Private Rites by Julia Armfield
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Okay. So. I really thought I'd love this SO much more. I mean, it's King Lear as told in a near-future SF (ok, barely, just flooding everywhere) with all our modern slant. It should have been NEAR PERFECT.

Well, I guess my imagination about what COULD have been never even came CLOSE to what I received.

So what is this?

It's just a mild three-sister battle over the worldly remains of a tyrant-ish father. Or, as it so happens, a very much sniper-ish battle that could have happened in any family with low stakes, hurt feelings, dramatic sacrifices, misunderstandings, and daddy-drama.

The point is, it's not Succession-level storytelling. It's really just Sex in the City storytelling with some F/F romance and, unlike the Bard, NO FOOL. Unless you count the reader. The reader could always be the true fool in this tragedy.

Even so, it's a pretty average mild horror that leans more to low-stakes family drama, with just a pastiche of flooding and the world going to post 2020 hell to remind us that, yes, we do live in a shitty time full of shittier people.

Personal note:
If anyone reading my reviews might be interested in reading my own SF, I'm going to be open to requests. Just direct message me in goodreads or email me on my site. I'd love to get some eyes on my novels.

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