Cover Image: Luster

Luster

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Member Reviews

Tense, painful, and beautifully written. This book is an addictive read and I really liked the narration on the audio edition.

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This darkly comic literary novel, longlisted for the Women's Prize for fiction, follows the story of a young black woman in New Jersey, navigating her sexual relationships, career and multi-faceted self-identity..

I really enjoyed this novel; it is exactly what you'd expect and hope for. Fresh writing, witty dialogue and dry humour; the interesting, complex, slightly dislikeable and painfully relatable millennial woman. It is firmly set within the present day, and feels convincingly authentic, which I really appreciated. I read the novel quickly, being engaged from the first page.

Ultimately I greatly enjoyed this - although it didn't blow me away as I know it has other readers, and it hasn't stuck with me in a big way. It was an enjoyable, entertaining and relatable reading experience that I would recommend.

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Thank you netgalley for this arc.
This book is great and I loved the story and the writing.
The cover is saucy and drew me in Instantly!
The style is sharp and intelligent and sucked me in.
The characters are well-written and I look forward to Raven Leilani's future books

My Netgalley audiobook download was bad quality.
It had a robotic and tinny sound to it so skipped parts while I was listening.
I will reread Luster in the future, but I think I'll get a paperback.

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Loved this as an audiobook and have recommended to everyone! It was expertly written about real life - if you love novels about raw real life then this is for you.

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This book was intense. It is a brilliant written novel, and at it's core the message that Leliani is getting to is much deeper than initially appears. Although it took a while to warm to the way in which she structures the book, listening to it as an audio book made it possible for me to disengage with the outside world and lose myself completely. A contemporary piece of fiction that is sure to remain in the readers mind for a long time after you've stopped listening.

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Raven Leilani's debut novel looks at the relationship between a young black woman and a married white man in an open marriage. It explores class resentment and memories of racism and misogyny, as Edie and Eric come from different worlds. Before meeting Eric, she makes seriously bad choices, watching porn at work, and sleeping with a few coworkers. At times, it's quite cringeworthy. If you can get past some of the inappropriate behaviour, you can see capitalism, sex, loss, and trauma, smashed together in the form of dark humour. It's not for everyone.

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I wish I liked the style of this book, the sentence-to-sentence texture, more, because conceptually, I was & still am excited by it! The premise, that a young, black woman in her early twenties begins an affair with a married man and becomes uneasily and precariously involved in his life, his home, his family, is already pulled tense; the execution, the weird opacity of the characters, Edie's dissociative narration, the many skin-itching scenes of voyeuristic intrusion, of belongings gone through or appropriated, of humiliating vulnerability and spiny, imperfect tenderness, elevate the tension to something that can be, in places, exquisite & revelatory.

The events of the story itself are often jarring, not entirely plausible -- characters make decisions for reasons that feel inscrutable, conversations feel only half-sketched in, things seem to happen to edie, around her, and she moves through them, rifling through drawers and boxes and other people's rooms. The general consensus in the reviews I've seen seems to be that this is off-putting; I found it compelling, the sense of sleepwalking logic, the unpredictability of consequence, the occasional shock of a missed stair, the incomplete presence. I liked the half-absence of Edie from her own perspective, the discomfort of reading someone who wants to abdicate the role of protagonist, makes herself peripheral, who wants to “[make] everyone who passes through my life subject to a close and inappropriate reading” but never commits to interpreting or passing judgment on what she reads. It makes the racism, the violence, the class, age, gender power imbalances, the financial precarity she experiences feel more three dimensional than the characters sometimes, real, insistent threats that are rarely defused.

I just couldn't quite Enjoy the writing, which often felt awkward & laboured for me, metaphors stretched to breaking point. When it worked, it really really worked, but everywhere else, I felt I was straining to see past it to the ideas and images of scenes.

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If you haven't heard of Luster, where have you been? This book has had an unbelievable amount of hype, and it is certainly well deserved.

