julia armfield novels, on paper, are everything i love - queerness, horror, poetic and lush writing -but i just could not for the life of me get invested in this story
i muscled through OUR WIVES UNDER THE SEA and liked it ... sort of ... but i just dont have space in my brain to trudge through a novel that feels like a chore to pick up.

armfield has a knack for creating an atmosphere of doom, for sharpening the anxieties of her characters (and thusly, the reader) like a knife. and it should've hooked me! it really should've. but i found the writing to be strained and affected. the characters flat, their differences spelled out but without consequence. this is not a bad book by any means, it just wasn't for me and that's okay

forgive me julia armfield fans, i'm the problem and the outlier

I am so thankful to Flatiron Books, Julia Armfield, and Netgalley for granting me advanced access to this gem before it hit shelves on December 3, 2024. I really enjoyed this one and am thankful for the opportunity.

Private Rites is Julia Armfield's sophomore novel set in a post-apocalyptic world and based on Shakespeare's King Lear. Julia's background with poetry is what shines through here, their way with words and prose is fine and sophisticated. It's unlike any other, the way the author is able to create a world and transport the reader directly to the setting and the scene. I will never forget the opening chapter and believe that it should be taught in schools. This book is a masterclass in storytelling and while the pace might not be for some, it was definitely for me. This is my kind of dystopian/science fiction.

Actual Rating 2.5

I thought for sure I would love this one, but it ended up not working for me for several reasons. This work heavily relies on introspection and people remembering things that have happened rather than us seeing the action happening firsthand. This made for a lackluster representation of events and certainly made things feel more boring and emotionally distanced than I wanted them to. This book is also massively overwritten, to the point where you could skim pages and not lose any relevant information. The characters could have been quite strong, but they were drowned in all the unnecessary exposition.

This work read like a literary fiction, with very minimal flashes of horror. I loved the characters and their complexity, as well as the somewhat apocalyptic world. There were also interlude chapters from the POV of the city which added some strong atmosphere. The themes were melancholic along with the atmosphere, which was an added bonus.

Unfortunately, this one just didn’t work well for me due to the writing. However, if you go in expecting literary fiction and are prepared for the overwriting, you may enjoy it more. My thanks to NetGalley and Flatiron Books for allowing me to read this work. All thoughts and opinions expressed in this review are my own.

I’m glad I read this book for the ethereal quality of the story and the genuinely beautiful prose. But if you’re going to do a Shakespeare retelling, lean into it. The premise is perfect and would have made a fabulous backdrop for the tragedy and melodrama of King Lear. But it was muddy at best which led to the entire work feeling directionless.

Unsure if this is a marketing thing from the publisher or the author’s actual intent. But I think going into it without expecting a Lear retelling would make it way easier to enjoy the work for what it is—an eerie and atmospheric exploration of family, inheritance, and the unanswerable questions we all have.

I really enjoy Julia Armfield’s writing, it’s ethereal and atmospheric. It seems the words to her novels flow so smoothly and I float through her books so easily. I love how queer this is and I love the inspirations from Shakespeare IFKYK. Her characters are dynamic and complicated, she isn’t afraid to portray women realistically, even in a post apocalyptic society. I recommend this book to anyone eager for a different world to be immersed in. Beautifully written.

Julia Armfield’s “lesbian Lear” follows three queer sisters navigating a “mundane apocalypse” of unrelenting rain and societal collapse. Coastal regions are submerged, governments are inept, and most people live in deteriorating high-rises, clinging to routines in denial of the disaster. The wealthy live above it all, while others join cults, protest futilely, or disappear.

Sisters Isla, Irene, and half-sister Agnes maintain tense relationships, especially with Agnes, whose rebellious streak includes mischief at work and random sexual encounters. Their father’s death, a sadistic architect who built their childhood home, forces them back together, reviving buried traumas and triggering eerie events centered on Agnes.

Armfield’s prose is vivid, her vision of climate devastation haunting, but the novel feels uneven. Folk horror and speculative elements are overshadowed by the sisters’ fractured dynamics. The final twist feels predictable, perhaps intentionally, as Armfield suggests traditional horror pales before real-world environmental crises. Ultimately, the story emphasizes empathy and meaningful connection as humanity’s best response to looming catastrophe.

Man this is a tough one for me. I think I got my hopes too high after Our Wives Under the Sea. This had really no plot to speak of, which I can enjoy sometimes but I have to really connect with the characters and, in this one, I really didn't. It almost felt to me like the story had no point or sense of purpose that was driving it. There was no theme to keep me engaged. It was a rather dull read, unfortunately. The one strong point of the story was the world-building. I really liked the bleak atmosphere and potential future dystopia that the story took place in.

"Private Rites" is *King Lear but queer*, a haunting, lyrical tale of love, power, and betrayal, where intimacy and tragedy intertwine in a dark, emotional journey.

