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A review by sarahweyand
Private Rites by Julia Armfield
dark
emotional
mysterious
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
Thanks to Flatiron Books and NetGalley for providing me an e-ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts and feedback 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.
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.