As an Our Wives Under the Sea evangelist, I was absolutely foaming at the mouth for Private Rites. Great news: This book fucks. It’s gay and eerie and vibey and weird. Above all, It Is Wet (Julia Armfield? Writing a Wet Book? It’s more likely than you think). In a world reshaped by climate change, three somewhat estranged sisters come back together when their very estranged father dies. As they sift through their father’s legacy, they begin to understand that something larger and more malevolent is at work in their family. Drink it up, baby!

I thought the blurb of this book seemed intriguing, however I'd never read a book by Julia Armfield before. This book was not what I was expecting. I was .... a lot. Dense with descriptions that sometimes I skimmed through. A lot of arguing between dysfunctional family member characters that are not likeable. All the while the the world is drowning. This really was not my favorite read.

I've enjoyed Armfield's work in the past however, this story didn't grab my attention as much as their previous work did. I found it a little difficult to stay engaged with the story even though the writing was wonderful. I will definitely continue to look forward to Armfield's future works, though.

I had a hard time with this one. I really enjoyed the setting and explorations of sisterhood and grief, but the « mystery » plot line wasn't well conceived or fully explored and took us off course from what felt like the true heart of the novel.

I did appreciate the exploration of family and the sensation of being cast in amber. Treated as if the person you were at age 14 is the person you are at 24.

« The sensation, then, not so much of being misunderstood as of being understood too well at one time and then never again. »

Poignant and deeply reflective, this novel explores loss, sisterhood, and sorrow in a way that will probably stick with me for a long while, and the last pages delivered all that I had hoped for.

What a strange and wonderous book. Private Rites follows the lives of three sisters, Isla, Irene, and Agnes, after the death of their powerful, brutal architect of a father. All three of them are adults, a bit estranged, and at deeply different stages of their lives. Also, the world is ending. That's a rather large feature. It has been raining for years, water slowly rising, and England left to try and rise with it, and maybe it's just them, but it seems to be getting worse. So the trio contend with their various romantic relationships, dead-end jobs, each other after decades of their father pitting them against each other (and seemingly trying to continue doing so through the inheritance), and the world growing ever stranger and more hostile.
A lot of this book is slow and reflective, the three women trying to come to grips with everything around them. Meditations on how to live in a world that might not keep going, how to love, how to be sisters with people you don't know, if you ever did, and also don't like too much. All three of the sisters are complex in their own ways. Isla, a therapist with a drinking problem, is going through a divorce and flailing professionally. Irene keeps sabotaging her stable relationship and is trying to figure out where to go professionally. Agnes is finally becoming an adult, falling in love for the first time truly. And then, towards the end, the slow moving thing ends and things get super weird super fast. And I loved it.
This is the kind of book that you think about for a while.

I loved Our Wives Under the Sea and salt slow both from the very beginning of the book. Unfortunately this one failed to pull me in fully and I didn’t read the whole thing. I’m not the biggest fan of Shakespeare-based stuff, so I would still recommend this if you like the authors style and the inspiration material. I think there’s a good audience for this book out there, it’s just not me.

This story was such an interesting blend of genres...literary cli-fi dystopian speculative fiction. I loved the character development of all three sisters, each of them with their own set of issues and ways to cope. I'll admit I didn't always know what the heck was happening, but I sure enjoyed the ride!

Julia Armfield's signature haunting and lyrical writing style has returned in this emotional and evocative story. While I didn't quite connect to the story as much as I did her first novel, I enjoyed reconnecting with one of my favorite author's writing and I look forward to her future works.

I think Julia Armfield is one of the most interesting voices in speculative writing. I loved <i>Our Wives Under the Sea</i> and I think <i> Private Rites</i> is such a good follow-up novel. Armfield is great at creating this intense sense of dread throughout the plot. I can understand why some readers are not a fan of the ending of this particular work--it feels a bit rushed compared to the pacing of the first two-thirds of it. However, I really enjoyed it overall and am excited to read whatever comes next.

Thank you, NetGalley for the ARC of this book.

4.5 ⭐️

Julia Armfield is back at it again with sad ocean lesbianism, this time with 100% more apocalypse and x3 times the lesbians.

Private Rites follows three sisters—all lesbians—as they navigate the death of their architect father, the ghosts of their childhood, and their complex relationships with each other and their lovers. Meanwhile, the flood has come; their city is mostly underwater thanks to global warming, and the constant rain only wears the city down more and more. People cram themselves into smaller and smaller spaces, ride boats to get to work, and business close when the rain stops.

I once described Armfield’s previous novel, Our Wives Under the Sea, as quintessential lesbian tragedy, and I would say that Private Rites falls into that category as well, though in this case ‘tragedy’ works in the classical sense as well.

Evidently it is a King Lear retelling, which I didn’t fully know until about 15% in. I haven’t read King Lear, so I am not sure how it compares or what elements the novel pulls—I definitely want to read King Lear and give Private Rites a reread in the future so I can more fully understand how Armfield adapts and comments upon the source material.

