I absolutely adore Bazterrica’s writing, and her newest novel is no exception. The Unworthy is a spectacularly ominous reminder of just how horrific and gruesome her writing can be, as well as just how effective she is at getting under readers’ skin with her truly poetic prose.

I’ve read both Tender Is The Flesh and Nineteen Claws and a Blackbird, and this might be my favorite work of Bazterrica’s yet.

Set in a convent where the standard of body horror for its devotees is set from the first page, this is a gothic take on post-apocalyptic horror and Sapphic elements. It’s written as a series of near-diary entries that are initially literally carved out in blood by a young “unworthy” convent resident who is supposed to be seeking enlightenment, but finds herself called toward something more.

Aspects of it periodically reminded me of one of my favorite podcasts, Within the Wires, and of Stephen King’s The Stand. I absolutely loved this, it devastated me, and I couldn’t put it down. Circe, I will always love you.

Thank you so much to Scribner and Agustina Bazterrica for gifted e-ARC!

Like many others, I requested The Unworthy because Tender is the Flesh by Agustina Bazterrica was one of the most arresting, memorable books I’ve ever read. While The Unworthy had many of the same elements, they didn’t come together for me in the same impactful way.

The sparse, functional prose that felt so atmospherically appropriate for the propulsive story in ‘Flesh’ felt thin when paired with The Unworthy’s more meandering plot. As for The Unworthy’s framing as a diary/memoir, I feel incredibly conflicted.

On the one hand, I loved the way Bazterrica played with the self-censorship and mid-sentence interruptions that came with the narrator’s clandestine writing. On the other, a more omniscient narrator could have cleared barriers that prevented me from connecting more with the plot — How does the Sacred Sisterhood corrupt its members to the point that they take pleasure in their own torture? Why does the arrival of a new Sister suddenly allow our protagonist to recall the previously forgotten details of her childhood?

Even so, it’s difficult not to connect with this brief, brutal tale of a religious cult capitalizing on the tragedy of a world ravaged by the climate crisis. 3*.

Thank you to Scribner and NetGalley for providing this e-arc.

The Unworthy somehow felt similar to Tender Is the Flesh in terms of atmosphere, yet completely different in execution—and I honestly don’t know how else to describe it. There’s something about the unsettling, almost claustrophobic dread that both books evoke, a bleak and harrowing sense of inevitability that keeps you hooked even as it makes your skin crawl.

This was a dark, gut-wrenching dystopian tale, one that doesn’t just explore horror on a surface level but digs deep into the psychological and societal rot at its core. The world-building was oppressive in the best way, suffocating in its hopelessness, yet impossible to look away from. It’s the kind of book that lingers, leaving you unsettled long after you’ve turned the last page.

It takes a lot of skill to develop a character you hate to the depths of her soul but also want to embrace in a warm hug of feminine solidarity. Like Tender is the Flesh, The Unworthy is not for the faint of heart. It is brutal in its simplicity. It is frightening in the context of what could happen. It reflects the worst of human nature and the resilience of humanity when there is drive to survive despite immense suffering.

Yes, this is a book about dystopian religion from the perspective of one woman's story told in a found manuscript, but it is so much more. In a way, it is even a love story.

It is horrifying and deplorable in all the best ways.

Thank you to NetGalley and Scribner for the opportunity to read and review this ARC.

I felt like this book had a lot of potential to expand upon several different interests aspects of the story but focused more on extraneous details and glossed over said aspects of they were elaborated on. While I don't regret reading this book at all, I'm not sure I would recommend it to others.

Wow, thanks to NetGalley and Scribner for the eARC of this novel.

I was first introduced to Agustina Bazterrica when I read Nineteern Claws and a Black Bird, which made me fall in love with Agustina's writing and storytelling. This new work, The Unworthy, was its own beautiful creation. I loved how Agustina used language in the book to help bring to life the main character and the story. I was basically sucked in 200%, and I can't wait for others to read Agustina's novel. Wonderfully weird storytelling at its finest. I highly recommend!

