirst by Marina Yuszczuk and translated by Heather Cleary.
After long years feasting upon the blood of nineteenth century Europe with others like her who were sadly ended, a lone vampire arrives to Buenos Aires where she bears witness to the advancements of the village toward a more developed city. With civilization encountering a state of decay and chaos as a plague sweeps through the area she’s able to more discreetly mask her feedings and intermingle with humans, at least until the time comes when her impulses force her to act and lock herself within a coffin in a crypt to escape capture. Centuries later in contemporary Buenos Aires, another woman struggles to manage with her mother’s declining health, her own health concerns, and navigating motherhood. After receiving a packet of information from her mother that includes a mysterious key, the woman visits the cemetery mentioned in the documents and eventually encounters the vampire, sparking a fascination between them that forges a new life for each, from which there’s no turning back.
Detailing experiences that each of the women encounter throughout their lives, but specifically in relation to the cemetery, twin stories of death, loneliness, and a consuming desire, often for something deemed to be beyond what you should want, unfold and intertwine. The sense of peace and calmness that was expressed through each of the women’s perspectives of the cemetery resonates well as a shared sentiment, even though many may find them an eerie and grief-filled place as the end for each person’s inevitable fate of death. Though the transition between the vampire’s and contemporary woman’s stories was jarring in the moment, and the latter moved at a slower pace, they were tied together rather well through the prologue, bits of information, and a shared concept of watching others try to combat death, which found their connection and resolution by the swiftly reached end.
Overall, I’d give it a 3.5 out of 5 stars.
*I received a copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

“Buenos Aires stank of stagnant water, of bodies rotting under the sun; its plazas and the courtyards of wealthy families were filled with all manner of plants to scent the air and pretend otherwise, but the entire city was one vast cemetery. A melancholy one, at that, because its living inhabitants were constantly reminded of their endless struggle against decay.”

For a while, I didn’t want to read anything to do with plagues or pandemics, but lately I’ve been craving them, and Thirst is a new favorite. The vampire’s account of the Yellow Fever is haunting and lyrical, and she’s emotionally distanced from it enough that her POV offers a very narrow perspective of how humans react to it. Wealthy people fleeing the city as bodies pile up, every man for themselves as they wonder how long until they get sick. The original Spanish edition was published in October 2020, so I imagine it was written before COVID hit, but the parallels to how our society responded to COVID were interesting.

Then we switch to the mother/daughter’s (unnamed narrator) POV for the second half of the book, which at first is jarring. Now it’s modern day and we get a day by day account of this woman’s comings and goings as she deals with her mother’s rapidly declining health. But I quickly realized the connection between the two narrators. The vampire watched as humans tried to cover up death and survive as best they could, and the daughter watched as doctors forced her mother to stay alive.

Thirst isnt necessarily a story about grief. It’s more about that stage right before you lose someone, when the grief is pending. We go to great lengths to avoid death, which can sometimes be extremely selfish and only delays the inevitable. I really enjoyed the juxtaposition between an immortal vampire who can’t die, but can’t quit live, either, compared to the second narrator whose mother should die, but piece by piece she loses more quality of life until there’s nothing left. It’s a sad, ambiguous book but also brings comfort and logic to some heavy topics that are difficult to make sense of.

**Thank you Isabel DaSilva for reaching out with this arc! All thoughts on this read are entirely my own!**
Posted to: NetGalley, Goodreads, and The Storygraph
Posted on: 6 December 2023

4 out of 5 stars.

Yuszczuk is an author I haven’t heard of before. I was honestly quite surprised when I got an email from Isabel DaSilva inviting me to check out ‘Thirst’, but I decided to give it a chance since I was waiting to hear back from other ARCs at the time, and this one did not disappoint. Told in two different points of views of women who knew different eras of the same city, ‘Thirst’ invokes a sort of self-reflection through its words. Often, I found myself contemplating what it meant to live and what it was to exist- and while I’m not sure if that was one of the main points of this novel, it certainly made relating to the characters a bit easier as they go through similar pangs.
I think what I enjoyed most about this read is how achingly human the characters are. I’m not too deep into women’s fiction reads or more adult genres in general if I’m honest (a glance through my recent reads will show a lot of YA sci-fi and fantasy, and just fairly recently some adult sci-fi and fantasy) so it was a bit different to read about the pains of being a women, a mother, a monster in times where all these expectations and desires are painted upon the female figure. But ‘Thirst’ shows how desperate these two women are to live, to heal, to love themselves and to pick themselves up when it seems like nobody is in their corner to help them. It was different to see more mature characters handling life and desires (and depression and sorrow) and I think that just really stuck out to me in a way that made this book a heavy hitter.

