3.75 stars!

After reading Our Wives Under the Sea, I was super intrigued to dive into another Julia Armfield novel. While I didn’t love ‘OWUTS,’ I thought the writing was great. I also felt like the characters were a bit unlikeable at times, but I really enjoyed the way their characters were written, nontheless. It felt very realistic, and it was easy to connect to them.

‘Private Rites’ was no different. I actually prefer this to ‘Our Wives Under the Sea,’ if I’m being honest. The writing was incredible. Every sentence felt purposeful, and there were a lot of topics discussed, even in passing, that hit really hard for me. It took me a bit longer to read this book than another would have the same length because I wanted to understand each and every part of the character’s reflection stemming from the passing of their father. In my opinion, the character depth that we get in Armfield’s writing is so deep and complex. I also love how her characters have really blunt thoughts.

That being said, I was a little disappointed in the lack of the apocalyptic plot that was stated in the description. While I should’ve expected that, following my reading of Our Wives Under the Sea, I thought this book would focus on it a bit more. Objectively, it did at the end; however, the rest of the book was mainly character-driven. I feel I am coming to grasp that is simply a large part of Armfield’s writing style.

While I did really appreciate her writing and character development, I did find myself wishing the plot was developed a little quicker and more fleshed out.

Private Rites is one of those books that didn't always keep my attention...until all of a sudden it did. Julia Armfield's writing is so unlike any author in my memory, with a lush intelligence that's hard to articulate. It feels scientific and philosophical, distilled into lyrical, emotive prose without being overly fraught. Set in a drowning world, the story follows three sisters dealing with their emotionally distant father's recent death. Irene's relationship is straining at the seams, Isla is grappling with her own personal complications, and the cynical Agnes is falling in love for the first time. As they sort through their father's legacy in his famous glass house, their fragile bond is tested by revelations in his will and a mysterious purpose they've been chosen for. Armfield's unique voice and the gradual unfolding of the sisters' stories eventually drew me in. Private Rites is an atmospheric read with its beautifully distinctive prose, tumultuous family dynamics, and the nerve-wracking enigma of its watery apocalypse.

This stunning book plunges readers into a world where relentless rain has reshaped both the landscape and the lives of its inhabitants. At the heart of the story are three estranged sisters—Isla, Irene, and Agnes—whose fragile bond is tested by the death of their domineering, abusive father. In the grand glass house he designed, the sisters must confront not only the physical remnants of his legacy but also the emotional scars he left behind. As they sort through old memories and the secrets buried in his will, the tension between them begins to unravel, revealing long-standing resentments and unresolved grief.

The novel excels at weaving together personal and environmental crises. The never-ending rain that submerges the city mirrors the emotional drowning each sister faces—Isla’s unresolved feelings for her ex-wife, Irene’s strained relationship with her nonbinary partner, and Agnes’s unexpected encounter with love for the first time. As the water rises, so does the sense of impending doom, not just for their world but for their tenuous connection to one another. Armfield masterfully blends themes of family dysfunction, queer identity, and the looming threat of climate disaster, crafting a story that is as much about personal survival as it is about the collapsing world around them.

The atmosphere in "Private Rites" is palpable, with Armfield’s prose creating a sense of foreboding that builds slowly but relentlessly. The constant rain becomes a character in itself, shaping not only the setting but also the sisters’ state of mind, trapping them in a suffocating loop of time where past traumas and present challenges blur together. The narrative’s nonlinear structure enhances this disorientation, giving readers a feeling of being unmoored, much like the characters who are struggling to find solid ground in both their relationships and their sense of self.

What sets Private Rites apart is its quiet, unsettling intensity. The novel doesn’t rely on traditional horror but instead taps into a more existential fear—the fear of losing control, of being unable to change one’s fate, and of drowning in both a literal and metaphorical sense. Armfield’s exploration of sisterhood is both tender and raw, depicting the complexities of familial love and the ways in which it can both bind and suffocate. The novel’s climax offers a twist that is both surprising and inevitable, driving home the idea that in a world collapsing under the weight of its own decay, the only thing left to salvage is the truth of who we are and what we mean to each other.

