After having mixed feelings about this author’s debut (Our Wives Under the Sea) I was very interested to see how I would feel about this book, another concept that caught my eye. Once again, the prose is stunning and lyrical, with such vivid descriptions it’s hard not to be absolutely captivated. Armfield has a real talent for aquatic-themed lyrical writing.

Combined an apocalypse with family estrangement and drama (arguably a second apocalypse), this book is heavy and creepy and bleak, though still a beautiful read that I’m very thankful I got the opportunity to read!

This was so well written and it is a slow burn but go, once it starts, it doesn't let up! A queer retelling of King Lear is something I wasn't looking for Armfield just DELIVERS.

Gorgeous, dreamy, unsettling... everything in this book is deeply felt, perhaps because it's about sisters who are Scorpios, or maybe because the climate crisis is a backdrop to their father's death and all the open wounds in their family. I'm a fan of all of the author's books and this one is no exception. Armfield is a writer I'm excited to read over the decades to come, as I have a feeling she has a special knack for writing the pains of aging and life changes, and her books (to me) feel like a lovely, brutal interrogation of the themes that matter most to us as we age.

Massive shoutout to Flatiron Books for the ARC copy via NetGalley.

It's no secret that Julia Armfield has swiftly become one of my favorite writers. Our Wives Under the Sea still haunts me, so I was greatly anticipating this upcoming work. While I enjoyed it, I don't think it quite hits as deeply or works quite as well as her previous novels/short stories.

The story revolves around Isla, Irene, and Agnes as they deal with the death of their father. It is written in narrative POV flashing back and forth in their lives from the past to present day. While they all struggle internally the city is also beset with a never-ending rain that begins to sink it.
The personal issues of the sisters and the broader narrative of the climate crisis are beautifully intertwined and stay true to Julia's love of water metaphors. It's a claustrophobic feeling and really drives home the sense of impending loss and doom.

What stops it from being a 5 star for me is its pacing. It feels that sometimes things get lost in the middle and the novel meanders before going at lightening speed at the end tying up the main plot. The rushed nature works on some level as it feels like the water breaking over a dam, but I wish that the tension had risen at a more even pace. The twist just didn't quite land for me.

What the novel does well though is creating a very beautifully written tale about loss and dealing with the daily nature of pain. As long as Armfield keeps writing. I'll keep reading.

Following three sisters, this novel reaches in to something dark and old. Readers must prepare to be shaken to their core, as too are the sisters.

Oh man you guys, I was prepared to give this a middle of the road 3 star review until the ending. I'm not sure what I was reading at that point... but it changed the whole experience for me!

Our Wives Under the Sea will forever remain an untouchable debut for me and nothing Julia can write will surpass it. Of this I am positive.

Though that's not to say Private Rites, grief fiction at the end of the world, was a bad sophomore novel. In it, three sisters deal with the death of their father and their strangely awkward relationship with one another while an endless rain continues to eat away at everything around them.

The twisted familial dynamics and soggy landscapes carry echoes of OWUtS, where water continues to be the central driving force. While I wouldn't necessarily agree with those who are calling it brilliant or blistering, it was quite beautifully written and the deliciously unexpected ending that kind of came out of nowhere continues to live inside my brain....

Thank you for the ARC. I really liked our wives under the sea but I just couldn’t get into this one, it was really slow. It’s about sisters coming back together after their father dies (based on king Lear). Maybe it went over my head but I just couldn’t get into it or past the first 100 pages of the book or so. I’ll try again.

The future depicted in Private Rites is bleak. The rain won't stop, and the city is rapidly becoming submerged. It's the end times, but everyone must go on living. This is where we meet three sisters brought together by the death of their estranged father.

I love Julia Armfield's writing, and this atmospheric novel was another showcase for their ability to create tension while highlighting the mundanity of our lives. This book, unfortunately, suffered a bit from uneven pacing, and the ending almost felt completely out of left field. Perhaps because this is a modern retelling of King Lear, this would not be the case for those familiar with the Shakespearean tragedy, but I do wish that there had been a bit more structure in how this story unfolded.

