Cover Image: Luster

Luster

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“Between his abrupt cancellations, I realize that I need him, too. In a way, that makes my dreams delirious expressions of thirst—long stretches of yellow desert, cathedrals hemmed in dripping moss. By the time we set our first real date, I would’ve done anything.
He wanted to go to Six Flags.”

Sharp, funny and sad. This book is a journey!

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Luster was fantastic! I was hooked immediately. Edie is a smart, funny, lost protagonist and a great narrator for this story. Leilani's writing style, like the long, run-on sentences trying to follow a wandering train of thought felt so appropriate for the feeling of being 23. The interactions Edie has with her coworkers and every member of the family were so interesting, and while I thought the story was great, I would have listened to her forever.

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What an absolute marvel of a book. Raven Leilani carries us through a brief period in the life of her protagonist, Edie, as she struggles (or really, allows herself to struggle) to be part of an open relationship involving a married man and being a young Black woman navigating capitalism, industry, and artistry in New York City. Each sentence is carved finely to cut like glass, and even as some sentences unspool to take up line after line on the page, not a single syllable is wasted; these sentences and psychological revelations are the work of a master.

Edie will frustrate you, and you will want to help her even as she refuses to help herself. LUSTER is a book about being a person who so desperately wants to be the best they can be, while denying themselves every opportunity to do that just because they know they can. It's bleak, funny, and raw; I loved this book.

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A bullet of a book that shoot right to the gut, Luster follows Edie as she navigates a life rife with poverty, power struggles, issue of race, loneliness and more. While this may sound bleak, Leilani has an extreme gift for humor, often made more poignant by its heavy truth: "And then the worst part of meeting a man in broad daylight, the part where you see him seeing you, deciding in this split second whether any future cunnilingus will be enthusiastic or perfunctory." "What they say about not sh#tting where you eat only holds if they pay you enough to eat." The main plot of the novel follows Edie, a twenty-three-year-old woman living in New York, as she enters into a sort of relationship with Eric, a white married man who is twice her age. As the relationship progresses and stalls, sputters and swirls, Edie is drawn closer into Eric's life, eventually moving in with him and his wife, Rebecca, and their adopted daughter Akila, who, like Edie, is Black woman living in mostly white world. Some of the strongest moments in the book revolve around Akila, her interactions with both Edie and her parents, culminating in a scene towards the end that is devastating in its truth. Edie herself lives in a world where she has never experienced a healthy sort of love, and she moves from one person to the next seeking, if not love, then connection, a sort of communication and confidence. Throughout, Edie works through the difficult realities of her sexual experience: "I've exposed my body for nothing. For a tip, for lunch, for a hand attached to a man I couldn't see. This novel deals frankly and insightfully with the subjects it explores, including sex and power and race. While the novel, for me, ends with a movement towards a better emotional place for Edie, one knows that the challenges she faces will not go away just because she moves towards a healthier emotional state, because, yes, "all of it, even the love, is a violence."

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Luster by Raven Leilani is an impressive debut. Confident, bold, darkly humorous it focuses on capitalism, freelancing, dating, and race. Leilani's sentences are absurd, startling, and envy-inducing. I felt I was encountering the work of a genius at the beginning of her career. This is an exciting,
thrilling book and I doubt I'll read a better debut this year. Thank you NetGalley for providing a look at this novel.

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Wow! The writing in Luster is spectacular. Edie is an artist and a young black woman, adrift in life. She's dysfunctional, lonely, and self-destructive, On the other hand, she's sharp, laugh-out loud funny, unique,, and brilliantly observant. She's having an affair with Eric, a married man gets fired from her job for sexually inappropriate behavior in the office. She winds up at Eric's home in NJ, meeting his wife and his daughter., a transracial adoptee. Edie becomes an integral part of their life, a confident of Eric's wife and a mentor for his daughter. This book is so sad, but so funny; it says so much about youth, race, and our society. Raven Leilani is a great new talent.

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FABULOUS engrossing story of a young black woman in her 20s in NYC, trying make a career for herself in the art dept. of book publishing while remaining inspired to do her own art. She meets and begins an affair with a man twice her age, married and in an open relationship with his wife. Shortly after the beginning of their affair, he brings her to his home in NJ and she and his wife become amicable. Simultaneously she loses her job and apartment in NYC (due to some dubious sexual choices she made at work) and the wife invites her to stay at her lover's NJ suburban home while he is away on a business trip.

