This weird, wonderful book is a spectacular debut novel from Raven Leilani. Unlike anything I have ever read, the writing is sharp and funny and unsettling. Edie, a 23 year old Black woman, is stumbling her way through life as she under performs at a publishing house job, has extremely casual sex with coworkers, and ends up meeting a man twice her age in an open marriage. It starts off straight forward, seemingly a story about a gen z-er coming to terms with her age and her socioeconomic standing, but then makes an unexpected sharp left turn as she becomes a strange part of the family of the married man she is sleeping with.

This is an important and timely book about race, as Edie develops a relationship with Akila, the newly adopted Black tween daughter of the white family she moves in with. The circumstances of this new family are odd, and Rebecca (the wife of the man she is sleeping with) almost takes Edie under her wing more than her own daughter. In turn, Edie teaches Akila about how to manage and style her hair, and provides a level of understanding and care that her white parents clearly cannot. I don't want to give too much away as the beauty of this book is how it unravels and how Edie deals with her identity, career, and belonging in the world. Edie is an unforgettable character and I loved the way Leilani treats her with such care and gravitas. She is one to watch for sure.

Leilani’s debut novel is filled with razor sharp wit and is a smooth, fast paced millennial novel. The flaws of the protagonist is at the forefront but this makes her a fully developed character and Edie becomes like a real person in your mind. She’s just trying to make it through life in her early 20’s and figure out what she wants and who she is and along the way we get plenty of steamy open door scenes.

It’s hard to explain exactly what makes this book so great besides Leilani’s incredible writing. The main plot to this story is...unique. It’s a situation like nothing I’ve read in a book but is ripe for an HBO show. Edie is a young, Black woman working a menial job in publishing that she doesn’t love and begins seeing a middle aged white man in an open marriage and this creates a portrayal of classism and how it affects people of different races, gender, and ages. Through a sequence of events she ends up becoming a family...friend? Acquaintance? She becomes a sort of guide or just positive influence on his foster daughter who is Black and needs someone in her life who can relate to her. Edie teaches her things like hair care (think twist outs and relaxers) and the unfortunate lesson of how to interact with police officers.

I haven’t read anything like this and I loved everything about it. Leilani is an incredible writer that crafts a scene with fully fleshed out characters and presents them with flaws and all and isn’t afraid of showing both conflict and joy and the awkward moments in between. If you’re a fan of the TV show Insecure then you’ll enjoy this book.

4.5/5 Stars

Get your highlighters ready! Luster introduces us to Raven Leilani, a new voice in fiction that will knock your socks off. I had to force myself to slow down when reading because one minute you’re talking about the L train and the next sentence contains a pivotal revelation about our MC, Edie. The writing is so fluid and unpretentious, yet carries such depth. Ms. Leilani has incredible talent and will definitely be added as an auto buy author.

As for the story, this is a book that held my attention from the beginning. This could easily be any 20-30 something today. Edie is struggling and wryly aware of her circumstances. Edie’s observations and commentary gave me great pause and urged me to look at things differently.

Lastly, no character in this book escapes feeling lost. I think it demonstrates that you can fall off your center axis no matter your age, race or socioeconomic status. We are all human. However, the battle to overcome is longer and harder for some; especially those without a strong support system. Watching Edie uniquely navigate each situation thrown at her was eye opening, inspiring and heart breaking. What a book!

Thanks to Jonathan Woollen at Farrar, Straus & Giroux for his generosity in providing me with a print copy to read and review. Thank you also to Raven Leilani for the sharing your story with all of us.

Review Date: 08/04/2020
Publication Date: 08/04/2020

Happy Pub Day to Luster! An incredible debut by Raven Leilani that will undoubtedly be crowned as a literary jewel. For all its potential, it can be a difficult read, uncomfortable and viscerally unsettling. Why it's important is it is a story of survival, dealing with failure, and becoming an artist. In its unflinching portrayal of racism and misogyny in the workplace, neighborhood, and society, it's relevant and current. In Edie, 23, a managing editorial coordinator in a publishing firm, we see bold, sometimes self-destructive, choices in her journey as a 'Black woman, adrift in work and life.' She becomes involved with Eric, a white married man almost twice her age through an open marriage arrangement. Her precarity deepens and yet, she builds authentic connection to two female characters and resurrects herself through her art. The writing is poetic, dark, and sometimes comedic. Almost every sentence could be parsed into graduate course discussion. To discover more about Leilani and how she wrote Luster, visit her Esquire interview: http://bitly.ws/9fgZ

Leilani and Luster teach us about how to pick yourself back up when your dream is destroyed and learn from failure in all of its messiness. Thanks to #NetGalley for advanced copy. #luster #ravenleilani #ownvoices

I've pondered this review for a few days as I really don't know how to describe this one. I found the writing to be unique but it won't be for everyone. It was stark, messy and beautiful. Quite different from anything else i've read which is a plus for me as I found it intoxicating but some might find the moments a bit too much, too raw, too something for their tastes.