This is a harrowing tale of womanhood - being a sister, daughter, girlfriend and having a sister, daughter, girlfriend. Armfield describes the complexity of family and grief in such a way that I think anyone can relate to. Truthfully, it was such a thorough exploration of these characters and their deep familial and personal disfunctions that I'd forgotten Armfield writes horror until over halfway through. I wish that had been a bigger theme.

Is Julia Armfield going to keep writing novels involving lots of water? I enjoyed her first novel so much because of the eerie atmosphere, cleverly created using the ocean as almost a character. This novel uses seemingly endless rain to create a unique setting and riffs on King Lear, one of my favorites. Armfield really seems to understand families and relationships. The narrator was very good. I'll probably read this again because I feel like I can keep getting more out of it. Thanks to NetGalley for letting me read this.

I’ve been saving my early copy of Private Rites because I enjoyed Julia Armfield’s previous two books so much and knew this one would be great as well. But I finally picked it up just before release day (December 3) and as expected, it was a moody, unsettling, and memorable experience.

Armfield is reimagining King Lear, but you don’t need to be familiar with the Shakespearean source material to understand or appreciate this story. It’s set in London during a more advanced stage of the climate crisis—everything is wet and flooded, it’s always raining, and the city’s infrastructure is struggling against the water’s effects. We follow three sisters, all queer, daughters of a famous architect, who learn of their father’s death early in the novel and are then forced together to grieve and process and handle the logistical particulars of his passing. Meanwhile they are each navigating their own careers and love lives and internal states, and as the story progresses, it becomes clear that something is happening with the house that their father left behind. I don’t know that the ending quite worked for me; the pacing really picks up in the last few chapters and I found myself a little confused with everything that was going on. But! That didn’t change how I felt about the book overall. Julia Armfield is SO good at creating atmosphere and building unease, and I know I will remember the slightly foreboding feeling of this novel for a long time to come.

Rating: 3.5 stars (rounded up to 4)

I was thrilled to see that Julia Armfield was releasing a new book and felt honored to receive an advance copy prior to its official publication date. As a fan of her previous work, I went into Private Rites with high expectations, and while I enjoyed the overall story, there were moments that left me wanting more.

The three main characters—Isla, Irene, and Agnes—are well-developed, each grappling with love, loss, and family secrets as they navigate their father’s death and the ominous, ever-rising floodwaters. The atmospheric tension Armfield is known for is present, with the haunting glass house setting and themes of estrangement and reconnection giving the novel a unique edge.

That said, the pacing was uneven for me. Several times, the narrative built up an intriguing sense of unease, only to resolve too quickly or quietly. This pattern left me a bit disappointed as I anticipated a more sustained tension. The final chapter, however, delivered—it was suspenseful, gripping, and full of the impact I had hoped for throughout the book. I just wish more of the story had matched the intensity and stakes of that final twist.

Overall, Private Rites is an engaging read with beautifully crafted characters and a strong conclusion. While it didn’t quite maintain the suspense I was looking for, I’m glad I had the chance to experience this novel before its release and would recommend it to those who enjoy family dramas with a touch of the uncanny.

This had such a good ominous vibe throughout the whole story. The author is great at writing a gothic vibe and making you feel uneasy. There were parts of this story's plot that really engaged me, but there were also very slow parts where I was disinterested. It was a slow storyline until about 70% of the book before the ending got really crazy. The ending was very intriguing, and I think it was a solid end to the story.I liked the main character, but she felt very far away from the reader. I wanted to know more about the whole cast of characters, but they felt very surface level. Unfortunately, this story's plot won't stay with me but the vibes will. Thank you to Netgalley and Flatiron for an eARC in exchange for a review.

private rites does a lot of things that I would usually enjoy a lot. the writing style here perfectly conveys the sense of dreariness that suffuses a world that is constantly raining and constantly drowning. the nonlinear narrative that is executed with a kind of ease that the jumps in time happen before you even realize that it's been done, lending a quality to the writing that also makes it feel like you're just being carried away in a current that you have no choice but to be swept away in. each of the three sisters feels fully realized and complex, and yet their unreliable perspectives on how they not only view themselves but also on how they view each other makes reading about them compelling.

but these are probably where the positive highlights of the story end. private rites definitely feels more like a character study/"no plot just vibes" kind of story, yet is also trying to tack on these elements of cult/folk horror in a way that comes on at the end of the book in the last chapter far too quickly and escalates too fast for it to work. it almost seems like the author is aware of this whiplash in genre shift, adding a cheeky line how it feels like what happens in the end is part of a different genre altogether. the problem is that the prologue presented a glimpse to a narrative that I was immediately interested in, and the rest of the book went on to tell a story that was completely different in tone and what it was trying to accomplish that I had begun to believe that the author had just abandoned the promise of the prologue altogether. while the last chapter comes back to what was promised in the prologue, it happens all too quickly and happens without the proper build up sprinkled throughout in between, so the payoff doesn't work. if the elements that make up the reveal at the end of the book were brought in much earlier (and not just 'oh wow people sure are weird!!' then I think it could have worked a lot better, but ultimately I left private rites feeling unsatisfied. the weird horror that I feel like I was promised didn't really happen and that kind of does have to be the biggest disappointment. I think the author just really had to lean into the weirdness a bit more. go be more unhinged!!

