Thank you netgalley, the publisher and Agustina Bazterrica for this e-arc,

This book was an interesting premise with such eerie, atmospheric writing. I found myself confused at first, feeling thrown into a completely dystopian world with no context, but as I kept reading I was left immersed and with a greater understanding of the world/ characters. The atmosphere was so perfect, very dark, bleak and eerie, yet there were moments of love, care and passion. Overall, I enjoyed more than I thought I would!!

This book follows a woman writing her experiences living in a convent in a post-apocalyptic, dystopian world. It is dark with a lot of scenes of oppression and torture. This book explores the dark sides of how far things can go amidst a group of women trying to survive.

I like weird books and this one certainly qualifies. However, the book didn't become interesting to me until we started to learn more about her past and about her early days surviving in the dystopian environment with her family and gang of friends. The second half was much better than the first half....and that's strange to say for such a short book. While I think the story was fine, I wasn't gripped early on with the mysterious people, place, rules and hierarchy. I wished the story were laid out and executed slightly differently. I loved Tender is the Flesh by the author and was excited to read another dystopian book, however, I did not enjoy this one as much.

This fell pretty flat for me overall. The author packs so much worldbuilding into a short novella, but though this piqued my curiosity, it's not followed up with satisfying answers and a fully developed world. A final reveal of the convent's activity was quite predictable and given no additional context that might have helped it seem like a more satisfying resolution.

The writing is often disjointed, but purposefully so. I appreciate moments of the text being interrupted as the narrator must hide her diary to avoid punishment, but some poetically fragmented passages became stumbling blocks. Having to reread just to ascertain the basic facts of what is happening crosses the line from thought-provoking to unpleasantly confusing.

The sinister atmosphere of the convent is well depicted, but plentiful flashbacks to the narrator's climate refugee lifestyle are stuffed with brutality for the sake of brutality and didn't add much value to the story for me. These could have been fewer in number to allow more time for uncovering the full story of why the convent operates as it does.

In the end, I've been left without a strong emotional response.

CW: rape, animal death (dog), body mutilation, torture including whipping, death of children

They say religion is the opiate of the masses; and I guess if you’ve got nowhere to go, nothing to eat, and are on the verge of dying, something that might create a sense of complacency might just be welcome.

In other words: Bring on the quiet, furious, violent dystopian nuns. I’m here for it.

The Unworthy, beyond what you can read in the blurb, is best gone into blind. Written like a memoir, with all the roughness of a beginning writer without an editor on their first draft, our unreliable narrator documents the day-to-day life of the Sacred Sisterhood and the cloistered life they live within the walls of a former monastery. The passages sometimes don’t run linearly, and sometimes they cut off suddenly in the middle of sentences. I loved the intimacy of the writing style, imagining myself enclosed in the narrator’s cell as she tries to write down as much as she can by candlelight each night. There may be no more books, but there will be her history.

The dark and dirty motivations of organized religion and patriarchy linger even after civilization has come to an end in this book, and that makes dread and horror linger in the background of our narrator’s story. That even though there is only one male living within the walls of the Sacred Sisterhood, he’s the one they all venerate and serve. Even though they’re all women, they’re still stratified as if they have different values attributed to them, especially his right-hand woman. This inequity only stokes divisiveness and cruelty among young women who are already disenfranchised and enraged over the world that has been taken away from them.

It’s a bleak, yet engrossing read; a very full story that you wouldn’t know is a novella unless you looked. The story feels much more epic than you’d think 198 pages could achieve, engaging you and compelling you to come along and experience what the world after looks like when you reluctantly accept succor. 4⭐️


I was provided a copy of this title by the author and publisher via Netgalley. All thoughts, opinions, views, and ideas expressed herein are mine and mine alone. Thank you.

File Under: Dystopian Fiction/Horror/Literary Fiction/Novella/Sapphic Romance/Satire/Speculative Fiction

Wow. Just like Tender is the Flesh, this book will stay with me a long time. The prose is amazing, I understand how some people might not vibe with it but it totally works for me. The details of the environmental collapse were so well-thought out and interesting. If you liked Tender is the Flesh for sure give this a try, but be patient for a few pages - it starts to make sense the more you get into it.