Agustina Bazterrica really is the queen of the dystopian earth horror. When she mixed in the religious cult aspects, I was fully hooked. This was a fever dream from start to finish that was so easy to picture in my mind. Ultimately this book is about compassion and love but there are so many wild obstacles. I was fully immersed and there are so many good quotes. I will continue to read anything that Agustina writes!

Ty to Scribner and NetGalley for the ARC <3

After reading Tender is the Flesh, I was super excited to see another book on the horizon for Agustina Bazterrica. I really can't compare the two, however when it comes to unsettling dystopia, AB has hit the mark again.

What I liked:
The growing sense of dread throughout the story

The descriptive horror of life in the Sacred Sisterhood

Not one character was really very likeable. Normally I'd hate that, but for this type of story it works. It shows who we all could become when society breaks down and morals don't count for much

What I didn't like:
I wanted to understand the setting a bit more. How did the Sacred Sisterhood come to be? Who is the Superior Sister, how did she rise to leadership? And who is "he" that became God within their convent? You find out the protagonist's backstory, but you don't really learn much about where she is at the present other than her daily life and experiences. There's not much context to go by and I feel like it was an attempt to be mysterious and set you on edge, but really it's more confusing than anything

Plot holes abound... not much is resolved and by the end you're just as clueless as you started. Again, I'm sure that's a plot device but personally I'd like a little more clarity

I don't know that I would categorize this as horror. Sure, it's a little gory and there's a definite sense of foreboding, but it wasn't scary. Creepy, yes. Scary, no.

I'm not sure I could recommend this to someone who enjoyed Tender is the Flesh, because they're two very different books. I'd compare The Unworthy to A Handmaid's Tale, but not quite as good. Take that how you will.

I received this ARC courtesy of NetGalley, in return for my honest opinion and review.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for a free ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I really enjoyed this book. Set in an extreme religious cult in a post-apocalyptic wasteland, this little book was dark, scary, and very atmospheric. Bazterriza does a great job of making us feel as if we are in her novel's world. The narrator of the book is easy to sympathize with. I also really liked the queer/sapphic aspect of this story. I just wish there was more to it overall - it felt like a small vignette out of a larger novel that I wish I could read.

i was fascinated by ‘tender is the flesh’ but didn’t enjoy ’nineteen claws and a blackbird’, so i was really curious to see where ‘the unworthy’ would fall for me.

while the concept itself was interesting, the way we’re just dropped into the story with no context is a bit confusing. i’ve always been intrigued by cults, but for the purpose of this story, i wish we’d been given more information about the outside world (ravaged by the climate crisis) and how our nameless narrator, one of the unworthy, found herself living with the sacred sisterhood a bit sooner and with more detail. what really saved this story for me was the introduction of lucía, watching their relationship bloom and agustina’s beautiful writing style.

thank you to agustina bazterrica, scribner, simon & schuster and netgalley for the arc 🖤

This book was okay…? I didn't enjoy it as much as Agustina's other work that I've read (Tender is the Flesh and Nineteen Claws and a Black Bird). The writing style was weird, difficult to get into, and difficult to read, I felt like.

The Unworthy is about an extreme female religious cult after the world as we know it has ended due to what appears to be some type of climate crisis. It was written in the form of secret journal entries from our MC, with the hopes that someday someone would discover them and know the world she lived in.

It honestly sounds a lot more interesting than it was. The story was bleak and devastating, which I feel like painted the dystopian setting nicely. However, not much of interest really happened throughout the book. It just felt like the story was really lacking. It was confusing and difficult to read for the first half for me. Even when I finally did understand what was going on, it was lackluster. The ending felt lame and abrupt.

While I didn't love my time with this book, I didn't hate it either. It wouldn't be a book that I would recommend to others like I have with Tender is the Flesh.

Thank you, Agustina Bazterrica, Scribner, and NetGalley, for the ARC of this book.

3.5 ⭐️

What did I just finish?! The Unworthy by Agustina Bazterrica was a wildly visceral, horror-inducing, poetic and sad exploration of religious cults in a truly post-apocalyptic world.

