An electric debut...this book has some of the best sentence-by-sentence writing I've come across in contemporary fiction in the last few years. I think the book dragged a little bit in the middle, but still highly recommended, and looking forward to whatever Raven Leilani comes out with next.

Edie was definitely an interesting and intriguing character and I have never read another character like her.. She lives day by day on pure survival until she meets Eric and gets drawn into his world. Eric has a wife that works in a morgue and they have adopted a young black daughter. Edie and Eric meet online and begin meeting up for
sexual conquests originally. After losing her apartment, Edie becomes a part of the family and moves into the family home. The wife knows about the whole thing and they develop a friendship of sorts. This was definitely an eye opening and unique read. Thanks for the ARC, Net Galley.

Edith is a 22 year old African American woman; ,she is an aspiring artist, who works in publishing. Edie meets Eric, a middle aged white man who is in an open marriage. Edie ends up meeting his wife Rebecca, and moving in with them as a mentor for their adopted black daughter. There are many emotional twists and turns through the book. It is poignant and heartbreaking. The topic of racism, white privilege and treatment of African Americans by the police are addressed.

I liked: Edie, the story, and the writing after I got used to it.

This book was uncomfortable to read but it's important to read books that are uncomfortable.

Thank you to NetGalley for the free ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Edith, the character of this wonderful book, is an artist in search of herself and a way of expressing her feelings. So far, her only notable work has been the portrait of her dead mother, not a painting people would like to see, so it's hidden somewhere inside a closet and forgotten. It resurfaces, as well as her need to paint, after she loses almost everything. And this is where art imitates life or the other way around, because, in order to reconstruct your life, you need to deconstruct it first. Edith's inability to paint a self portrait, no matter how many times she trashes or cleans or changes the background, is reflected in her struggle to see herself through her own eyes. At the beginning of the book she lets men use her body, she tolerates a lot of physical pain, she has no self-esteem. Everything changes when she intrudes into Rebecca and Akila's lives and accepts (or is forced) to live with them. As she starts to compare herself to them, to add a new perspective, her portrait becomes more detailed, the brushstrokes more vigorous. At the end, when she is on her own again, she has clearer goals, a path to follow.

I made it about 25% through this book but it just wasn't for me. I like the characters with and without flaws. Unfortunately the book itself just wasn't for me. I would be interested in following this author for other books in the future.
Thanks for the early review.
#Luster #Netgalley #FarrarStrausandGiroux

“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!

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.

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.

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."

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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!

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. •
•
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

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.