Reviews with content warning for Sexual violence - Luster

Reviews tagging 'Sexual violence'

shereadsshenoms's review

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dark funny medium-paced

Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

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bookish_sabrina's review against another edition

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dark emotional funny reflective medium-paced

Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Luster is another installment in the genre of millennial women struggling through their twenties. These novels often feature characters who are messy, making a series of extremely bad, potentially harmful, decisions. While this is true for Luster, it goes deeper. Often these novels feature self-loathing protagonists, but neglect to go beyond the recognition of flaws into something more introspective, or even transformative. In this novel, get to see Edie grapple and reflect, going beyond the acknowledgement and into some semblance of change, even if there are detours along the way. I also really liked how this novel confronts ideas of casual racism and privilege, which has been largely absent in the comparable titles I've read.

I find it interesting that this novel is written in first-person present tense. It gives the prose a lot of momentum, particularly in Leilani's long sentences. They start off innocuous and then suddenly slam you into bitter truths about Edie's past, as well as observations and critiques on society, with a particular focus on racism and misogyny. This novel is propulsive. It is a quick read despite how uncomfortable and upsetting some of the subject matter and scenes are. The present perspective also gives us great insight into Edie, and how she is unable to see herself in the future and is unwilling to dwell too much on her past.

There's no question that Leilani is an excellent writer. I found her characters to be well-rounded. It is funny and insightful. However, I don't think it is perfect. Sometimes, debut novels burst at their seams a bit; it feels like the author is trying to put too many ideas into one book. I think this is the case with Luster. I also found that some of her struggles felt a little too on the nose. I'm specifically thinking about Edie's interview at the clown college and her inability to properly paint a satisfactory self-portrait.

I'm glad I finally read this hyped novel. I didn't love it as much as some, but I also acknowledge that this book wasn't written for me, and I'm glad that others are loving it so much.

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