The novel follows an unnamed female protagonist, a member of the unworthy, at the lowest level of her religious cult. Her actions are horrible, but with faith, there is refuge. She and her fellow sisters inflict damage on each other in attempts to become a member of the Enlightened (each order of the Enlightened have their own disfigurements (eyes sewn shut, ear drums punctured, tongues removed)) and impress “He”, the unnamed cult leader.

While the exploration of inflicting harm for the sake of a male figurehead isn’t anything new, Bazterrica’s writing style here really impressed me. The narrator writes bits and pieces as she can with whatever she can find. The story is fragmented at times, correlating with when the narrator can find time and resources.

Things change for our order when a new arrival comes, and the narrator begins remembering her old life and her humanity. For me, Lucía’s arrival is when the book picked up pacing. The book explores love, questioning the status quo, the lengths we would go to protect those we love or to maintain safety, and humanity or lack thereof in the wake of world destruction.

While I wish I had more time with the characters and some plot questions answered, I think The Unworthy will stick with me for quite some time. Much thanks for Scriber for the ARC. All views and opinions are my own.

Thank to NetGalley and Simon and Schuster/Scribner for the Advanced Reader Copy.

This was a wild ride - truly. I never knew what was going to happen next on the journey but I was 1000% here for it. Following a woman that is part of a religious convent with questionable practices in a world falling apart, you are left on the edge of your seat the entire time trying to figure out the purpose behind this institution. We are never given our FMC's name, but we are able to learn more about her through her own journal entries. Oh, and her journal is against the rules, so she must keep it hidden at all times. Definitely check trigger warnings ahead of time. I highly recommend this one if you are a fan of Parable of the Sower and Talents by Octavia E. Butler and I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman. This is the in same vein as these works and will not disappoint.

4 stars' worth of "what the fuck did I just read?". Gory, disturbing, eerie, and hey, sapphic! I don't know what else to say about this book other than it's fucked up and beautiful and I enjoyed it.

Thank you to to author Agustina Bazterrica, translator Sarah Moses, Scribner, and NetGalley for this free aARC of The Unworthy in exchange for an honest review. Agustina Bazterrica is a must-read author for me, as I loved her previous work: Tender is the Flesh. This is why I was ecstatic to be approved to read this novel a bit early--it has to be one of my most anticipated reads of the year.

The Unworthy follows our unreliable narrator as she lives what seems to be life's final days in a religious cult secluded from the rest of the deteriorating world. In-universe, this story is written in a way as if our main character is writing in her hidden journal. This results in a stream of consciousness style of writing that oftentimes gets cut off when she is interrupted--if she is caught writing, surely she will be brutally punished like others who defy their leader. Ink is a rare commodity in this world, so our Unworthy woman uses whatever she can--blood, berries, wet dirt--to document her life and the dynamics of those around her.

While it is unclear exactly what year this takes place in, what I can tell is that the story takes place in a dystopian future in which the world that we know is on the brink of ending. Existing as a blend of religious horror and a lesson on a potential ecological collapse, this is a simple story of survival at all costs. While I thought the Mysterious Stranger mentioned in the summary would play a larger role in the story, in reality she was just a means for our narrator to come to terms with the world, its ends, and her past. Our narrator is a solid character herself, and is actively (yet subtly) remembering her past despite the cults immense indoctrination. From what I understand it is never revealed how this cult originated or how the world became this way, as our story starts and ends with our narrator amongst the Unworthy. I do wish we got more background about this, but I do understand the limits of our character's POV.

Overall, the writing is lovely and very atmospheric. I can only give a review on the English translation done by Sarah Moses at the moment, however, I do trust that she followed Bazterrica's words in the best way she could. While this story was not as dark and gruesome as Tender is the Flesh, both serve commentary on the worst ways our world can end up if we make all the wrong choices.