What I did love about Private Rites was the unique future it depicted and how realistic it felt. I know I'll still be thinking about this one for awhile, even if I might have to reread the ending to make sure I actually understood it.

incredible prose, a beautiful story, compelling characters, moves pretty slowly but the beauty is in the details.

I loved Our Wives Under The Sea. I’ve listened to the audiobook multiple times. It was easy to follow with the story switching only between the two wives. The chaotic nature of Private Rites was a very different reading experience.

I understood the gist of this story, finding it somewhat difficult to follow, but then again, that could have been intentional and necessary so as to convey the accurate chaos of the world and the emotions of the main characters. This realization helped me to appreciate the skill of this author in communicating the seriousness of what was going on and how the characters were dealing with it.

The main characters were all lesbian sisters, Isla and Irene and their half-sister, Agnes. After being estranged for some time, they were reunited when their father died. He was a very famous architect. His own home was the grand glass house. The sisters didn’t really care much for each other, but were summoned by the father’s lawyer.

Their disfunction was affected by their father, the way he left them alone in the house for long periods, the way he spoke to his daughters, the way he pitted one against the other—leaving each to struggle for a love they should have known they couldn’t earn.

People seemed to be nonchalant about the state of chaos, as if saying they just go with the flow. Houses slipped off foundations, people wondered when their building will be next and where they’ll go, but they went on about their business.

A typical favorite line from the book that gives a sample of the situation: “There is a horror movie adage that people are always running up stairs when they should be jumping out of windows, but what is a person supposed to do when all obvious exits are underwater?”

The times w strange and strange things happened everywhere. Agnes worked in a coffee shop. Her coworker asked her to follow him into the storeroom and showed her a line of what appeared to be sea anemones growing rough along the grouting of a wall.
So it goes, a man holds a candle to a window; a woman picks seaweed from the corners of her kitchen tiles. A shoal of eels knotted hopelessly in a storm drain, a sea slug, a shiver of crabs on a wall.

I appreciated the writing but didn’t really enjoy the book. I found it stressful to follow. However, I’m glad that I read it and thank NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity .

3.5 stars

This is the story of three sisters, Isla, Irene and Agnes. All three are gay and the narrative explores each of their lives and relationships on a backdrop of impending apocalypse. As with the author's former work, "Our Wives Under the Sea", water plays a huge role, in this case in the form of constant rain drowning the planet due to climate change.

The author's writing style is distinct and I enjoyed it. Unfortunately, the story itself didn't quite work for me. None of the characters seemed much concerned with ending of the world happening around them. While I understood that life continued, people kept working, travel moved from cars and roads to boats and water, and the rich just moved to higher ground, the way this was treated as so ho-hum left me with no feeling of peril or dread. The sisters' relationships to each other was most times confusing and I honestly didn't find any of the three likeable. The way they behaved in their respective romantic relationships did not help that feeling at all.

The totality of the book was pretty bleak, which fit with the rain apocalypse, but made for a rather somber read. As for the ending, that just came out of nowhere for me. I believe there were some mild foreshadowing events but they were so mild as to be completely forgettable and lacked the impact that would have made me look back and say "ah ha!, that's what that meant".

While I may not have enjoyed this book as much as I'd hoped, I would still recommend it to readers who loved the author's last book and who like dark stories that explore sisterhood and female relationships.

Thank you to NetGalley and Flatiron Books for the eArc of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I knew this was a King Lear retelling going into it, which is one of my least favorite of Shakespeare's tragedies, but considering what a wild ride Our Wives Under The Sea was I decided that I had to read it anyway!

Private Rights follows three sisters - Isla, Irene, and Agnes - living in an early Waterworld kind of post apocalyptic version of earth. The rain in this world never stops pouring so people have had to adapt to the new normal of moving to higher ground, getting floating houses, and knowing that you will rarely of ever feel dry.