‘Thirst’ may be about two women eventually crossing paths and leaning into one another for unexplainable reasons, for a connection, for a desire to both live yet feel something more than just living, but at it’s heart, it’s about two women who wanted to survive when death lingers deep within them. It’s a poem and a eulogy and a representation of the dying that occurs when you’re still alive, of the decay that lingers within the soul, and of the depression that sinks it’s fangs deep into the flesh of even the seemingly-strongest of people. It’s a reminder of the futile yet beautiful yearning that exists inside of people, and the desire to feel whole.

With echoes of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and written in the vein of feminist Gothic writers like Shirley Jackson, Daphne du Maurier, and Carmen Maria Machado, Thirst plays with the boundaries of genre while exploring the limits of female agency, the consuming power of desire, and the fragile vitality of even the most immortal of creatures.

I just want to rave about Thirst by Marina Yuszczuk (Translated by: Heather Cleary)

This might be my favorite sapphic vampire book I’ve read this year! My dark gothic heart loved everything about this book. I’ve been looking for the longest time for a vampire book that would steal my heart like Anne Rice’s Vampire Chronicles. I finally found it. It also had the perfect amount of smut for me… Perfect for fans of Mariana Enriquez, Samantha Schweblin and Ana Paula Maia.

It’s split into two parts. The first part we meet the vampire and how she had to flee to Argentina to survive. It was fascinating to read how she survived all by herself and had to deal with the yellow fever and hiding her thirst for human blood.

Surprisingly my favorite part was the second one. I really loved Alma’s section. She’s a single mother who has been taking care of her mother who has a terminal illness. Her mom reveals a family secret that’s been kept for generations. I’m very close to my mom so Alma’s POV really hit me hard with the emotions.

You don’t want to miss out on this book!! Thanks at Dutton and Netgalley for the e-arc!

A woman who was left for dead in a vampire infested castle funds her way to Buenos Aires and experiences desire and loss across centuries. The pace of this novel ebbs and flows, but the lush prose and interesting characters will keep readers invested in the story

DNF 59%
There were back and forth moments where I was into the narrative. The issue was that I had nothing to look forward to. It didn’t seem like the story was going anywhere. I had nothing against character driven stories but I have to be invested in the MC. I didn’t find her compelling. I did like the human man who kept her secret and continued to visit her. I admire their relationship and that she kept him alive and human. I appreciate that he didn’t turn her in. I like that the girl she turned really disliked her and resented being a vampire.

thirst at its core is a bare bones interconnected dual storyline about female desire and how the way society structures its social roles prevents women from having what they want. however, it's also about deal with grief and how to prepare oneself for when someone you care about leaves this earth. i just wish the execution was a little better as i definitely preferred the ideas of the first perspective more than the second.

In a strange and unexpected turn of events, the kindle file was corrupt and didn’t work on my device. I wasn’t able to read it. I guess it’s appropriate, considering the topic of the book…

Thank you to NetGalley and Penguin for the ARC.

Thanks to Net galley for the opportunity to read this novel. In nineteenth century Buenos Aires a deadly beauty hunts in the darkness unleashing feral sexuality. She also unleashes death. Locked away, entombed, she bides her time, waiting. In the current century a young woman struggles through the cruel grief of watching her mother succumb to her final illness. When she is given the keys to an abandoned tomb in an old cemetery she will learn that sometimes damnation and salvation walk hand in hand. Thirst is an exquisite,gothic exploration of life and death.

A special thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for providing me with a copy in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

Thirst by Marina Yuszczuk is an exploration of hunger, a meditation on grief, and a wonderful insight into the human condition.

Though this book is short, it’s immensely profound, and I found myself in love with the prose and themes present within the story, especially in the first half, which followed our unnamed vampire. I think that the author did an exceptional job at really nailing the atmosphere, and though this is not a historical novel, parts of it definitely felt like one.

The second half of this novel was an unexpected exploration of grief that caught me entirely off guard. While it didn’t necessarily align with what I thought I’d be getting out of this book going in (which was sapphic vampires and a little bit of horror), it was still just as profound as the rest of the novel and made me immensely sad. It’s not often that the act of grieving before a person has passed is written about, and the author did an exceptional job at capturing the feelings of helplessness and sadness of something like that.

All in all, this was a very, very, very good book. It would have been five stars if the ending had played out just a little differently, as I was slightly disappointed that the two main characters didn’t even meet until almost the end. That said, this is definitely a book I recommend you pick up.

"Thirst" by Marina Yuszczuk is a sumptuous and gorgeously- written vampire novel. It is so much more than a horror novel; at its core, "Thirst" is about what is is to be a woman with desire. The dark, claustrophobic atmosphere created by the author's words is perfect for a book about how women must stifle their more carnal urges in order to be accepted by society. Though it is relatively short in length, this book is one of the best I've read this year and I look forward to more from this author. I love genre-defying novels and this certainly is one.