I absolutely loved this novel. Armfield’s prose, appropriately, is oceanic—melancholy as an empty sea, wrathful as storm-lashed waters, and able to calm or rough in the blink of an eye. For some reason, Private Rites in particular reminded me a bit of Disco Elysium, in the sense that there is this sad, struggling world impacted by uncontrollable, inevitable disaster caused by human action, and despite this terrible pressure mundanity continues on. (The sections of PR where the city speaks helps this as well, of course. I’m a sucker for a perhaps-sentient city zeitgeist narrator.)

(Non-specific discussion of the ending below, spoilers for Our Wives Under the Sea)
The main aspect of this novel that keeps me from giving a full five stars is the execution of the ending—something which, on reflection, was also present in Our Wives Under the Sea as well. The ending of PR feels very sudden and has a major tonal shift. It does not come out of nowhere, per say—the elements are certainly built and foreshadowed plenty—but there is just something about how extremely suddenly the narrative swerves into an ending that just felt slightly out of place with the rest of the books in terms of pacing and tone. For some reason, to me—despite it having all the same characters and the same setting and the same themes—it feels like the ending to a genre novel, not a literary one.

And don’t get me wrong, I love a genre novel! I’m a huge genre fan! But when the book is a slow character study and the ending is almost an action movie, it just leaves me feeling like “…huh?”

Like I said, this was present in Our Wives Under the Sea as well. We have this grief-filled, wonderfully weird, quiet tragedy of a character study between Miri and Leah, and a beautifully tragic ending of letting Leah go, into the sea. But then there’s also the ending plot point of Miri maybe joining forces with another person who lost a loved one to the sea expedition to investigate and eventually take down this corporation, which feels more like the beginning to a genre sci-fi than the end to a literary novel with sci-fi/horror elements.

I don’t necessarily dislike the ending to either plot-wise. The endings just didn’t have room to breathe or settle, especially in the case of Private Rites—like the narrative realized it only had one more chapter to wrap things up so it had to jam everything into way too small a space. It just felt a little unsatisfying.

I’m already looking forward to the next Armfield book—there are elements I’ve noticed in both her novels so far, both in terms of broad thematics, images, and major/minor plot elements (@ me if you want to talk about the role play forums), and I’m desperate to pattern-seek in whatever she writes next.

Overall this is another win for the weird oceanic lesbian literature lovers !! Julia Armfield thank you for my life !!!!

thank you to the publisher for providing an e-ARC via NetGalley. all opinions expressed in this review are my own.

After reading OUR WIVES UNDER THE SEA and now PRIVATE RITES, it's pretty clear Julia Armfield has her bread and butter - gay folks and water metaphors that get marketed as horror books but are not. Which, slay. She does it well. Armfield writes great prose and I enjoy how she develops relationships in her plots. This book was no different. I thought this premise was very interesting (as someone who doesn't read a lot of cli-fi).

The pace here was definitely on the slower side and I didn't find any of the characters to be overly likeable (although they were very realistic). The one thing that threw me here was the last 20 or so pages of the book where the genre takes a wild left turn that I wasn't expecting and didn't particularly care for; it left me with more questions than answers and felt like a rather abrupt way to end a very slow paced, low-action plot.

I think OUR WIVES UNDER THE SEA was slightly superior to this novel, but this is by no means a bad work. If you enjoyed one, you will likely enjoy the other. Excited to see what Armfield does in the future.

The end of the world isn't freezing... or firey... it's soggy. At least, that's what Julia Armfield imagines in Private Rites. Apartment buildings are actively rotting while tenants eye the water levels outside. Homes are crumbling as the sopping wet ground disintegrates beneath their weight. People still get their morning coffee as the world is swept away beneath their feet. Armfield's end of the world is mundane with business as usual.

The three main characters of the novel, Isla, Irene, and Agnes, are just trying to live their mundane lives while the world is ending. Private Rites begins with the death of their father, an architectural icon. The story floats along as the sisters grapple with their trauma, uneasy relationships with each other, and romantic entanglements. This book, ultimately, is about family. It's about how having a family sucks, but also how sometimes family is the only thing keeping you afloat when the world is pulling you under. I loved this look at sisterly relationships.

All three sisters are the worst in their own ways. They've grown under the weight of childhood trauma and confusion due to their parents and the drowning world they live in. It can be tedious to read about three characters who are angry and guarded, but it rang true for me. Trauma (especially childhood trauma) messes with your brain in ways you don't even realize until you're grown. Seeing yourself at your worst, but unable to course-correct is a different form of drowning.

It took me a while to get through this book, but I don't think this is a story you can binge. It's heavy, sad, and existential. I had to come up for air after only a short time reading to reorient myself. However, I highly recommend this book to anyone looking for a familial story that is set as our world is ending.

Thank you to Julia Armfield and Flatiron Books via Netgalley for a free eArc in exchange for my honest review.