Lush, atmospheric, and eerie, this queer King Lear re-imagining set in a drowning world captivated me.

Three estranged sisters are drawn back together after the death of their wealthy father also has them rethinking their strange childhoods and the disappearance of their mother.

I think part of what makes this so eerie and perfectly literary horror is that it straddles the divide between possible and impossible so neatly. The climate crisis and the breakdown of modern life, pervasive as a slow leak dripping away, creates a horrifyingly realistic backdrop - in my opinion, horror is done best when it's terrifyingly real. There are some strange, supernatural moments here, but they fit so believably into the world Armfield has constructed.

Sometimes I feel like I'm not quite smart enough for Armfield's books - I'm sure there are so many layers that I'm missing that a careful reader could find and dissect. But much like her debut, Our Wives Under the Sea, I was left feeling confused, unsettled, and thoughtful - in the best way. I recommend if you're looking for a character-driven, queer, literary horror.

4.5 stars.

4.5 stars.

To preface this review, it needs to be said that I will read whatever Julia Armfield writes. I know it sounds hyperbolic to say that you’re someone’s biggest fan but I truly feel like I am Julia Armfield’s biggest fan and will remain as such for the rest of my days.

Private Rites is what Intermezzo should have been but with that classic Julia Armfield twist. It felt like a tangible embodiment of melancholy and because I read it during the middle of a week-long rain storm, that melancholic feeling pervaded my every thought.

Armfield’s talent for crafting vivid descriptions with her unique prose is what always enthralls me and Private Rites was no different. Her use of water to create a world unfamiliar to ours and placing very normal human beings within this unfamiliarity was a stroke of genius and kept my attention throughout. (Whenever I say “throughout”, I think of my 12th grade English teacher telling us what a cop-out that phrase is but I’m afraid I will never give it up).

As the reader, we are plunged into this world along with these three queer sisters and have to manage their differences simultaneously. I couldn’t decide if I actually ended up liking any of the sisters as individuals or if they were all so compelling that I had no choice but to end up caring for them and their plights. Their sense of survival amongst daily life and the death of their father was the underlying tone of the novel and added a familial bleakness to the prevailing feeling of melancholy.

I dearly loved this story, the dystopian climate, the complicated relationship between the sisters, and the horrific turn that it took near the end. For those searching for a book along the lines of a sad, less scientific, more personable Annihilation, look no further.

Thank you to NetGalley and Flatiron Books for an Advance Reader Copy in exchange for an honest review.

I really really REALLY liked this. I was a little startled by the ending, which seemed oddly rapid, though the eleventh hour revelation is really well calibrated in terms of being surprising and not entirely predictable. I do feel that it's a little overwritten, especially in the early chapters, which feel dense in a kind of self-protective way -- like, don't see through me! -- and I was somewhat frustrated by the reliance on childhood trauma as an explanation for the thorny personalities of the three sisters, especially Agnes. They're more interesting than that -- always returning to the trauma of being eight and your dad being mean to you is a good way to sell out your characters. And the idea that this is King Lear retelling is a joke. Is every book with three sisters in it King Lear? Does that make Little Women King Lear plus one?

All that being said! I really enjoyed this. I was charmed by the relationships the sisters have with their significant others, and I liked the cozy-nasty chamber drama feel of this wet world. The idea that this book is wise about climate doesn't really ring true for me -- it's an oversimplified allegory, but as a real setting I liked what it did for the characters. The moments of drama are super exciting, especially the incident that occurs to Agnes on the ferry -- maybe the best passage in the book. All in all, in the words of another King Lear-inspired-story, you aren't serious people! But you are good for an evening's entertainment.

Julia Armfield writes great atmospheric prose. This tale about three sisters takes time to explore each of their current lives while touching base on their traumatic and, at times, odd childhood that included religious fanaticism and abandonment.

All three sisters are queer, and I enjoyed that each had their own relationship dynamic, with their childhood and family wounds showing up in different ways.

Armfield kept me guessing throughout. Their dad's house was almost another character with all the history held there and the pivotal moments that happen within its walls.

I don't want to BASH this book too harshly, so I will keep it short. Minus the sweet...unfortunately...

This book was the most beautifully written piece of garbage that I have ever read. The plot did not make sense, the characters were extremely uninteresting, and overall it was just boring. I actually let out a sigh of relief once I had finished it.

My hopes were high because I loved Our Wives Under the Sea SOOOOOOOO much, but this was the letdown of the century.