When the three estranged sister's father, a renowned architect of self-raising homes, passes away the three women are thrown back into each other's lives and are forced to confront a past they have long chosen to forget.

This book was sloooow and atmospheric which is why it took me ages to read even though it's a fairly short novel. Things took the slow and steady pace until the last handful of pages were things went significantly crazy in a very signature Julia Armfield way. I saw a Goodreads review that stated it was "all vibes and no plot" and honestly I feel like that just describes all of Armfield's work in the best way.

Did I love at much as I wanted to? No. Was the vibes immaculate? Yes.

There's a particular style of writing that Julia Armfield absolutely nails, with so much attention paid to both the quality of her prose and the topics she chooses to cover. From the very first line of this gorgeous novel, she creates such a brilliant sense of atmosphere and intrigue. The perspectives and voices of the three radically different sisters, the drowning world, the allusions to King Lear, the [SPOILER] weird cultiness coming in at the end?? Incredible.

I have read and loved both salt slow and Our Wives Under the Sea but this one might be my favorite yet. I think this would be a perfect fit for readers of Yoko Ogawa, Kazuo Ishiguro, or Mona Awad.

Thank you SO MUCH to Flatiron Books for hearing my pleas and giving me an opportunity to read and review!

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

W o w. This is my second book by @juliakarmfield and it will not be my last!

A queer Lear retelling, the novel follows the three estranged Carmichael sisters in the aftermath of their father's death. With the world heading toward ruin and their feelings about their father complicated, Isla, Irene, and Agnes navigate their complex feelings about sisterhood, queer love, and finding faith as the world crumbles.

As is the case with her books, the prose is beautiful, the relationships deep, and the ending unsettling. I'm increasingly convinced I could read Armfield's grocery list and be captivated. Part lit fic, part dystopia, all-encompassing, Private Rites is a can't-miss read!

Preorder now!

As soon as I saw that Armfield had another book coming out, I knew I couldn’t wait to read it. I wasn’t at all disappointed - while I was a little nervous going in (I’ve never read or seen King Lear and was worried I might miss important aspects of the book because of that), I absolutely loved this book. It’s possible there are some intricacies that may pop out to people who know King Lear better than I do from a quick read of the Wikipedia summary. That said, I had no trouble understanding or keeping up with the book without that background knowledge.

As with Our Wives Under the Sea, Private Rites was gorgeously written. I thought Armfield handled the intricacies and silences between the three main characters as well as in each of their relationship with their father so beautifully and accurately, and I loved how their individual childhoods so clearly shaped their personalities, romantic partnerships, and relationships with one another.

I also loved how seamlessly Armfield wrote a society on the brink of (or, arguably in the midst of) absolute disaster. You’d expect a book with this premise - a world literally drowning from endless rain resulting from climate change - to lean into post-apocalyptic scenarios. Instead though, Armfield wrote a world that just kept going anyway, that rebuilt cities and transportation systems and homes to cope with the ever-rising water levels and went about life with a constant anxiety and fear that everyone just sort of pretended wasn’t happening because what else can you do really? It both leant an eerie backstory and setting to every character’s story and had nothing to do with the story simultaneously. (And for what it’s worth, given how the last several years have gone, I think it’s likely that Armfield’s writing of Private Rites is exactly how we’d handle this situation if it actually happened.)

I knew going in, of course, that the book wouldn’t end happily - while I don’t know the specific details of King Lear, I do know that it’s a tragedy - but the ending was still so beautifully done that I found myself unable to put it down for the last 100 pages.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with an ARC!
Private Rites manages to build a tense, spooky atmosphere, while also emphasizing that the characters barely recognize the sense of impending doom. It is a beautiful exploration of grief and what happens to families after an unexpected loss, while also incorporating magic, climate change, and a world that seems to be falling apart. All of the different elements are woven together with beautiful prose. At times I found it difficult to distinguish the characters Irene and Isla from each other, but overall the characters felt real, and I was invested in their stories and relationships.
Rating: 4.25/5, rounded to 4 on Goodreads

I had a bit of a tough time with this one. I absolutely loved Our Wives Under the Sea, so Private Rites was one of my most anticipated books for this year. Armfield is a great writer. There were so many poignant lines that really hit home for me especially when it came to interpersonal family relationships. The characters were so well realized and fleshed out. They felt like real people. Also, no one does moody, atmospheric writing quite like Armfield. That said, it was really hard for me to find my stride with the story. I couldn't get through it. While I think it was a well written book, I just kept finding myself to be bored.