Much of the novel takes place during these few days, when the young woman meets the couple's adopted daughter, who is black, and the lover, the wife, and the daughter form a triuvirate that seems to work, in their total confusion and sadness. Once the husband returns from his trip, living together becomes tense and the novel ends with a lot of questions.

The protagonist is wise and thoughtful, articulate about covert racism and trying to both mentor the daughter as well as keep her distance, for her own sake and the sake of her lover and his wife. A real psychological drama and extremely well researched and executed.

I look forward to Ms. Leilani's future work. Incredible debut.

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An amazing debut novel.A book full of characters searching for happiness life.Situations they find themselves drew me in kept me racing through the pages.Highly recommend this novel and this author is one Inwill be recommending and following.#netgalley #fsg

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I had a hard time getting through this one. I've seen it on many anticipated debut lists and knew I had the ARC waiting for months now, but it just couldn't captivate me. I finally settled down and was pleasantly surprised with the first 20% or so. It's full of dry humor and while it seemed like overkill at times, I also found it highly clever and was looking forward to finishing the book. Unfortunately, it kind of lost me beyond that. I'm unsure what this book is trying to be. There are promising sections; like Edie's relationship with Akila, but for the most part, it was unclear who the protagonist was, or really what the point even was. She's highly self-destructive and rather than feel authentic, it almost felt like it was performative in a way (let's see how many bad decisions one woman can make). The ending confused me, but then again, so did a good amount of the book.

I know I'm in the minority in my feelings, but I guess this just wasn't the book for me.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

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Luster by @ravenleilani is one of my most favorite discoveries and reads this year. This book was a self-care session I’ve been in desperate need of. I love when I find characters that parallel with my own personal struggles. The prose, beauty, and raw transparency showcased through Edie’s struggle while “stumbling through her 20’s” with finding herself as an artist, lover, and friend (to Akila) is a mix of dark humor, tumultuous decisions, and sexually charged dialogue.

L O V E D:
AKILA! She is a 13 year old black girl fostered by two white parents that can’t seem to get it right. Under odd circumstances, Edie becomes the anchor for the struggles Akila faces being a dark skinned girl among a neighborhood and school system that’s white washed. She guides Akila through her hair journey. Akila’s failed relaxer scenario brought back so many memories of a younger me sitting through 2+ hours of my scalp on fire to only end with 20% of my edges gone because my mom lost track of time.

Edie’s experience with men and dating is such an accurate depiction of how hard it is to be unhappy internally while also seeking an intimate connection.

Edie’s strength as a black woman with no family, friends, or much money is hard yet satisfying to read because you are rooting for her amongst all her internal suffering.

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Reading Luster made me want to see more novels by Black women and women of color from within the publishing industry. Leilani's characterization of publishing life was spot on. I was utterly captivated by the writing and the character development and read this book in two sittings. I did feel that the second half of the book wasn't as strong as the first, but I would still recommend it.

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Thanks Netgalley and the author for a free eARC in exchange for an honest review.

I will be honest with you, I had a hard time reading this and trying to understand main character's motives. While this debut novel is exceptionally written and has an engaging narration I found very difficult to relate to the characters. I would describe this book as coming of age story told from a perspective of twenty something black woman. Written in a way that feels like main character is telling us her life story mixed with all her present humiliations, bad choices and her shocking past. Eddie is trying to find herself as a woman and as an artist but all the choices she makes end in some sort of a disaster. She wants to love and to be loved so bad she ends up in relationship with an older white man who is in an open marriage. She is not overly happy with the arrangement but she can't stay away from him.

No matter my dislike to the story line I was mesmerised by an exceptional Raven Leilani's writing style and she definitely is an author to watch out for in the future.

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Absolutely LOVED this book. May be my favorite of the summer so far. Can’t believe its’s a first novel. Funny, sweet, sad. Fantastic!

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I love finding a new voice when I’m reading and Raven Leilani’s narrative in her new novel, Luster, is fresh and darkly funny.

Edie is a 23 year old black woman who is lost and lonely. She makes horrible life decisions and while she recognizes it, she can’t seem to stop. She’s sexually promiscuous, and when she meets middle aged Eric, a married white man, she is fine with being part of his open marriage. Eric’s wife, Rebecca, has given a lots of restrictions for the third party in the marriage, and as time moves forward, the list of restrictions grows, but so does the trio’s involvement with one another.
Y’all, this book is crazy! I laughed and I cringed. It’s weird, but the writing is so incredible. I loved how raw and forthright it is. I wouldn’t give this to my mom, but I can’t wait to see what else Raven Leilani writes. •

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

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This debut novel is a well-paced character study of a 20-something woman in a dead end publishing job who finds herself at the center of an open marriage. Edie makes questionable choices, her latest a connection with Eric, a married man she met online. With Eric, she tests the limits of her own dysfunctional relationships to violence and emotional abuse. After losing her job and apartment, Eric's wife, Rebecca, invites her to live in their New Jersey home, hoping to both anger her husband and also to bring Edie's influence as a black woman to the couple's adopted daughter, Akila.

