Reviews tagging 'Self harm'

Luster by Raven Leilani

29 reviews

oh_livia's review

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challenging dark emotional funny 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? Yes

4.0

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abmochapman's review

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challenging 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

3.5

If Luster is the portrait of a woman, then it is one with so many conflicting strokes that it is not easy to make out, to see it all together as one whole. At twenty-three, Edie is entirely unsure of herself and what she wants. Her life feels out of control so she just lets it happen to her, seeming to relish the moments when it inches closer to an end. There is no neat plot. She is directionless. It is difficult to read but also difficult to look away. 

As a main character, Edie is dizzying. Her decisions, and the decisions of the people around her, are very frequently erratic and inexplicable. This makes a lot of sense for where she is in her life (that is, stumbling around) but it feels kind of strange for the older couple in whose relationship she has become entangled. There’s also so much fruitless internal monologue. The author’s generous use of metaphors and run-on-sentences is sometimes striking and poetic but oftentimes pretentious and incomprehensible. 

At the end of the book, I feel like the narrative has barely moved forward. Maybe that’s just the reality of such a situation. This is a the story of a young woman struggling to get anywhere. The moments Edie shares with the wife, Rebecca, and the daughter, Akila, feel the most meaningful but I almost feel like they are still not fully developed. With such a slow build-up to an abrupt end, I am left wanting much more.



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heather_harrison's review against another edition

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emotional reflective medium-paced
  • 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

3.75

Would recommend for fans of Sally Rooney. Coming of age story that explores gender, relationships, race, identity and mental health. The characters may not be likeable but they’re compelling and complex. 
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megmahoney1's review against another edition

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dark mysterious medium-paced
  • 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

4.0

The writing in this book is stunning and immersive . This was a fascinating exploration of identity, race, sexuality, family and artistry. Raven Leilani weaves life between the pages of this book and I feel like I’m truly reading to our protagonists thoughts. 
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elara_h's review against another edition

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challenging reflective sad tense slow-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

3.0

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madelinedalton's review

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challenging dark emotional reflective 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

2.0

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suchsweetsorrow89's review

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challenging dark funny mysterious sad tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

the only reason why i picked up this book was that my friend constantly raves about it. i can see exactly why she loves it so much. this book, as most reviews probably say, is a weird and strange book. i hate to compare books because I believe that an author's work should be taken as is, but this book highlights and mirrors similar themes that you will find in my year of rest and relaxation and the bell jar. this story follows edie, a black woman in her 20s that is struggling with her relationships to men and her parents, how to live life in general, and how to make money when suddenly caught in between jobs. the main character, through her random and sometimes absurd thoughts and motives, takes us on a journey even though the plot is somewhat generic. i love books where the main plot is a bit generic because it highlights the inherent struggle one faces in their everyday lives when not working or really given any sense of who they are, where they come from, and what they could be (and also what it requires to be that thing/person). while this book is absurd in a way similar to my year of rest and relaxation, what separates the two is clear as day: one is absurd, and one is just strange. being 'strange' means it's realistic and human, just not entirely normal in the way that one would imagine. i think this book has many beautiful lines, and while the language is a bit confusing at times, i also think it symbolizes and emphasizes that edie, while lost in life, is smart. though she cannot see it (and the book is written in a way that we can feel that lost feeling she feels), we intrinsically know that she is smart enough to move through life and move through the world-- she just quite literally has no clue on where to go. personally,
i love that we do not get this 'happy ending'. as someone who loves the odyssey and the Iliad, the themes of wanting memorialization in some way or another-- not necessarily to prove that she was great-- but that for a moment in this big phenomenon called life-- she was at least there. ending on this note of striving and some level of understanding between herself and the world but still not quite figuring it out was an unconditional route in these types of books and hence why i love it so much
. raven breaks from the traditional 'tragically beautiful sad girl' narrative in a way that's beautiful. all this being said, this book is much sadder than those other books so please be aware. i certainly can tell i will be in a slump after this because it is heavier than you'd expect, and so there is a chance that you might too. 
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laurenkimoto's review

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slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

A complex disaster of a women living her complex disaster of a life 
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somelibrarychick's review against another edition

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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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thevioletfoxbookshop's review

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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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