I really enjoyed Armfield’s previous book, Our Wives Under The Sea. There was such a heart to that novel, it ached and felt like a bruise. But her latest novel left something to be desired for me. I struggled to tell the characters apart in the audiobook, but realized while reading the ebook that I didn’t feel connected to them at all. I kept putting the book down and having to drag myself back to it. Eventually I had to throw in the towel and say that this one wasn’t my favorite.

2.5 ⭐️

This was one of my most anticipated books of the year. I had read "Our Wives Under the Sea" by Julia months prior and really really enjoyed it. I cried and I was creeped out. It was a wonderful weird girl book. When I heard of the release of "Private Rites," I was so so excited.

This book was beautifully written. Julia is an amazing writer. Like OWUTS, I expected a slow burn plot. I expected it to be unrushed in pace, but once I neared the ending, I knew with certainty that it would pull me in and thrill me. I did not get that here. The book was extremely sluggish and never really hit for me. I waited and waited. I ended up having to take a long break halfway through because I had lost interest. It took me months to finish. The characters were all unlikeable to me. Three bratty, selfish, and gay sisters. I wasn't relating to the story. There wasn't any suspense/weirdness/creepiness to hold my attention like I had hoped for.

The book was marketed as a dystopian novel. Again, I did not get that here. There was mention of the world under water, but that is not what this book was focused on. That detail was so minor in comparison to the sisters' relationships, with partners, and each other. This book was really about sisters who have grown distant and they lose a father. It's about grief. It's about coming to terms with a less than perfect childhood. It's about parental disappointment. OWUTS also reflected so much grief, but it had that eeriness mixed in that made it breathtaking. The emotions and thoughts of the sisters were repetitive. The ending was beyond quick and unexplained. This was literary fiction, not literary horror.

Overall, I am disappointed and sad.

Thank you to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for early access to the audiobook & ebook of this book! I truly appreciate the opportunity!

Private Rites has a narrative style that often feels similar to a stage play, with an omniscient narrator and several chapters that feel especially like stage direction told in prose— the chapter ‘Before,’ and those labeled ‘City,’ for example. It is easy to see the influence of King Lear, which Private Rites does reimagine successfully, I think, despite some major changes to the tragedy (which is not unusual in a reimagining versus a retelling). The prose is rich and evocative, and while I wouldn’t call it horror, it does oscillate between a vague sense of unease and a more palpable dread. A sense of treading water and then drowning, literally and metaphorically.

The protagonists- sisters Isla, Irene, and Agnes- are flawed and at times frustrating to endure, though I wouldn’t call them unlikeable overall. Private Rites does spend a majority of its length exploring the minutiae of each of their lives as they navigate the waterlogged end-times, and they are characterized so well that it seems as though they might swim from the page into being. The setting, despite never being named anything more specific by the text than ‘City’ or ’the city,’ also feels similarly tangible, like it could be a place that exists in the present rather than a work of fiction. The novel in general feels very relevant, which only amplifies the sense of dread looming (and building) beneath the narrative’s surface.

I’ve already placed a library hold on the audiobook, because I truly loved the narrative style of Private Rites, and think it would be so well-suited to the audiobook format.

I love Julia Armfield, and will read anything she writes. Private Rites was exceptional - a novel I will be recommending far and wide and thinking about for a long time.

This ended up being a power through the book type of situation. I found it to be very slow, and the three sisters annoyed me. Last 10% or so was great, and I loved the ending. Unfortunately, it didn’t make up for the first 90% of the book.

this was a satisfying read in many ways: its acknowledgment of the horror that is daily life under climate change and political uncertainty, in being character-driven while remaining entertaining, its moments of total eerieness. i did want a little more from this, but i enjoyed it all the same.

*Private Rites* by Julia Armfield is a haunting and immersive exploration of human desire, intimacy, and transformation. With her characteristic blend of the surreal and the deeply emotional, Armfield delves into the complexities of relationships, using both tenderness and unsettling imagery to explore the tension between longing and alienation.

The novella is centered on the lives of two women, whose connection evolves through a series of mysterious and almost mystical rituals. These "rites" are not just metaphysical; they are intimately tied to their emotional and psychological states, reflecting the way we often seek to control or alter our lives in the pursuit of meaning or relief. The narrative feels both deeply personal and universal, drawing the reader into a world where the boundaries of the self and the other blur.

Armfield’s writing is lyrical, with vivid, almost tactile descriptions that draw you into the characters' internal landscapes. Her exploration of bodies, rituals, and the strange, quiet terror of intimacy creates a lingering atmosphere of both beauty and discomfort. The tension between the characters feels real, and the eerie, dreamlike quality of the story makes it both engrossing and unsettling.

At its heart, *Private Rites* is about transformation—how we grow, change, or sometimes lose ourselves in the process of relating to others. It’s a meditation on the hidden corners of the self that we don’t always understand, but are always trying to reconcile. Armfield crafts a world that feels both delicate and dangerous, drawing the reader into its quiet, powerful depths.