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lindseyhall44's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Luster chronicles the life of Evie in a scathingly raw first person narrative, as she moves in with a white married man, his white wife, and their black child. Edie is black herself, and is meant to serve as a guiding source for their daughter, yet becomes entrapped in a confusing web of racial politics.
I resonated so much with Edie’s insights and findings, and she delivers them in way which seems to break the forth wall itself. She is imperfect, but so is the world we live in, and I loved following Edie’s journey.
Graphic: Racism, Death, Infidelity, Physical abuse, Sexual content, Abortion, Body horror, Violence, and Death of parent
joanacanada's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.75
Graphic: Racism and Abortion
Moderate: Sexual content and Suicide
alessaaa38's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
The lengthy run on sentences catered to the main character's delusion (not the right word) and really helped it build her.
Moderate: Gun violence, Sexual violence, Abortion, and Sexual content
Minor: Suicide
bookmark_ishara's review
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
Tense
No real plot mostly vibes
Intensions we’re unclear and people motivation shifting - true of life
A black woman finding herself through other people, which has its strengths and weaknesses
Graphic: Miscarriage, Violence, Police brutality, and Sexual content
novella42's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
I just need to say... Please don't take this book's depiction of non-monogamy as representative of how to do an ethically open marriage. Holy hell. I feel at a loss to list all the ways Edie and Eric and Rebecca torture each other needlessly. It's a fascinating train wreck to watch, and I found myself looking at my own polycule with renewed gratitude and affection. Leilani doesn't let any of the characters off the hook, and if a lot of their behaviors seem inexplicable to you, well, you won't be alone.
As to the book itself, I appreciated the lyrical, almost psychadelic writing. (If you don't like pose poetry or stream-of-consciousness writing, maybe pass on this one.) Leilani revels in dark Millennial existential dread that kept shocking laughter out of me. She's fantastic at descriptive phrases that catch you off-guard with their originality. I marveled at some of them, their poetic pacing and expansive assumptions, so much I started collecting a list:
"I am suspended in a lurid hypnagogic loop."
"It is impossible to see another black woman on her way up, impossible to see that meticulous, polyglottal origami and not, as a black woman yourself, fall a little bit in love."
"A sudden and swiftly contained conniption."
"Hooked into peripheral intuition."
"The city's breakneck, multilingual carousel."
"Some inconceivable boss-level of concentrated loneliness."
"The bike lanes in Manhattan already terrifying at 11:00 a.m., filled with delivery boys and girls who jet into traffic with fried rice and no reason to live, along with the sentient abdominals who do this for fun."
"The lawn buzzed and alkaline, the vinegar in the wine and carnage in the dew, everywhere the perfume of things that want to live."
I can't imagine what it's like to narrate this as an audiobook, because the rhythm of the words is beautiful and also relentless. Leilani is skilled at pulling you deep into the bewildering internal labyrinth of mental illness and immersive, uncomfortable experiences.
If you carry any traumas, I recommend browsing the full list of content tags. I almost couldn't make it through the scenes with gore and body horror, though Edie's dissociative skills and the eye of an artist made it slightly more bearable. I'm glad I got it in hardcopy instead of audio, so I could skim over difficult dark passages. There were lots of those. I'm not sure why I kept reading, except that I was fascinated. It was hard to look away.
One last thing, a recommendation for anyone who likes disco. I genuinely think one reason I enjoyed this book as much as I did was that in the first 15 pages, Edie references her connection to Idris Muhammad's 1977 song "Could Heaven Ever Be Like This." On a whim, I made a Spotify station out of it and I have to say, it complimented the book and let me surrender to the undertow.
Beautiful writing about broken people living a surreal, twisted story.
Graphic: Medical trauma, Physical abuse, Sexual content, Dysphoria, Gore, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Abortion, Addiction, Animal death, Alcohol, Alcoholism, Death, Infidelity, Injury/Injury detail, Racism, Cursing, Death of parent, Drug use, Chronic illness, Eating disorder, Emotional abuse, Blood, Body horror, Body shaming, Medical content, Miscarriage, Police brutality, Violence, Racial slurs, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Suicidal thoughts, and Toxic relationship
Moderate: Car accident, Gun violence, and Vomit
Minor: Rape, Cancer, Abandonment, Excrement, and Stalking
archiveofrasa's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Graphic: Sexual content and Miscarriage
Moderate: Police brutality, Racial slurs, Racism, and Abortion
yammmw's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Graphic: Infidelity, Sexual content, and Racism
dee_hzz's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
Graphic: Alcoholism, Medical content, Abortion, Alcohol, Police brutality, Racism, Sexual content, Addiction, Miscarriage, and Violence
helenkadetroika's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.75
Graphic: Sexual content, Violence, Abortion, and Sexual violence
Minor: Suicide
caughtbetweenpages's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.75
Edie's struggle to discover herself and "come of age" without yet understanding what her identity is or what she wants it to be feels inevitable given the culmination of factors surrounding her life. Her attempts to find herself in men, in her art, in jobs she's told she's too Black or too promiscuous or not XYZ enough to be part of, are heartbreaking. She is so, desperately lonely. And then, her internal musings about the absurdity of applying to a million dead end jobs to make rent, or about how older men are not necessarily deep so much as they've just lived more life, pull a painful laugh out of you even if you don't want to be amused. If a reader in your life says they they like stories about messy, damaged female leads, put Luster in their hands.
My favorite relationships of this book are between Edie and Rebecca and Edie and Akila. There's a complex dynamic with Rebecca where, while Edie might seem to have some power over Rebecca being the woman that R's husband is having an affair with, Rebecca is by far the one holding Edie's life in her hands. The scene where
And then there's Akila and Edie. In many ways, Akila is who Edie must have been like as a kid--incredibly nerdy, passionate, artistic--and in other ways, she's who Edie is now--lost, a stranger in her own home. Lonely. Black in a context that is deeply unfriendly to Blackness. It was so touching to see Edie nurture Akila, not only protecting her from the racism of the police and her tutor and helping her take care of her natural hair in a way that Akila's (White, Adoptive) parents don't know how to, but in encouraging her art and storytelling and engaging with her on her interests. I think they very much needed each other, and it made it all the worse when
This was a difficult book to read, emotionally speaking. But so well worth it.
Graphic: Sexual content, Toxic relationship, Police brutality, Racism, and Infidelity
Moderate: Sexual violence
Minor: Addiction and Drug abuse