Once again Bazterrica shows her masterful command of dystopian horror, both haunting and thought-provoking.
In a world devastated by environmental and social chaos, the story takes place in a secluded convent.
The narrator, a humble and low-ranking member of the Sacred Sisterhood, dreams of finding enlightenment.
The arrival of a stranger within the convent's walls forces her to confront suppressed truths about herself and question the very foundations of the Sacred Sisterhood.

The Unworthy - Agustina Bazterrica
Pub date: 3/4/2025

Another story that lingers long after the final page—
This novel is a gripping addition to Bazterrica's repertoire and a must-read for fans of dystopian literature and feminist horror.

Thank you NetGalley & Scriber for a digital ARC of The Unworthy by Agustina Bazterrica, publishes on March 4th. This was first published in 2023 but didn't get its translation until now.

3 stars for my first Bazterrica novel. I have Tender is the Flesh staring at me on our shelf and I do have higher hopes for that one. The Unworthy didn't pick up for me until the last 30%, and because it's under 200 pages long, that meant for most of the novel, I was bored and confused. You are kind of just thrown into the plot, and into their world, so you have to figure out what is going on before it starts to make any sense. So, at first for me, it didn't make sense at all, which can be OK for me in a novel, but it didn't work for this one. Essentially, this story is told in diary/journal entries of a woman living in a convent while the outside world crumbles. Technology has failed, there's no food or water or electricity, etc. She is low ranks in the convent, also called "an unworthy" and wishes to one day rise to superiority. I did like the bleak, dystopian atmosphere and thought that it was done well, but I would have liked more detail on the world they are living in. I think I would like this better on a re-read. We love a lil queer nun.

TWs: SA, animal cruelty & death, human torture & death, murder, violence, gross bugs...... yeah.

Nope, just nope.

The Unworthy tries to be great literature within a torture porn plot. It implies that even in a newly created society, humans are, and will always be, inherently cruel to one another to advance their own agenda. The problem is that the torture is the entire plot. The characters feel like stereotypes. The world building was vague at best. Worse, the conclusion was a disappointment.

If you like reading about increasingly violent torture in your books, you may like The Unworthy. Personally, I want a more cohesive plot with more than cardboard characters. 2 stars.

Thanks to NetGalley and Scribner for providing me with an advanced review copy.

Thank You NetGalley for the ARC of The Unworthy


I started this novella at the beginning of Jan, it's under 200 pgs and I'm just finishing it at the end of Feb. I loved Tender is the flesh by Agustina Bazterrica and the premise of this book is even more intriguing but it didn't hold my attention.

I would recommend this to anyone who enjoys books that read like fever dreams. It's a religious cult horror set in a world that feels post apocalypse. You're kept in the dark majority of the book and there is no TW @ 80% for on page SA and murder of a pet

I’m not entirely sure how I feel about this one. It had a great atmosphere, it was bleak and gory and violent. I just wish we were given more information about the world as a whole.

As a lover of Tender is the Flesh, my anticipation for The Unworthy was high. Unfortunately, for me, it didn't hit. As a character driven story, unfortunately, it fell flat as I didn't really connect with the main character.

Thank you Scribner and Simon & Schuster for an E-ARC of the Unworthy by Agustina Bazterrica in exchange for an honest review.

I had been waiting to read this novel’s translation since Agustina Bazterrica visited the Miami Book Fair in November 2024. I was delighted to receive this copy and breeze through it. Bazterrica managed to show no shame in her writing, and earns her esteem for brutality in this novel. I only wish I had requested a copy sooner because her storytelling range is not contracting, making it a more gripping read.