Told from the view of a twenty something drifting through her young adulthood falls into a relationship with a man in an open marriage. It was not nearly as racey as I was expecting but rather touched more on underlying questions of race, age, and relationships. The writing was more provacative than the actual story. I didn't find any of the characters redeeming and this may be a put off to some but I found their story interesting and enjoyed the almost voyaristic unflinching look into their messy lives.

Edie is a 23-year-old Black woman in NYC who is basically a hot mess. She’s making sexual choices she is regretting, having trouble at work, and starts something with an older man named Eric. Eric is married, and after Edie’s life begins to crumble she ends up staying at his house - but not through his invitation. As Edie navigates being around Eric’s wife and adopted Black daughter, she tried to find herself and her way.

Through the first third of this book I wasn’t sure how I felt about it, but as I kept reading I became more invested in Edie and her life. I wanted her to find herself and her way in life and I wanted her to be happy. This is a character-driven novel so it won’t be for everyone, but I enjoyed it a lot and I know many other people who will as well.

This book was just ok for me. I found her main character to be odd and a lot that happened to her was very unrealistic to me. All of the sex going on at work then an affair with a married man where the wife makes the rules. The writing was good. I just had a hard time with the story.

Thank you to Net Galley for my very first e-ARC!

First of all... this book was clearly not meant for someone with my reading taste, but with nothing to indicate that was so just by the synopsis. So I was excited for this book - I mean a girl gets involved with a married man in an open marriage then somehow gets drawn into their family dynamic? Yes please!

“I want us to fight in public. And when we fight in private, I want him to maybe accidentally punch me.” This statement is made at 3% into the book and at this point I can am already questioning how I will ever connect to this narrator because clearly I cannot relate. Thus began my mid-book thoughts seen below.

At 17% I’m starting to get annoyed reading the absurdly long run on sentences that last the length of half a page.

At 40% I’m tired of reading through all the minute details added about this girls day to day that don’t really seem to continued to the plot (though I’m finding it difficult to identify one in the first place...)

At 50% - wait do... do I actually like this book......?

Annnnnnnnnd at 60% we’re back to literally wtf is happening right now.

69% literally not one thing in this book seems even slightly realistic.

86% and I honestly feel obligated to finish because I’m so close to the end but it’s just not doing it for me. Ugh.

Thank you to Net Galley for providing an advanced copy of the book, but this one was just not for me. Though I feel like some important topics were touched on such as racism and disordered eating, it was all overshadowed by the self destructive behavior of the narrator. There were moments where we hear way to much about a minuscule detail, but not enough where something seems to actually be happening.

I wanted to love this so badly, but I didn’t enjoy the writing style enough to even TRY to care about the story.

So good it hurts.

Almost immediately I was grabbed by the sharp writing in Luster. I highlighted so many passages for their brilliance, apt descriptions, and power.

What took me by surprise is by about a third of the way in, I didn't "enjoy" reading much of this book. I still considered it well-written. I still wanted to know what happened. I still cared about the characters. But so much of it felt real to the point that I was uncomfortable, stressed, and frustrated for Edie, the main character. In other words, it's not a fun book, but it's a really good one.

Without giving the plot away, Luster is about a young black woman who had a rough upbringing which has left her at a disadvantage. She doesn't have parents or a financial cushion to fall back on. And she isn't engaging in the best romantic encounters. Luster is about being young and poor and somewhat lost, but also about being a black woman in the United States.

I want to tell you what plays out in these pages, but that'd be doing you a disservice. And while the plot gives the reader much to consider, it's the writing that I really think steals the show.

Don't sleep on Raven Leilani.