Though the pacing can feel uneven at times, with some sections meandering before accelerating to a rapid conclusion, Private Rites delivers a powerful meditation on family, identity, and the environmental crisis. Fans of Armfield’s previous work, as well as readers who appreciate speculative fiction with a strong emotional core, will find themselves absorbed in this dark, atmospheric tale. Armfield’s ability to blend the surreal with the intimate ensures that Private Rites will linger with readers long after they’ve turned the final page.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Flatiron Books for sharing this stunning book's digital reviewer copy in exchange for my honest thoughts.

I adored Julia’s “Our Wives Under the Sea,” so I was extremely jazzed to dive (pun intended) into this one. It (for the most part) didn’t disappoint. A queer retelling of King Lear with a healthy amount of climate catastrophe and eerie melancholy. I personally love Shakespeare retellings, so that was a high selling point for me. Julia writes so beautifully, whether she’s building a setting - a mildly futuristic, waterlogged city on the brink of ruin due to never-ending rain - or speaking through her characters - three sisters, all unhappy in their own ways, with extremely fractured relationships to one another. The story is told through the perspectives of each of the sisters (and occasionally the crumbling city in which they reside), which I did like, although I occasionally found the sisters’ inner thoughts to be overwritten and a bit frustrating. I felt uneasy reading this; Julia is so talented at atmospheric fiction. I know her novels are frequently categorized as horror and this book certainly has horrifying elements (the frequent mentions of political unrest, the damage wrought by familial trauma, the ceaseless damp), but this doesn’t feel like overt horror. It’s fiction that makes you feel trapped with these characters and ill at ease and fearful for a future given over to climate damage.

THE WRITING WAS SO GOOOOD. I was in love and hated all three of the sisters. They are cruel and cunning and need some serious therapy, but I grew such a connection to them and their flaws. Their everyday lives in this apocalyptic, yet eerily realistic future, was such an interesting aspect of the novel. The city existing in water and the rain never stopping was a perfect background to the uncertainty of these women trying to figure out their relationships to each other and to life outside of their father. I want more books set in this world! Also, the ending is WILD.

I was excited about reading Julia Armfield’s new novel after reading Our Wives Under the Sea. The prose in Private Rites was difficult for me, as was the doomed drowning.
How did humans ever emerge from the sea and will we go back into it? The whales did. They were in the water, came onto land, walked, then went back in. The planet is 71% water but most of it is seawater. There are aquifers though and circulating water. Billions of years ago the “earth” was all water. Hard to believe.
This book like “Wives” is about water. The water takes over. This is not a spoiler— you know in the beginning!
The three lesbian daughters of a King Lear father duke it out after his death. The story is about them, their “wives” and the legacy of their father. Their characters and relationship with each other seep out and the drowning city accompanies them.
In the end does the legacy matter in the face of a drowning world?
I appreciated the drawings of the sisters and their partners. The nonbinary Jude, partner of Irene, was great to follow as was the use of they/them. But there were times I didn’t know what I was reading. I got lost. Was it me or was Armfield being opaque? I guess it’s not a bad thing. I still felt compelled to read Private Rites after I found it hard to get into. The struggle around the father among the sisters was fascinating. The water is really fascinating.

I was ecstatic to get my hands on this early after dipping my toe in Julia Armfield’s writing with Our Wives Under the Sea and thoroughly enjoying it. Two months after starting, I found that I couldn’t connect to the characters and had to choose self-love over subjecting myself to something I wasn’t enjoying. I made the difficult decision to DNF 14% in.

I realized I didn’t care to read about these sisters when one of them admits to the reader she hated her little sister for just being born and had no actual justification for being an adult and still harboring these asanine feelings. I don’t care to be in the head of someone so catty, petty, and juvenile. I’m also the baby of my family so perhaps that chaffed more given that. The sisters themselves felt quite drab as characters despite page time being devoted to describing their lives and personalities, so that wasn’t melding for me either. Plot, character, and setting all had a melancholy air but not in a poetic or profound way like Our Wives Under the Sea, making it all feel rather dull and pointless. I desire some level of distinguishable hope, driving action, humor, and/or a theme early on with melancholy books or you will lose me as a reader.