Our protagonist Edie is in her mid-twenties, navigating work (or lack of it), her identity as an artist and young Black woman, and an affair with an older married man. The book has been likened to Queenie for it's depiction of a young, Black, female protagonist, however that's not really a fair comparison. Luster is much darker, leaning into almost surrealism at certain points. At times Edie seems set on a path of self-destruction, and as a reader it's easy to want to make better decisions on her behalf. We might think we know what's better but let's be honest, in those heady moments of youth, where anything seems possible and everything feels so big it's a very different story.

And more importantly, Edie is living unapologetically. She is angry, hungry, horny and all the other things young women aren't supposed to be. Leilani's wit is acerbic, and through Edie she offers not only a reflection on race and gender identity but a biting social commentary. This book is funny, shocking and incredibly moving. Luster is a coming of age novel which lays bare young adulthood, and life in your twenties, as ugly as it can be. Watching Edie's life becomes almost addictive, and certainly voyeuristic as we see some of her worst moments, but also how she learns and grows throughout the book.

Ariel Blake's narration doesn't just bring this book to life - she immerses you in it and makes you feel everything Edie does, her joy, her pain and her heartbreak. Luster is going to be one of the biggest novels of 2021, for very good reason so make sure you pick up a copy!

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Luster is one of the most talked about books of the year. The themes of the box are deep, complex and thought provoking but at times you are left feeling quite detached from the stream of consciousness. Not my usual type of book.

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This book is great and I loved the story and the writing. The style is sharp and intelligent and sucked me in. The characters are well-crafted and I look forward to Raven Leilani's future work.

The Netgalley audiobook was very bad quality. It had a robotic and tinny tinge to it and skipped while I was listening. I will reread Luster in the future, but I think I'll get a hard copy.

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Another crazy book I requested and read. This was sexy but not in a fifty shades way. It was different. It made me quite flustered which is always fun when you read around other people. I knew what it was going into it but wow this was intense. I’m not really sure who to recommend this to as it is quite different from other steamy titles. Perhaps those wanting a bit more substance to their steamy read

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i liked this book a lot, yes we've read one million "early 20s woman figuring shit out in the big city" novels before but i feel like this was a good, modern update on the genre. i liked that the narrator was flawed and openly displayed those flaws in a matter of fact way. yes, she was a trainwreck in a lot of ways, but so were all the adults in this book, in their own way.
i feel sad for all these women connected solely by this beige man, who neither of them really seem to actually like that much. i wonder if it's intentional that he's so bland, a stand in for all the married men with their younger girlfriends, or if edie just didn't find much about him to discuss. there's a section where she talks about how eric isn't interesting, just older that made me desperately wish i'd read this book when i was younger.
i felt sad for akila, counting calories and measuring her thighs at her age but even sadder knowing that this isn't unusual behaviour for a barely teenage girl.
oddly, given the traumas that happen towards the end, i found that after finishing this book i felt a sense of hope for edie. she's plenty young enough to change things, if she wants to.

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Quite an uncomfortable and stressful yet beautiful and honest story exploring contemporary struggles with race, sex and art.

Edie is struggling through her 20s: mediocre job, no family, no friends, the racial struggle of being a black woman, bad relationship choices... Until she meets Eric whose wife agreed to an open marriage. From one day to the next, she finds herself unemployed and moves in with this atypical family.

I really enjoyed this story and the eery and, strange atmosphere. Very well written. The style is a little cold and detached and the conclusion very “artistic” which is why not everyone will life it, but i did.

More enlightening with regards to racism in America than a lot of feminist books out there.

The book talks about very important topics: the difficulty black women face in life, on the job market, in relationships… I found it fascinating.
Thank you for allowing me to read this.

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Not an easy read.

Edie works in a dead-end job and shares a seedy flat with a girl who is not a friend. She hates her job and has managed to sleep with most of the men employed there. Edie is also the “token black” in an all-white office. Her real passion is her art; however, she’s hit a brick wall with this and hasn’t picked up a paintbrush for ages.