Raven Leilani’s debut novel was not at all what I was expecting. The story centers on Edie, a 23-year old Black woman living (and struggling) in Brooklyn. She is impulsive, sarcastic, risky, and ultimately very lonely. This leads her into the middle of the open marriage between an older white couple. The narrative follows these relationships as they begin to blossom and deepen. The sense of pain that each character bears is authentically drawn and fully developed. The reader can easily empathize with each character, identifying with the banal character flaws that lead to extraordinary disfunction. This rich character development is where “Luster” shines.

Leilani is a masterful writer as well, employing a unique sense of prose, marinated in a surprisingly dry sense of humor. That being said, the sentence structure throughout felt a bit overused. Initially, I got the sense that the long, drawn out run-on sentences were paralleling the hectic mind space of a 23-year old. It’s effective to a point, but begins to feel too familiar. It felt like with each sentence I was getting back on the same roller coaster, only to make the exact same twists and turns.

My favorite element of the novel is its brutal honesty. Leilani holds nothing back in constructing a portrait of the grief that leads people to do inexplainable things in order to feel special. Simply put, she goes there. There is no warming up; from the very first sentence, the reader is now a complicit cohort to the quiet madness that ensues. I was expecting more of a thriller, but was delighted by the heart found in the center of this dysfunctional tale. I absolutely recommend.

Thank you to FSG and NetGalley for the eARC.

Lonely is the word that comes to mind when I think of Luster — The characters are lonely and wanting more.

23 year old Edie begins a relationship with an older married man, Eric Walker. She loses her job in publishing due to citations of inappropriate behavior then gets kicked out of her apartment for failure to pay rent. Following an unexpected encounter, Eric’s wife, Rebecca, takes her in.

Edie becomes engrained in the Walker family: continuing to slyly see Eric, accompanying Rebecca to work where she performs autopsies, and forming a relationship with their adopted Black daughter, Akila. It’s an unusual arrangement to say the least — It felt like they all operated individually, ignoring the elephant in the room that was their dissatisfaction with life and one another.

I felt bad for Edie that she was so obviously lonely and didn’t have much of any support system to lean on, or belief in herself as an artist. She also, however, made some questionable choices and it was hard to feel for her and her apathetic effort at times.

Luster is far from happy yet I couldn’t put it down — An interesting and well-written story. Looking forward to seeing what Raven Leilani writes next.

wow, what a book!
Thank you @Netgalley and @fsgbooks for the arc e-copy!

“A way is always made to document how we manage to survive, or in some cases, how we don’t.”

We follow Edie, a Black woman in her 20s on school depth, her parents not in the picture anymore, living in a “broken-down” apartment in New York, working an administrative job, figuring out her passion for art, and learning how to deal with failure, loneliness and rejection.

There were times where I laughed out loud, I loved Edie’s voice and character. I found myself really engrossed in this story. I loved how we follow Edie’s point of view throughout the story. We get to really feel for her and everything that she goes through. We follow Edie’s mind around all the reactions she’s had with men, her descriptions about her parents and their affect on her life as well as their own, her new relationship with Eric, an older married man that she meets online, and her relationship with Eric’s family. We see Edie and Eric’s lust for each other as a mean for Edie to feel wanted and also take part of her life throughout the book.
As this is a fiction book, much too real none the less, and seeing Edie going into Eric’s life and family seemed too fast and too easy at times.

I saw an instagram live where Raven Leilani talked about why she wrote the book and what does she want readers to take from it. She said: “optimism in rejection and failure”, and to “pursue work meaningful to you”. This is exactly what Edie’s story is about. Seeing Edie become unemployed, broke, lost, and lonely, really makes the reader think about where the story is going and knowing that Raven Leilani tackles this topic is really important. To see Edie figure out how to see the successful outcomes out of rejection, failure, loneliness, and on what’s to come.
I think this is such an important massage that many times I don’t read in books.

Not only did I fall in love with this story but with Leilani’s stunning writing as well. I can’t wait to see what she does next and am really proud of her, for Luster being her debut novel.

