I Should Read That

Book review¹

In the House of the Sacred Sisterhood, the unworthy live in fear of the Superior Sister’s whip. Seething with resentment, they plot against each other and await who will ascend to the level of the Enlightened – and who will suffer the next exemplary punishment. Risking her life, one of the unworthy keeps a diary in secret. Slowly, memories surface from a time before the world collapsed, before the Sacred Sisterhood became the only refuge. Then Lucía arrives. She, too, is unworthy – but she is different. And her arrival brings a single spark of hope to a world of darkness.

I’m a huge fan of Tender is the Flesh, Bazterrica’s breakout novel, so expectations for The Unworthy were extremely high. While the narrative style wasn’t quite for me, I still enjoyed (is that the right word?) this brutal dystopian novel.

The Unworthy is beautifully written, accentuating the horrors of the House of the Sacred Sisterhood and what the narrator experiences there. The pain and struggles of the main character, the descriptions of the cult and their practices, and the pain of her past are vivid. as well as the desperate hope she clings to. Bazterrica has a real knack for blending beauty and horror, creating narratives that feel truly unique.

The downside of this book for me is that I found the writing style a little hard to follow. The Unworthy is essentially a story told in scraps of paper – the text is made up of bits of writing the narrator is able to write and hide away in secret, resulting in a jumbled, non-traditional narrative. It isn’t just this book that I struggled with – I tend to struggle with this type of writing in general, so it’s absolutely not on the author! Despite this, it was a good choice for the story being told – the reader really gets an insight into the frantic panic and fear the narrator feels every day, making it an extremely visceral read.

A funny one for me! While I preferred Tender is the Flesh, The Unworthy is a fantastic new novel from Bazterrica. While it didn’t necessarily work for me on all levels, I will always enjoy immersing myself in her wonderful writing (despite the horrors she conjurs).

1. A copy of this book was provided to me by the publisher in exchange for an honest review. ↩︎