Reviews tagging 'Physical abuse'

Luster by Raven Leilani

82 reviews

ulmaridae's review

"God is not for women, he is for the Fruit. He makes you want and he makes you wicked, and while you sleep he plants a seed in your womb that will be born just to die."

"All the raw materials that are gathered and processed into shadow and light, the pigment drawn from sand and canterbury bells, the carbon black drawn from fire and spread onto slick cave walls. A way is always made to document how we manage to survive. Or in some cases, how we don't. So I've tried to reproduce an inscrutable thing: I've made my own hunger into a practice. Made everyone who passes through my life subject to a close and inappropriate reading that occasionally finds its way, often insufficiently, into paint. And when I am alone with myself, this is what I am waiting for someone to do to me. With merciless, deliberate hands, to put me down onto the canvas so that when I'm gone, there will be a record. Proof that I was here."

Though the subject matter of this book was sad and often uncomfortable, the writing was absolutely breathtaking and almost trance-like. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Miscarriage, Racism, Police brutality, Physical abuse, Toxic relationship, and Death of parent

Moderate: Alcoholism, Chronic illness, Abortion, Drug use, Grief, and Animal death

somelibrarychick's review against another edition

dark reflective sad medium-paced

• 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? It's complicated

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Racial slurs

Moderate: Abortion, Cancer, Toxic relationship, Suicidal thoughts, Self harm, Death of parent, Drug use, Eating disorder, Sexual harassment, Pregnancy, Police brutality, Miscarriage, and Racism

Minor: Suicide and Physical abuse

mekaylynn's review

challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Miscarriage, Racism, Racial slurs, Pregnancy, Physical abuse, Mental illness, Infidelity, Animal cruelty, and Animal death

Moderate: Alcohol, Blood, Injury/Injury detail, Vomit, Violence, Drug use, and Panic attacks/disorders

Minor: Infertility, Eating disorder, Suicide, Infidelity, Cursing, Slavery, Sexual assault, Sexual harassment, and Sexual violence

oneinamili's review

dark funny reflective medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Abortion and Addiction

Moderate: Physical abuse and Emotional abuse

Minor: Death of parent, Eating disorder, Violence, and Suicide

piglets1995's review

dark emotional sad fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Abortion and Infidelity

Moderate: Miscarriage and Physical abuse

Minor: Police brutality

readingotaku's review

Honestly this book was boring and the main character Edie is so unlikabke. Also why is every other page these awkward, clunky, super explicit sex scenes. Read the synopsis and it honestly didn’t sound like it really went anywhere. I got a third of the book out of the way, and it still felt like I was on the first page. It just was much too slow for my reading tastes.

I also hated how Edie slept with everyone in her office, went on porn sites on her work computer, and generally was just a sex addict insecure childish lady instead of making this a story about her challenged relationship and her learning why she didn’t need a man. Also found it strange to highlight blacks white literally every page. Now I’m very pro Black but the way it was done in this book was so mediocre and cringey.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexism, Physical abuse, Infidelity, and Infertility

rustyreads's review

challenging dark emotional reflective sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

I was expecting a steamy romance with a little bit of family drama thrown in, but what I got was one of the most important books I've read in my life. It feels like Raven Leilani wrote this book for me. 

Luster is about the profound loneliness of being a young black woman and how other people can often make us feel even more alone. 

Please check out the trigger warnings before picking this up! There was a lot that I was not expecting. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Physical abuse and Toxic relationship

Moderate: Addiction, Death of parent, Physical abuse, Medical content, and Suicide

thevioletfoxbookshop's review

challenging dark emotional hopeful inspiring reflective sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

 Somewhere between poetry, an essay, a biography, contemporary, and erotic fiction, you'll find Luster by Raven Leilani.

On the surface, Luster is about a young black woman struggling as an artist in New York who ends up entering into the open marriage of a privileged white couple. But even more than that, it's a raw glimpse of one woman's life, struggles, her art, her sexual desires, career ambitions, passions, fears, thoughts, and feelings. 

The main character is so honest, it's both terrifying and beautiful all at once. Luster is her confessional, where she readily shares things that most of us would be hesitant to admit to even ourselves. She is often contradictory in the way humans often are - lonely yet introverted, starving yet can't or won't eat, ambitious but struggles to find motivation, loves herself but is insecure, hates but desires men. Sometimes it's funny and sometimes it's painful to watch her try to navigate the contradictions within herself and in the world around her. 

More than anything, I think Luster is about loneliness. The loneliness of what it's like to be a black woman in the United States, of being an artist, of being a parent, of being a child without their parent, of dealing with generational trauma, and of our modern world. Edie, like all of us, wants to be seen and understood, but the way that she, and we, connect with others are often unusual and unexpected.

This book was more feelings and vibes than plot, for me. It's like if you could vomit up all of your emotions that feel inexplicable and they settled into words on a page, but in the most beautiful and poetic way. 

Content warnings include physical abuse, sexual content, racism, sexism, self-harm, suicide, miscarriage, abortion, drug addiction, police brutality. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual content, Racism, Self harm, Suicide, Miscarriage, Abortion, and Police brutality

Moderate: Physical abuse, Sexism, and Drug use

thesawyerbean's review against another edition

challenging dark tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.75

The last third of this book saved it from getting a lower rating. While I can appreciate the poetry and extended metaphors in Leilani’s writing, I can’t help but feeling it comes across as rather constipated and convoluted in parts. I quite often found myself completely lost and having to reread to regather the thread of the prose.

The actual premise was intriguing - the commencing few chapters were not particularly enthralling, but the pace did pick up later on in the novel. The portrayal of nihilistic self-destructive sex was raw and ugly, knitted together in a web of nuanced discussions on race, sexuality, feminism and capitalism which I found very interesting and affecting. These are the parts that dragged this book up in its rating.

However, I overall found this to be quite a slog to get through. I powered through the final half in one sitting, and the concluding chapters were immaculately done. But in the end I wasn’t particularly enthralled or interested in Edie as a character.

I stand by my appreciation for Leilani’s prose, and I finish my review with this quote that I found powerful:

I am inclined to pray, but on principle, I don’t. God is not for women. He is for the fruit. He makes you want and he makes you wicked, and while you sleep, he plants a seed in your womb that will be born just to die.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcohol, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Gaslighting, Gore, Infidelity, Racism, Sexism, Body shaming, Eating disorder, Miscarriage, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Blood, Fatphobia, Grief, Abortion, Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, Sexual content, Sexual harassment, Suicidal thoughts, Toxic relationship, Panic attacks/disorders, Police brutality, Alcoholism, Animal death, Body horror, Cursing, Death, Death of parent, Domestic abuse, Medical trauma, Pregnancy, Racial slurs, Vomit, and Addiction

randisworld's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

This is a raw exploration of a young Black woman who is reeling from the trauma of her childhood. She gets involved with a married man and everything she believes becomes from as she navigates a parasitic relationship with this couple. It’s shocking and upsetting at times but it says so many important things about trauma, race, and what it is like to live in a world that doesn’t value who you are...and also what it’s like when you don’t value yourself either. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual content and Physical abuse

Moderate: Death, Miscarriage, Blood, and Drug use

Lots of content warnings and not for survivors that may need to protect their peace. It’s a tough read.