This novel centers on an uncompromising sisterhood with a foreign belief including mutilated followers, unforgiving sisters, and barbaric sacrifices. But the sanctum does not provide the horror alone. The setting unfolds in a dystopian world wrecked by environmental damage. While Bazterrica uses common components of global decline like pollution, extreme sea temperature, sea level rise, and lethal weathering, the most interesting element is the involvement of AI overtaking politics and religion. This transfixing addition proved its creativity along with the brief description of the metallic woods that were purchased and utilized to replace the dying trees. Some readers thought the world-building was vague, yet I think it’s intentional to allow readers to interpret just the kind of destruction AI could cause.

As for the story, I thought it was striking to open with our protagonist committing hateful actions toward the other sisters. She shows no regrets or remorse for her actions as she strives to become a higher order within her convent. Yet, there is an internal shift we get to see when she feels regret for betraying her sister, mourning her old family and friends, and shedding her manipulated skin to save those she has come to care for.

This book is supposed to make you uncomfortable just as we felt with Tender Is the Flesh or Nineteen Claws and a Black Bird. Personally, I have a slight phobia of cockroaches, but I pushed through despite their frequent appearances because I was so invested. Thank you, Sarah Moses, for providing readers with an English version and I cannot wait to grab the Spanish version and lament the unworthy.

A dystopian story about a religious cult written by horror master Agustina Bazterrica - before picking this one up I just knew it was going to be an entertaining read! What could go wrong? Haha

Agustina Bazterrica has this was of snatching your attention, only relinquishing it when she has said all that she needed to say. She builds her worlds through brutal and surreal imagery that forces you to stop and re-examine some part of yourself that you didn’t know was flawed or that you knew was flawed but refused to acknowledge. The Unworthy is easily my favorite thing I’ve read by her, and I look forward to her next works.

This book got me. It was eerie, disturbing, a little messed up and I was completely obsessed! This book was the creepy cult story I was looking for. This story follows a young girls journal entries about her time in a religious cult in a dystopian timeline. It was so disturbing my jaw did drop a few times but I have to say this story is my favorite of 2025 so far. I had never read a book by Agustina Bazterrica before but I think this just unlocked a fascination with her work.

Thank you so much to netgalley and Scribner for the early copy!

4.5/5

Delightfully unhinged. Just what I was hoping for. Bazterrica always knows how to produce the most raw and visceral content.

I’m still not sure how to rate this book, but it feels like a 4 so we’re going with it. Overall, I really liked this book for some of the same reasons I liked Tender is the Flesh. I find the narration style to be quite unique in its more detached voice. The sections of this book told in real time at the Sisterhood have a fever dream quality that felt true to the character’s environment. The flashback scenes felt much more clear and connected emotionally. While I can’t say I enjoyed being on this journey with the main character, I found that I couldn’t put the book down. It was the same experience that I had with Tender is the Flesh where I was transported to this character’s world and I needed to know where the story was going - how it would end for these women. I appreciate that we got most of the answers we were hoping for, and I thought the commentary on climate change was poignant. Would definitely recommend if you like cults, fever dream narratives, and what many call weird literary horror. A huge thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for this ARC.

This is my first time reading Agustina Bazterrica, but I know how well reputed she is in the horror community. I tend to shy away from the genre because I scare easily, but this was the type of horror I can handle and it was so totally engrossing. A shortie (under 200 pages) and fully of dystopic mystery, I couldn't put it down and finished it in one sitting. Thank you to Scribner for the gifted copy!

This book was poetic, raw, and disturbing. In just under 200 pages, Bazterrica creates a vivid dystopian future with a cast of characters evoking all sorts of emotions. I felt fear, strength, and incredible solidarity from the featured women, and a terrible sense of pain at what they endured. Unsurprisingly, the ending absolutely gutted me, and I wouldn't have had it any other way. Thought-provoking and timely, we have another masterpiece on our hands.

Wow. This is dark, gritty, dystopian, and depressing but- wait for it- the writing is interesting. It's hard to enjoy a novel where humanity is gone, there's torture and repression and you just want it all to stop. Thanks to the publisher for the ARC. It's tough times in real life and I just wasn't in the right headspace for this so over to others.