There’s a lot of buzz about this debut novel and it’s well deserved. Luster is the story of Edie, who’s 23, living in a crappy apartment in NYC, and working in a low level publishing job while she’d rather focus on her painting. She’s also carrying on an affair with a Eric, a married man in his 40’s. The differences between them are stark and yet they continue to be drawn to each other in progressively interesting ways. While the sexual affair is with Eric, a different sort of affair develops when Edie moves in with Eric’s family, at the request of his wife, Rebecca.
The characters are complicated and their actions and motivations weren’t always clear to me. Especially poignant were Edie’s interactions with Akila, Eric and Rebecca’s adopted daughter. Edie is self-destructive in so many ways (some seriously bad choices in men and things she did in the office), but she’s a fighter and determined.
The book covers a wide range of topics: mental illness, infidelity, broken homes, racism, and sexuality, to name a few. But the star of the book is Ms. Leilani’s writing - lyrical and so beautiful I re-read many sections.
Thanks to Netgalley and Farrar, Straus, and Giroux for the opportunity it’s to read Luster. I look forward to Ms. Leilani’s next book!

This is a beautifully written debut novel of women that is very much in flux with her life. Edie is in her twenties, not happy in her job, is very sexually adventurous, and is at the beginning of a relationship with a married man, Eric, who is exploring having an open marriage.

What makes this even stranger, she develops a relationship with Eric’s wife. Edie finds out they have an adopted daughter Akila who is Black, and she wants Edie to help with her because she is only the other Black woman she knows.

Eventually because of circumstances, Edie moves in with them. She become an ally to the wife and eventually Akila. Eric still does not know what to think about the situation, but continues to have his relationship.

At times this book was strange, but the writing was so lyrical, that I did not want to put this book down. This book will not be for everybody, but I thoroughly enjoyed this.

Thank you NetGalley and Farrar, Straus and Giroux for an Advanced Reader’s Copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I found Luster to be very strange. The main character’s journey in her search to become an artist is wild and tiring. I considered abandoning the book along the way but hung in there to the end. Not my cup of tea.

Touching, hilarious and painfully accurate, this is a debut novel?!?!?!?!?! It reads like a masterpiece.

This is yet another book that has me conflicted. On the one hand the narration style and the wit and sarcasm definitely appeal to me. It's nice to know you aren't the only one who thinks something sometimes.

On the other hand, I just may be too old to really care much about the sex life and wandering of a 20 year old. In my 20s I was working multiple jobs and putting myself through school. Career and family were next and I just never had patience for people who could afford to just blindly walk through their jobs and relationships like this. I guess I still don't. So, maybe it's not just an age thing.

In the end, I can see people who would easily relate to Edie. It's not that I have to connect with the character, but I must find something in the actual story that appeals to me. I didn't have that here. Good luck and best wishes that you do if you read it, because the voice is appealing.

This book made me so sad. I remember a time in my life (long, long ago) when I made bad choices because I didn't know what a good choice would be. Evie makes worse choices than I did, but she also has less options. I really liked Evie and hope she makes it through this. There are glimmers of hope at the end. Insightful and polished, this is a very good book.

LUSTER by Raven Leilani is about a young black woman, Edie who makes many poor choices in her life, aware that she is making poor choices she continues to choose the wrong path. Edie has an older married lover Eric, Eric is married to Rebecca, they have an adopted black daughter. Eric and Rebecca take Edie in when she is homeless hoping Edie will connect with their daughter. Rebecca and Eric take turns pulling Edie in and turning her away.

Lots of things going on in this book, not one of the relationships was clearly defined to me. At times I was engrossed, at times my head spun.

The writing style of this book was difficult for me to follow. Very long sentences going nowhere, fragmented sentences telling nothing. This was a difficult book for me to read but I was engrossed enough to follow it to it’s end.

What a stunning debut by Raven Leilani. I give this book 4 big stars. I really enjoyed this book about Edie who's 23 and a painter, trying to find her way in life. She is a young black woman who finds herself in the middle of a collapsing marriage, being friends with the wife, involved with the husband, who is mean and drowns himself in alcohol, and ends up working for them when she loses her job.. Edie is very depressed and I think I really connected with her character, having depression myself.. I liked the way Edie is with their daughter, Akila, who hasn't known many black people. Her depression is depressing, but she could be funny at times. Her feelings come out on her canvas and she has a very hard go of it. She's stuck in this house, in this marriage, where they use her to fight with each other. At times reading this I felt her depression, which made me feel worse. I think I liked this book a lot because of her character.. At times she could be funny as well. She's just really trying to find her place in life.

I would recommend this book. I think it's really interesting, especially for a first book and I hope to see more from this author. I was pleasantly surprised to find out she's an artist herself. Loved the cover as well.

Special thanks to Farrar, Stroud and Giroux Publishing and NetGalley for the ARC of this book.