The Unworthy - Agustina Bazterrica
A review of Agustina Bazterrica’s novel about belief, control and the human capacity to survive inside violent systems.
192 pages · Paperback · 2025
Fear, Faith and the Limits of Survival
The Unworthy was my first encounter with Bazterrica’s work, read alongside the audiobook. The narration sharpened the tension rather than smoothing it out, making the atmosphere feel tighter and more oppressive.
This is a fast, brutal novel, built around control, belief and ritual. The horror here is not abstract or symbolic. It is social and human, rooted in how authority is maintained and how fear is normalised. Bazterrica understands how violence becomes sustainable once it is given structure and meaning. What unsettles most is how little force is needed once belief takes hold.
The book moves with discipline. Scenes are short and purposeful. There is very little digression. That economy keeps the pressure high, but it also exposes the novel’s limits. Certain ideas recur without deepening, and at times the translation feels slightly rigid, as though the language is serving clarity at the expense of texture. These are minor faults, but they prevent the book from fully opening out.
What distinguishes The Unworthy from more conventional dystopian horror is its control. Bazterrica does not heighten violence for effect. Violence arrives as routine rather than shock. Ritual replaces explanation. The characters are not offered interior escape, only endurance. That makes the novel feel contained and relentless, almost sealed.
Beneath the brutality, there is a thin but persistent suggestion that something human may survive. Not redemption, and not transformation, but continuity. That suggestion is never overstated. It exists more as pressure than promise, which keeps the ending from collapsing into consolation.
The audiobook intensifies this effect. Silence carries weight. The dread feels physical. Listening made the fear more immediate and the belief systems harder to dismiss as fiction.
This is a short, hard-edged novel that knows exactly what it is doing. It leaves a residue rather than a release. The minor repetitions and tonal rigidity keep it just short of a personal five-star read, but the control, atmosphere and moral clarity are unmistakable.