Luster in Play Book Tag

Dec 28, 2020 Jen K rated it really liked it

Edie had a tough childhood with a mostly absent father and a troubled mother who found religion in upstate NY but still too late to save her. Now Edie is 23 and living precarious life in a moldy cockroach infested shared apartment in Bushwick, eating ramen and dating for meals. Her life is ruled by lust both in the office and online through sites and apps. Eventually it catches up to her leading to the strange circumstance of her moving in with her current kind of lover, his wife and adopted dau ...more

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Aug 23, 2020 Kristina rated it liked it

Shelves: fiction, female-friendship, female-protagonist, nyc-backdrop, gen-z-protagonist, marital-triangle

Edie, the 23-year-old Black female protagonist and narrator of 'Luster' reminds me that no matter what the decade is, it often sucks to be in the tangle of one's twenties. The first few chapters had me cringing that we were getting a Black feminist take on 'Bright Lights, Big City' a novel I loved when I read it my 20s, but seems a tad trope-y now.

Nope, 'Luster' surprised me. Edie is indeed a mess as characters in these types of novels are. She's sexually engaged with too many of her co-workers ...more

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Nov 15, 2021 Meli rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: own-voices, rogue-bookclub, audio

Beautiful writing but very unpleasant content. It takes some time to understand why the protagonist makes the choices she does (self-loathing caused by much trauma) but it doesn't make her any more relatable. A lot of the content is uncomfortable... physical abuse, self-harm via sexual promiscuity and self-sabotage. I was looking forward to it being over. This would have been a lower rating if the writing wasn't so good. Lailani has a poetic style I would like to revisit. ...more

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Jul 05, 2024 Heather Reads Books rated it liked it

Shelves: fiction

A beautifully written but ultimately lackluster (pun intended) look at a young woman's life and mistakes.

Edie is 23, black, and deeply below the poverty line despite working full time for a publisher in New York City. Then she starts dating an older white man, Eric, who is in an "open" marriage. Eric seems to be keeping a lot from her. When Edie loses her job, Eric's wife, Rebecca, who already doesn't like Edie takes Edie in so that she can essentially help around the house and with their adopt A beautifully written but ultimately lackluster (pun intended) look at a young woman's life and mistakes.

Edie is 23, black, and deeply below the poverty line despite working full time for a publisher in New York City. Then she starts dating an older white man, Eric, who is in an "open" marriage. Eric seems to be keeping a lot from her. When Edie loses her job, Eric's wife, Rebecca, who already doesn't like Edie takes Edie in so that she can essentially help around the house and with their adopted teenage daughter, Akila, who is also black. Things go about as poorly as you'd expect.

The prose in this book is utterly stunning. Raven Leilani can sure paint a picture with words, and tug on your heart strings with just one sentence or two. Unfortunately, I kind of wished the story was as compelling as the writing. It sure played into my skepticism about open marriages, but I'm not sure how much Edie had grown by the end of the story. She is deeply traumatized, burying her feelings in casual sex and self-destructive behavior. I thought the tone sometimes slipped into melodrama as we got relentless torture porn of Edie's poverty. And then yeah, her relationship with Eric nor Rebecca is healthy in any way. The only true bond she seemed to have was with Akila, who was, in my opinion, the only likable character. There was a surprising amount of nerd culture in this book, written with the authority of someone who has lived it – it made me want this book to be more about how minority groups navigate fandom spaces, which have been dominated by whiteness. This seems to be what the book wants to be about deep down, but maybe the author feared it wasn't a "serious" enough topic? I don't know.

All in all, Luster is a gorgeously written meditation on race, power, poverty and being young in late 2010s New York City, but there wasn't all that much that stood out to me. I know this was a debut, so I hope Raven Leilani writes more. I think she'd be an absolute powerhouse if she found her footing. ...more

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Aug 04, 2021 Charlie Ravioli rated it liked it

Not a traditional read for me but good.

Leilani is a unique, fresh voice. Really incomparable to anything else I’ve read before (with maybe the exception of “As I Lay Dying”). Much of the book feels like the main character’s stream of consciousness and boy is it quite a stream at times.

I liked the main character a lot but didn’t much care for the others, except for the daughter.

An interesting, innovative read. I am curious to see both the topic and the approach to Leilani’s sophomore attempt a ...more

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