A review by readingthebacklist
Las indignas by Agustina Bazterrica

challenging dark mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character

3.0

In a world beset by violence and ecological disaster, a group of women are sequestered in the House of the Sacred Sisterhood, a repressive sect led by “Him” and the imposing Sister Superior. 

This is a relentlessly grim story that throws the reader headfirst into a suffocating, menacing environment (it opens with an exhaustive description of the narrator using cockroaches to get back at one of her peers). The sect’s hierarchical structure breeds jealousies, and because the women compete to join in the ranks of the “Illuminated," they are cruel toward one another and delight in the others’ punishments. The story reminded me of two dystopian/post-apocalyptic stories: The Road (the world post-collapse/misery) and The Handmaid’s Tale, but unlike the latter, the commentary of social structures fell short for me. However, Bazterrica’s mastery in building tension and visual imagery does not disappoint.