Unfortunately, if I DNF a book, I automatically consider it a 1 star read, which pains me to do to an author who I recently rated 5 stars. Thank you to Flatiron Books and NetGalley for providing me with a free e-ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Thanks to NetGalley and the author for granting me a copy of this book in exchange for an honest rating.

4.5

i want to preface this review by saying that i’ve never read king lear nor did i know anything about the plot until i read this book and decided to google it for context. i’m happy to report that julia armfield has put me on to the super niche, underground, underrated writer william shakespeare.

i LOVED this book. i’ve learned that my favorite stories are more focused on family dynamics than any other relationship, so a book following three distinctly different sisters after the death of their father was immediately intriguing to me.

to put it simply: this novel follows isla (35?), irene (34?), and agnes (24) after the death of their father. i have a 9 year age gap with my sister so seeing that dynamic represented was really interesting. isla and irene have such a unique relationship with agnes as they basically raised her due to their father’s unreliability.

i loved the entire journey of this novel but the ending truly sealed it for me. what the fuck even happened? i have no idea. but i honestly don’t need to know. it was cool as hell and completely absurd. i don’t want to say anything more about it other than that it was magnificent.

tl;dr: julia armfield back at it again writing about lesbians and water that acts a little weird

(thanks to the publisher and netgalley for the digital arc in exchange for an honest review!)

I enjoyed this book very much, though i felt as though the atmosphere took quite a while to build. if you want a slow ride horror with family dynamics this is the book for you

In this slow burn from the author of Our Wives Under the Sea, we follow three sisters and their loved ones as they navigate the loss of their father amidst a climate catastrophe in which the whole world is drowning. Julia Armfield's writing is gorgeous -- I don't think I've ever highlighted so many sentences in an e-book before, just because I was blown away by her turns of phrase

I read this book very slowly. The tone and depictions of a world underwater felt foreboding and claustrophobic. But the writing kept pulling me back. Fans of queer horror, climate fiction, and Armfield's previous work will love this King Lear inspired tale.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

Julia Armfeild returns with another novel of watery horror. But whereas Our Wives Under the Sea was one woman"s struggle with the depths of the ocean, in Private Rites, the world is slowly drowning.

This book follows three estranged sisters, Isla, Irene and Agnes, during a time of climate crisis, and a more intimate time of crisis as their father has died and they must reckon with his legend. He was revered as an ingenious architect, but as a father was cold and abusive, pitting his daughters against each other.

This book is at times a story of sibling relationships, and at times the story of how people deal with living in a world that is collapsing. Each sister represents a tone that is easy to relate to, one of a desperate need for control, one of anger and one of rebellious apathy.

The imagery of the weather is so dooming and omnipresent, Armfeild does such a good job of creating a sense of foreboding. The tension slowly builds and by the end of the book, it's crashing over you like waves.

I adored this book, and feel that anyone who enjoyed her early work would also. Fans of surrealist stories, climate fiction and queer horror will enjoy this book.
4.5 stars - thanks to Netgalley and Flatiron books

A beautifully written story about three sisters navigating love, grief and familial relationships in a world wrecked by climate change.
The dystopia Armfield imagines here feels familiar and entirely possible, making it all the more scary.
The majority of the 'horror' in this book is in the bleakness of the world it's set in, but does get dialed up quite a bit in the last 30 pages or so.
Definitely a slow burn that will stick with you.

so, everything about this book is perfect. three sisters who care about each other so much they're practically strangers, loving someone so much you either push them away or reel them in closer and drowning in a false sense of grief. a city that's (literally) drowning, rain as its own character and writing that's so unsettling i had to stare at the wall multiple times. i could go on forever about all the things i loved about this book it was that good!

no one does horror quite like miss julia armfield

in private rites we follow the lives of three sisters — isla, irene and agnes who’s relationship with each other is estranged at best, their personal experiences with their childhood and a father who was distant and mean, meant that they grew apart. when their father passes away the sisters are now forced back into each other’s lives as they navigate the tricky landscape of grief.

