Synopsis:
The long-awaited new novel from the author of global sensation Tender Is the Flesh: The Unworthy is a thrilling work of literary horror about a woman cloistered in a secretive, violent religious order, while outside the world has fallen into chaos.
From her cell in a mysterious convent, a woman writes the story of her life in whatever she can find—discarded ink, dirt, and even her own blood. A lower member of the Sacred Sisterhood, deemed an unworthy, she dreams of ascending to the ranks of the Enlightened at the center of the convent and of pleasing the foreboding Superior Sister. Outside, the world is plagued by catastrophe—cities are submerged underwater, electricity and the internet are nonexistent, and bands of survivors fight and forage in a cruel, barren landscape. Inside, the narrator is controlled, punished, but safe.
But when a stranger makes her way past the convent walls, joining the ranks of the unworthy, she forces the narrator to consider her long-buried past—and what she may be overlooking about the Enlightened. As the two women grow closer, the narrator is increasingly haunted by questions about her own past, the environmental future, and her present life inside the convent. How did she get to the Sacred Sisterhood? Why can’t she remember her life before? And what really happens when a woman is chosen as one of the Enlightened?
A searing, dystopian tale about climate crisis, ideological extremism, and the tidal pull of our most violent, exploitative instincts, this is another unforgettable novel from a master of feminist horror.
Other Agustina Bazterrica Books I’ve Reviewed
My Edition:
E-ARC provided by Net Galley
My Thoughts:
I’m back again to review another Agustina Bazterrica story about collapsed human society at the beginning of a SECOND Trump administration. Someone please put me out of my misery… How does the timing keep lining up like this? Just kidding, it’s not hard because I live in a country that is actively trying to shove itself headlong down the road to dystopia. I don’t think for a second that it is anything more than a coincidence. It’s just a coincidence that makes me feel vaguely uncomfortable.
The Unworthy might have unsettled me even more deeply than Tender is the Flesh, although the subject matter of Tender might outwardly feel more upsetting. I swear it isn’t, and here’s why:
The Unworthy has themes of religious nuttery (see America’s despicable love affair with Evangelical Christianity – same shit, different outfits).
The Unworthy takes place in a world absolutely ravaged by climate change – the impacts of which linger decades after causing the collapse of modern society. I mean, look around you – we aren’t doing so hot in that respect either.
I think this one hurts more because it seems even more plausible than Tender did. Religious extremism is a pretty constant issue around the world, and especially here in America where people use it to justify things like rape, murder, racism, sexism, child abuse, and genocide. And we are clearly battling with the reality of climate change every day. Even though some of us like to stuff our heads in the sand and deny that it’s happening. And that everything is “normal” (they’re delulu, obviously).
I found myself drawn to the narrator, who gives away information in bits and pieces as she cobbles together the secret story of her life – at least what little she remembers of it before arriving at the Sisterhood. She’s the kind of protagonist I like best: a little mysterious, and morally fuzzy.
My Rating:
I loved The Unworthy. It scared me, compelled me, and made my skin crawl in the best possible way. I would have loved more. To expand more into the Sisterhood, the characters, the whole world, really.
The Unworthy
By: Agustina Bazterrica
Translated by: Sarah Moses
Scribner Books
ISBN: 9781668051887
Publication Date: March 4, 2025
Hardcover, Paperback, E-book, Audio
192 Pages
