Bazterica’s work is always provocative and often times disturbing in an attempt to provide commentary on different aspects of society including climate change, governmental bodies, religious organizations, and bodily autonomy. The Unworthy, is no different.
The main character takes us through her world and the new life she has had to adapt to in order to survive through her journal entries she writes in secret away from prying eyes that wish to control her and her thoughts. The world in which the main character exists is so constrictive, and hopeless that even in such a small number of pages you feel as if you yourself have joined this convent yourself and are expected to follow the rules in stride. It it so shockingly different from the reality most of us know that it takes a moment to realize just how many similarities lie just beneath that moment of shock.
And yet, as if a testament to the human condition and our eternal goal to seek love and companionship from our fellow man, there is so much love buried within this book. The sapphic yearning, both through metaphor and through what we are explicitly told by the narrator, is beautiful and devastating; and yet so natural in a world where everything else seems so unnatural and visceral.