i love a deep exploration of sisterhood and complicated family dynamics, like that’s my bread and butter, my kryptonite.

another thing that really worked for me was the setting of the novel, the world in which the three sisters inhabit is one that is rapidly growing underwater due to a rain that is never ending. cities are full of skyscrapers in order to escape the rising waters, there’s constant power outages and seeing the sun is a rare occurrence.

i’ve seen the words “mundane apocalypse” used to describe private rites and it couldn’t ring more true, there’s a darkness and dampness to the text and you can even find some nihilism — as one of the characters in the novel ponder at how despite it feeling like the end of the world, society still finds a way to make sure everyone could get to work.

i love how transporting julia armfield’s writing is, she’s a master at beautiful, aching and melancholic writing that will leave you in awe.

This author has been a fave of mine since our wives under the sea
This was a intriguing gripping read page turning
As Julia does !!!

An introspective story of three queer sisters navigating the loss of their father, the drowning of planet earth, and something possible much more sinister and terrifying. While I did enjoy this story very much, I kept wondering when we would get more information regarding the disappearance of the mother/step mother and what the sisters supposedly saw and heard in their youth. I was expecting something a little more creepy, rather than just bleak. However I can appreciate the thought put into this— specifically in creating a drowned world and how living would be possible in such a world. Overall this was very captivating and well done! I can’t wait to read what Armfield writes next.

This book took me by surprise. I read the first few pages and thought ‘Interesting, but probably a bit too literary for me’. However, I found myself not wanting to put the book down. I kept picking it up throughout the day. I’m typically a morning reader, so any book that has me reading late into the evening has its hooks in deep.

The setting was fascinating and I loved how its introduction was woven into the story. You were drip fed information about the world and the history of the world that made it eerie and perfectly set the atmosphere and the backdrop for the story that was being told. As the characters were slowly realizing information about their own history, the reader was slowly realizing information about the world. Plus, the parallels! You could write an entire essay about the parallels between elements of the setting and elements of the narrative plot and character development.

I loved the relationship between the three sisters. It felt incredibly genuine in how it captured a sibling relationship. Flawed and often turbulent on the surface, but very deep. I also enjoyed reading about their individual relationships with their partners and how those relationships were used as a mirror to reflect the individual sisters’ growth and complexity.

I’m still unsure about the ending, but I think that may be the point.

I truly don’t know how to feel about this book. After hearing friends rave about Armfield, this was my first time reading her and I’m wondering if I’m just not the target audience for her writing or if it’s just this book. The writing was lovely and poetic but dry at the same time. I loved the contrast of the sisters and found myself, as a younger sister, relating so deeply to Irene and felt so seen in the description of her complicated relationship with Isla. I wanted to go deeper into that relationship and the characters and it felt like we stayed more at the surface, as if the point of the book was to stay at arms length and watch what’s happening from afar rather than diving into it. Some parts were a struggle to get through and I found myself having to force myself to finish. The ending felt like such a drastic shift in tone, going from dragging on to a sudden explosion of chaos- I couldn’t decide if that was the point or if I was just too stupid to understand. I would have absolutely loved this if we kept going into the relationships the sisters had with each other or if the entire book was the crazy/weird vibes of the end. I feel like both would have worked for me separately but mixing the slow examination of a complicated family relationship with the intensity of the last section just wasn’t something I enjoyed.

Thank you NetGalley and 4th Estate for an ebook of "Private Rites" by Julia Armfield in exchange for an honest review. I would do anything to read this again for the first time. My goodness, I was absolutely deep into the pages from start to finish. I could not stop! I am an absolute fan of Julia Armfield and will recommend anything she writes. Her work continues to grow, and I cannot get enough. Queer, dystopian, and contemporary, with the perfect mix of horror and sci-fi, I would recommend this to anyone. It was one of my most anticipated reads of 2024 and did not disappoint. So much mystery. A lot of spooky speculation. Love this book!