Many thanks to NetGalley, the author, and the publisher for the privilege of reading an advanced copy of this astoundingly beautiful book.

This story is beautiful...absolutely stunning.
I've learned that it has been translated into English - which I found made the entire reading experience have such a depth. It reads as though you're in the actual mind of the characters (even when you're not), and what a beautiful place to be!

I didn't expect to like this one as much as I did.

Thank you to NetGalley & Penguin Group Dutton for an ARC copy - Definitely recommend!

_Thirst_ by Marina Yuszczuk explores the lives of two different women of different time periods, and how they find one another. Set in Buenos Aires, Yuszczuk blends history with fantasy as the reader follows a vampire as she arrives in the city and experiences a pandemic and the growth of nineteenth-century Buenos Aires. The reader is then transported to the present-day and follows a mother as she experiences loss and uncertainty. The two women ultimately meet, and feel a transcendent connection. I enjoyed the descriptions of Buenos Aires and the separate narratives of the two women, but felt it was a bit rushed in the conclusion.

This was an interesting, unexpectedly reflective story, but it didn't quite deliver on the energy that I was expecting from it. There were several moments throughout both parts where I felt like I was being told about events rather than being shown events, which held me apart from the characters and their emotions, and slightly sanitised the narrative for me. I think "genre-bending" is a tall order for such a short book; THIRST gave it a valiant effort, but ultimately, unfortunately, I wasn't sold.

A translated gothic vampire novel?! Gimme it!

I foolishly used to think I didn’t like vampire stories. But over the last few years, there have been some wonderful examples; Reluctant Immortals by Gwendolyn Kiste, The Hacienda by Isabela Canas, recent TV adaptations of Interview with the Vampire and Dracula, and THAT episode of UK anthology show, Inside No. 9.

And now, we can add Marina Yuszczuk’s novel Thirst to the list (translated by Heather Cleary). Thirst is split in half; the first section of the novel is told from the perspective of a female vampire, recently arrived in 19th century Buenos Aires. Essentially homeless, she finds ways to survive and feed, as a pandemic strikes the city.

In the second half, we’re still in Buenos Aires, but our modern-day narrator struggles with divorce, parenthood, and the decline of her aging mother. When our narrator learns a strange crypt is part of her inheritance, the two stories intertwine beautifully.

If you don’t want to overthink the inevitability of death, I suggest you avoid this novel. I love how the narrator’s battle to survive in the first half of the book is totally at odds with the narrator’s mother losing all the joy from her existence in the latter half. The problems of the two narrators are so completely different, but the constant struggles that come with being a woman remain.

I raced through this novel so quickly. Yuszczuk’s uncomplicated style propelled the story forward, but nothing was sacrificed. I loved both narrators; I would happily have read hundreds more pages on either of them. And, it’s a vampire novel, so there is obviously sex and violence, but neither are gratuitous.

I really hope Thirst is embraced, and we see more work in English from Marina Yuszczuk.

The first half is stronger than the latter half, although overall this is a fun read. I enjoyed this in no small part because of so recently finishing a dracula re-read. Alma’s character adds some depth here, but I was a little confused overall about how we should feel about her character. The parallel between vampirism and Alma’s mother’s illness is not entirely effective, and I ended up strongly preferring the vampire PoV and was disappointed when it didn’t return. The gothic language is really evocative though, and is interesting in combination with the setting, which felt gritty and richly textured. Overall would recommend to fans of the genre.

Thank you so much to Netgalley and the publisher for giving me this opportunity!

This book! This freakin book! I can’t express my feelings towards it. I don’ think any word would do it justice. This was an entire new experience in itself. It had gothic themes. It was written in such a unique way.
I feel like i’m not making it any justice but only thing i could say anything else other than please read this!
This was my only 6 stars read of the year.
Perfection.

This book is absolutely stunning. Lush, erotic, and effectively scary at times, both the prose and the story are beautifully done. This is what I've always wanted in a vampire story! It's difficult to put into words how impressed I was, I truly can't recommend this book enough.

4/5 stars

Thirst by Marina Yuszczuk is a beautiful literary story about a vampire making her way through to world and finding connection. The prose in this book was breath taking and it felt like you were walking alongside the characters.

Marina’s main characters feel deep, encompassing, and utterly human even when they aren’t. We get to see both main characters on their separate timelines until ultimately they come together. The richness of the story leaves you eager to see the uniting and what that may mean.

I thought the themes of family, living, and choice were prevalent throughout the novel and we got to see each chapter grow into themselves as they navigated these themes separately and together.

If you love LQBTQIA+ books with haunting prose I would absolutely recommend picking up this book. Thank you to the publisher for providing an advance copy via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.