This was my first experience with Agustina Bazterrica and WHOA BABY. This was dark and horrifying but in many ways quite lyrically beautiful as well, with religious horror and eco horror combining with an epistolary unreliable narrator device to make for a unique and deeply unnerving reading experience. The end of the world due to climate collapse combines with a doomsday cult as an unnamed narrator desperately writes down her thoughts and experiences as she is living in a holy order of women who are at the mercy of a sadistic Superior Sister and a mysterious Him. When a newcomer they name Lucía is taken into the order, Narrator is drawn to her and they connect, and Narrator reflects on her life up til now, the horrors she's seen, and wonders if a different outcome is possible beyond being an Unworthy. This one has some really, really upsetting moments, but the world building is well done, as well as brutal. It's probably not for the faint of heart, but wow, what a nightmare in the most positive way.

A novella of depth, almost like a journal of someone’s thoughts and days, told in first person as a look of the sacred and chosen and those who are not and left to clean it up. And the word blood a lot of times. Our point of view is that of the fighting to be chosen, behind the walls of what is described like a plague. As the story progresses, gives very religious cult vibes. You start to wonder the brainwashing these young individuals must endure to want to be this “chosen”

This is a darker look on the other side of those of faith, so if religious related stories are not your take, skip this quick novella. An interesting novella, relying on much detail around a mostly unreliable narrator and quick synopsis into a mostly dystopian world. Another quick novella watching a descent into madness. But with nuns! Please check your trigger warnings; I wasn’t a fan of what this progressed to. I wish I had liked this more- but for as short as it was, some of it felt repetitive and like it needed more.

If you support women in any way, this novella will make you very angry. It did for me.

This tale is not for the faint of heart. There is a ton of gore, cruelty and vicious punishment, while others take pleasure in the fact that at least it’s not happening to them in that moment. No one is safe. Woman plots against woman, one-upping each other to see who can rise in the ranks by being “pious” enough. It’s everyone’s dream to become one of the Chosen, who are often never seen again, and the “Unworthy” do vile things to each in the hopes of achieving that goal.

Be careful what you wish for…

The manner of relating the story is brilliant, told through the account of one who writes furtively and hurriedly in the dead of night, hiding the pages in different places once daylight comes. She knows she will be tortured and killed if they are found. We, the readers, learn as she learns, and the horrors do ever increase each day that goes by.

If, at the end, you see some similarities to another tale, complete with the image of women in red who are ordered to do despicable things by one of their own (who considers herself “superior”), methinks the author very much intended it to be so.

first things first, i didn’t know this book was sapphic! realizing this while reading made my experience even more lovely. the womens’ relationships at the convent reminds me of the girls’ in yellowjackets, too. if you didn’t like tender is the flesh, i would still 100% recommend the unworthy. it’s way lighter compared to bazterrica’s other novel, but still has its fair share of triggering content.

THE UNWORTHY
Agustina Bazterrica

If those who have given their life to God are not safe, what does that mean for the rest of us?


There are servants, there are auras, those that are spirits, those that are enlightened and those that wander.

And there are THE UNWORTHY.

It took quite a while to lay the groundwork for this short novel. The world-building supersedes the plot and takes up a majority of the novel. It felt like reading a prequel as if I were to expect a novel to come after.

I imagine Bazterrica has thought a lot about what the end of the world might look like. Each of her novels explores a dystopian world where there is a different hierarchy and rules for surviving are rethought. What you can’t imagine doing becomes everyday life.

If Bazterrica has created a world for her characters, the point of this one is to be a testament to faith. And what we know of faith is now perhaps forever changed after watching CONCLAVE.

“Our faith is a living thing precisely because it walks hand-in-hand with doubt. If there was only certainty and no doubt, there would be no mystery. And therefore no need for faith.”
CONCLAVE (2024)

About the book…

I don’t know what I expected. I don’t know what I got.

Instead of reading THE UNWORTHY, it feels like I have summoned it. Like saying Mary Mary in the mirror three times and falling asleep playing the Ouija Board, only to wake up frozen with sleep paralysis. A dark figure leering over you.

It is not meant for this world.

And it never tried to be.

Thanks to Netgalley, Libro.fm, and Scribner for the advanced copies!

THE UNWORTHY...⭐️⭐️⭐️