Reading Thoughts: The Unworthy
I told my husband on our drive from El Paso to San Antonio, “Let’s listen to a weird book. I like this author. She writes weird books.”
I explained to my husband about my experience with Tender is the Flesh, and he was like, “Well, put it on.”
So I did, and off we went. I fell asleep while listening, but not because it’s boring. This is a me thing where the car moving and the soothing narration of a story puts me straight to bed. I know I’m a baby, what can I say? Nevertheless, I bookmarked it before getting drowsy, so I went right back to where I left off.
The Unworthy by Agustina Bazterrica is a dystopian horror novel. Here’s the blurb:
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.
Sounds super weird and interesting, right?
So the main character hooked me from the beginning because she’s so contradictory. She has kinda bought into the cult she’s part of, and you see glimpses of it when she gets a kick out of inflicting pain on others, which is part of this cult. The hierarchy system in this so-called sisterhood is brutal, but the MC kinda loves it, and I say kinda because then there are moments when she questions it, and she remembers something different—she remembers the past!
And I am not done, but I can assume that through remembering, she begins to question herself and the world around her. But let’s talk about this world. It’s like toxic religion on steroids. It’s super hierarchical, like I said, and if you are not at the top, you are licking the floor clean (literally). Yeah, I know, gross.
The images in this book are visceral, so be aware. But that’s what makes this author for me so fascinating because she’s not afraid to show the manifestation of ugliness in action, and I am not talking about superficial ugliness. I am referring to the decay of the soul, ugliness.
This book makes me think of how there are factions or groups of people that take advantage of tragedies, like the climate event that destroyed the world in this book, to create a world where they are on top.
I am absolutely loving it thus far, and I am sure the ending is going to make me rage like Tender is the Flesh. So be on the lookout for that reaction post.