Edie’s mother had committed suicide and she has no contact with her father. In fact, no one really cares whether she lives or dies. By chance, she meets Eric, a white, middle-aged archivist with a suburban family, including a wife who has sort of agreed to open marriage and an adopted black daughter.

When she’s fired from her job Edie takes the unprecedented step to break into Eric’s home, only to be discovered by his wife, who decides to let her move in. This arrangement is fragile, and Edie knows that it can’t last.

I enjoyed Ariel Blake’s narration of the book. I think that Raven Leilani is a truly outstanding author, but I found the storyline uncompromising and was unable to empathise with any of the characters.

Rony

Elite Reviewing Group received a copy of the book to review.

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Incredible and at times uncomfortable. I read it all in one sitting. Some of the scenes were described so viscerally and in such a raw manner that I have been thinking about them ever since. I found some of the characters fairly unlikeable but this did not detract from my enjoyment of the book

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This novel is unique! Every few months someone calls a new book "the new normal people" - this isn't it, Luster is its own beautiful creation, but I hadn't seen anything that raw and honest and daring since Normal People.

The author explores Relationships, sex, race, mental health and body image with no shame and no censure. I was absolutely mesmerised by her prose, and the audiobook narrator was extremely good and captivating.

10/10 would recommend!

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Luster is about Edie a young 23 year old black woman who is lost and lonely. She makes terrible life decisions but she's fully aware of it but she just can't seem to stop.

She meets Eric a middle aged white man, who let's her know up front that he is married but its an open relationship, his wife Rebecca is has even provided a list of rules for them to follow. As our story unfolds Edie gets pulled more and more into the marriage and finds herself bonding with the couples adopted daughter Akila who is also black.

Luster is so amazing. I can't even describe how much I loved this book. Its weird and funny and just crazy. This book just hit my sweet spot and I could not put it down.

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This is very odd book. It is really interesting but the characters are completely unrelatable to me except for maybe Akila - the young black teenage girl adopted by a white couple and struggling to find her place in an all white environment.

This book is about a 23 year old black girl that starts an affair with a married man (in a semi open relationship with his wife) and stalks/inserts herself into their home and lives. Edie is very flawed. She has very low self esteem, combined with some daddy issues which causes her to sleep around with lots of different people (I think as a means to try and feel something). Eric is a white older man who’s probably in his late 40s, so they make an odd match because of the race, age and socio economic differences. He also has issues - I think with suppressed rage or feelings of inadequacy which leads him down this path - though the author doesn’t really explore his rationale. His wife Rebecca is also very strange. She allows their relationship but is also resentful of it. She feels sorry for Edie when she runs into trouble and takes her in but is also quite manipulative and uses her to help serve as a “how to be black” guru for her teenage daughter, who has alternative interests and struggles to make friends.

The whole situation is weird and complicated and feels completely unrealistic to me. All the characters are flawed and have issues and react in strange ways (except for Akila as mentioned before). However, the book navigates racism, sexism, trauma and relationships in a wholly novel way. It is hard to explain and the blurb doesn’t do it enough justice, but it is a really great read. I listened to the audiobook and finished it in one session - the narrator was amazing.

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The narration was absolutely fab! It felt like it really transmitted the darkness of the book. The story itself, I'm not sure what I was expecting...it was very well written! I wasn't super keen on it but mostly because of my current headspace. I'm sure I would've appreciated it more at a different time in my life.
I think I probably would've appreciated it more had I read the actual written book rather than listening to it.

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Unfortunately, not my cup of tea... I felt that the synopsis told half of the story already and nothing that much more interesting was happening in the other half of the book. I wanted to like this book, I really did... So many times I felt like DNF this, but kept going, just in case. But nothing happened... On the positive side, the writing was beautiful and the narrator was great, I guess it’s just the storyline that didn’t really work for me; expected more from synopsis, that’s all. I’m sure many people will enjoy this book, but it’s best to just go in without knowing what the book is about.

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