Edie is an unforgettable character in a strange and damaging situation. The book follows her throughout this, the latest in a series of tragic, bizarre, and darkly funny situations Edie has experienced in her life. Leilani has written an engaging and unique story with pitch perfect prose.

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Edie is stumbling her way through her twenties—sharing a subpar apartment in Bushwick, clocking in and out of her admin job, making a series of inappropriate sexual choices. She's also, secretly, haltingly figuring her way into life as an artist. And then she meets Eric, a digital archivist with a family in New Jersey, including an autopsist wife who has agreed to an open marriage—with rules. As if navigating the constantly shifting landscapes of contemporary sexual manners and racial politics weren't hard enough, Edie finds herself unemployed and falling into Eric's family life, his home. She becomes hesitant friend to his wife and a de facto role model to his adopted daughter. Edie is the only black woman young Akila may know.

Razor sharp, darkly comic, sexually charged, socially disruptive, Luster is a portrait of a young woman trying to make her sense of her life in a tumultuous era. It is also a haunting, aching description of how hard it is to believe in your own talent and the unexpected influences that bring us into ourselves along the way- Goodreads

I didn't particularly like this book but there were things in this book that I liked, which caused me to finish it to the end.

Firstly, I loved the writing style. It was inviting, detailed and honest. The words seem to flow extremely well from Edie. They were not forced in the least. I loved the writing in this novel.

I also liked but also disliked Edie. I was able to relate to her wanting to be invisible but she quickly lost me when it was clear that she really didn't really care about herself and to be invisible. She wanted to be left alone for the most part but did things that made her extremely visible. This confused her . . a lot. My problem with Edie is because she really didn't take the time to get to know herself, she just does anything and allows anything. She doesn't defend herself and by the end of the book, I can't really say that she has done any growth. It was frustrating because I wanted her to grow.

Beyond Edie, there were a lot of topics touched upon in this book. Being Black in the publishing company, being a Black artist, living in NYC, white families adopting Black children, police brutality, family and love. This book is only eight chapters but it is heavy and some of those topics were relatable to me.

At the end of the day, what Edie needs is a therapist and some honest friends.

Overall,

2.5 Pickles

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I don’t know where to begin to even describe this book. It was like nothing else I’ve ever read, in the very best way. I’ve never had such a visceral, aching reaction to a protagonist as I did to Edie the lonely, broken, uninhibited main character who is going through a major transformative period in her life while getting involved with a fractured suburban white couple. Raven Leilani’s writing here was a fucking masterclass. There were brutal observations and moments of pathos that took my breath away and had me stopping to stare into space while I tried to recover.
The experience of reading Luster wasn’t pleasant, but had me feeling intoxicated, desperate and envious of the author’s talent and deep understanding of human nature. I’m still processing this experience. I’m not quite sure what I just read. But I know that I truly, truly loved it.
Thanks to the publishers @fsgbooks for the review copy. This image is from the publisher as I read a e-galley.

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WOW! I absolutely loved this one and devoured it in two sittings. When Edie finds herself homeless and unemployed, she moves into her married lovers home who becomes a confidant for his young, adopted daughter. It was well written, fascinating and engrossing. So happy to have read this one - I think it is one of my favourite reads of 2020.

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thank you to netgalley for the arc!

i came in expecting to love this and ended up loving it even more. i have greatly enjoyed the trend of the unknowable millennial female protagonist who resists easy likeability, and i think this is my favourite version. i tried at times to reach for a comparison—‘my year of rest and relaxation’, ‘the new me’, the sort of wry, biting knowingness of ‘writers & lovers’—but in the end this was entirely & wonderfully itself.

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This book is being described as "cathartic, cerebral" - but it didn't resonate with me that way.
What I liked: How Edie was a young, self-destructive woman. In ways this reminded me a lot of Such a Fun Age. Her actions are misplaced, and she struggles to move forward after her life goes haywire. Can't we all relate?
What I didn't like: It was a really slow start for me. I almost gave up. I think because I was getting used to the writer's style, and it was very wordy and many times strayed to a back story that wasn't necessary.

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