Review: Beta Vulgaris by Margie Sarsfield

Beta Vulgaris by Margie Sarsfield

Blurb from Goodreads:

A young woman’s seasonal job working a sugar beet harvest takes a surreal turn in this surprising and vivid debut.

Elise and her boyfriend, Tom, set off for Minnesota, hoping the paycheck from the sugar beet harvest will cover the rent on their Brooklyn apartment. Amidst the grueling work and familiar anxieties about her finances, Elise starts noticing strange threatening phone calls, a mysterious rash, and snatches of an ominous voice coming from the beet pile.

When Tom and other coworkers begin to vanish, Elise is left alone to confront the weight of her past, the horrors of her uncertain future, and the menacing but enticing siren song of the beets. Biting, eerie, and confidently told, Beta Vulgaris harnesses a distinct voice and audacious premise to undermine straightforward narratives of class, trauma, consumption, and redemption.

My Review:
This was so captivating.  I was hooked from the first page.  It was suspenseful but beautifully written and I had no idea what was going to happen.  The place was described so well.  The characters so flushed out.  The bleakness, the despair, the cold . . . . all of it invaded my senses to the point where I read this book in one day. I can guarantee you haven't read a book like this one before and for that reason alone, I can't recommend this one enough!

Beta Vulgaris comes out next week on February 11, 2025, and you can purchase HERE!  I love this book!! Definitely recommend this for fans of literary fiction, especially if (like me) you love Claire Vaye Watkins.

You are a sugar beet. 

You have spent months becoming: pushing yourself free of hard shell, snaking your newborn fibers through the soil, sprouting leaves, amassing, absorbing, aliving yourself into something fat and bulbous and full of candied potential. You are already a survivor. You were not consumed by sugar beet maggots. You did not succumb to root madness. All that good, hard, organic work, just to wind up dead and frosted over on concrete. Not even any dirt beneath you to remind you of home.