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corsetedfeminist 's review for:
The Unworthy
by Agustina Bazterrica
dark
emotional
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I have, at long last, escaped the dread reading slump, curtesy of this phenomenal ARC.
I received a copy of this ARC from NetGalley, and here is my honest review.
I adored everything about this book. I read it in basically two sittings, and it enthralled me the whole way through.
This book consists diary entries written by a woman who is a member of a monastery of sorts that formed in the aftermath of a climate disaster and the collapse of the internet.
As can only be expected from this author, the prose is stunning, rich and detailed and heartwrenching. The style of the book is probably going to be very controversial, as it is slow, very internal, and you get backstory when the author decides you do, not always when you want to, but I personally adored it.
For a character who I don’t think is ever given a name, the main character has such depth of personality, and her fight throughout the book to resist the indoctrination of the leadership of the monastery and to remember her life before entering the cloister.
I went in a little cautious as to how religious life would be handled, but I shouldn’t have doubted. The structure is, of course, very different, because it’s a cult centered around a man who stays behind the cloister screens, but the core concepts and feelings of religious life are there and handled very well. In an interesting twist that I didn’t anticipate but really enjoyed, the leadership of the cloister is openly anti-Christian so that the leader can blame Christianity for the current state of the world as well as do and say whatever he wants to. The use of body mutilation as part of the steps of formation is perfect and unsettling.
The beauty of the book, comes from our main character’s three lives- each very different, but incredibly tender- a group of street children she lived with and who protected her when she was younger, a cat of some sort who she named Circe and speaks of with heartbreakingly tender reverence (and who is killed defending our main character) and lastly, Lucia, a member of the cloister with whom a soft but fierce romance develops. The rest of the book is structured around these loves.
I received a copy of this ARC from NetGalley, and here is my honest review.
I adored everything about this book. I read it in basically two sittings, and it enthralled me the whole way through.
This book consists diary entries written by a woman who is a member of a monastery of sorts that formed in the aftermath of a climate disaster and the collapse of the internet.
As can only be expected from this author, the prose is stunning, rich and detailed and heartwrenching. The style of the book is probably going to be very controversial, as it is slow, very internal, and you get backstory when the author decides you do, not always when you want to, but I personally adored it.
For a character who I don’t think is ever given a name, the main character has such depth of personality, and her fight throughout the book to resist the indoctrination of the leadership of the monastery and to remember her life before entering the cloister.
I went in a little cautious as to how religious life would be handled, but I shouldn’t have doubted. The structure is, of course, very different, because it’s a cult centered around a man who stays behind the cloister screens, but the core concepts and feelings of religious life are there and handled very well. In an interesting twist that I didn’t anticipate but really enjoyed, the leadership of the cloister is openly anti-Christian so that the leader can blame Christianity for the current state of the world as well as do and say whatever he wants to. The use of body mutilation as part of the steps of formation is perfect and unsettling.
The beauty of the book, comes from our main character’s three lives- each very different, but incredibly tender- a group of street children she lived with and who protected her when she was younger, a cat of some sort who she named Circe and speaks of with heartbreakingly tender reverence (and who is killed defending our main character) and lastly, Lucia, a member of the cloister with whom a soft but fierce romance develops. The rest of the book is structured around these loves.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal death, Body horror, Confinement, Physical abuse, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Torture, Violence, Dementia, Grief, Religious bigotry, Murder