
Private Rites
Reviews

I absolutely loved the way the (post-)apocalyptic slowly creeps onto you as you are deeply engaged in the lives of each of the sisters. Armfield is absolutely in her ability here to build up suspence and a sense of dread and impending doom. The setting of the novel feels almost tangible - so incredible is the atmosphere, it affects all of the sense of the reader.
"Private Rites" is such a quick read, too - it almost feels like an exploration of an idea over anything else.
As personal bias, I also really enjoyed the architectural ideas worked into the novel.

julia armfield. holy shit dude. finished this book and had to sit and cry on my kitchen floor. one of my fav king lear adaptions yet. an exploration into the idea of reality during a slow apocalypse, combined with incredibly compelling sister relationships. everything ties together So Well at the end, and i fear i will be thinking about this book forever.







Highlights

Life, she understands, is a collapsing down, a succession of memories held not in sequence but together, occurring and recurring all at once. She's in her father's kitchen at the age of twenty-four, but so is she at age five, age nine, age eleven. She is standing where she is with her sisters and her father is here, and yet he isn't.

People do what they have always done, in the knowledge that choice is limited.

…sometimes she pictured her mother spreading across her like lichen, like something resembling skin.

Sisterhood, she thinks, is a trap. You all get stuck in certain roles forever.

At what point, she wanted to say, do we stop being the direct product of our parents? At what point does it start being our fault?

“Oh, Jesus Christ," Isla hisses, slapping a palm down on the table in annoyance, "don't you ever get tired of going on like this?"
Irene sits back in her chair. Only you make me like this, she wants to say. You think I'm like this and that makes me worse.