I requested and received an eARC of Private Rites by Julia Armfield via NetGalley. I haven’t read Armfield’s previous work, so her prose was entirely new to me. Private Rites very much gives Lesbian Lear in a world that is disappearing beneath water. The novel follows three sisters (Isla, Irene and Agnes) who have not spoken in sometime when they’re informed of their father’s death. As they come together in an icy renewal of relations to deal with his passing, old secrets and tensions bubble to the surface, threatening to break loose.

Armfield created this wet, moody world that I absolutely did not want to be a part of, but I couldn’t rip myself away from it. This atmospheric feat is punctuated by sharply defined characters who feel so entirely real that it is impossible not to be angered and intrigued by them. The way their minds work, the way the sisters relate to one another and understand each other, is really gripping stuff. And Jude? How could you not want to step through the page and meet someone like Jude. I always attach myself to a character in a novel and they were the perfect one for me.

Aside from Armfield’s impressive writing style, the story is simply good! Not a lot happens and then it seems as if everything happens at once. I felt really engaged because the story maintains a certain level of tension throughout that left me wondering how this novel could possibly conclude. The ending was a really spectacular event that left me both breathless and completely disoriented. Maybe this says something about me, but my favorite aspect of the novel was that I felt a strong kinship with both Isla and Irene. As characters they aren’t likable, but they’re very relatable. I also loved how the author interrogates this question of how we define ourselves and how we view the idea of possession in a disappearing world.

The last 15% this book shocked me to my core. Just when I thought I knew what was happening, things took a complete 180. I loved that. It was hard for me to get into at first. I was confused, a little bored and kind of upset with everyone. That being said, it was well worth sticking it out. I love books that stick in my brain for a long time and this is another one of those from the author.

The writing style: word choices, vivid imagery, and alternating perspectives created a slower pace with sparse but significant dialogue, considerable inner thoughts and monologues, and memory recall. Julia Armfield uncomfortably, yet somehow gently submerged me into Private Rites until I was swallowed up like the citizens by the endless rains that gradually flooded the planet.
The alternating perspectives were labeled and easy to follow. The city personified as a casual observer, gave a neutral voice to the slow descent into the madness of "end times."
The journey began immediately, as a chilling uneasiness captured and held my attention throughout. This atmospheric novel painted a grim view of a not impossibly far-off dystopian world where life crawled along, grasped at normalcy, yet simultaneously plunged full speed ahead to its watery conclusion.
The main characters provided insight into the new normal through the distorted views of their respective dysfunctional lenses. They had long-suffered childhood trauma from a fractured family and a father who was possibly psychotic or narcissistic.
Armfield gave plenty to think about. Humans cycled through despair and hope, searching for fulfillment, usefulness, relationships, and the need for actual solutions to the crisis. She pointed out the wealth disparity and its effect on how people managed the rising water levels. Some became numb, some sought supernatural guidance, some became self-destructive, some protested, and some ignored the obvious.
I have only scratched the surface of what could be parsed from this terrifying tale. It is terrifying because of the believability of the circumstances and the clarity, that is to say, the muddy, gray, damp, cold way that it is presented. It is a bit twisty. All the pieces are there, somewhat skewed until they become defined.
I did not love the author's choice for the ending. I have sat with it, and I have accepted it. I highly recommend this book and its author. Be aware though that it is dark and heavy but so well done.
It could be triggering to some who are managing depression.
#sapphic #dystopian #climatecrisis #risingwaterlevels #mentalillness #dysfunctionalfamily #horror #queer