ahl389 's review for:

Private Rites by Julia Armfield
4.25
challenging dark mysterious reflective tense slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: Complicated
Loveable characters: Complicated
Diverse cast of characters: Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Absolutely adored the writing, was drawn in immediately. Around the 100-150 page mark I got kind of bored and kept wondering when the premise of the book that we were promised was going to "start", but then we got there and I'm glad I stuck around. The ending was a huge "twist" in that I didn't see it coming, but in retrospect, I should have. Armfield left plenty of narrative structure to bring us this ending, my only disappointment was that I think we should have spent more time with it. It was very abrupt and then the book ended. I would have loved another 50 pages in that final scene(s).