Reviews with content warning for Grief - Luster

Reviews tagging 'Grief'

al_davies_jones's review

Go to review page

challenging dark emotional sad tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
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

Content Warnings

taylorsevalia's review against another edition

Go to review page

medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Content Warnings

gummifrog's review

Go to review page

challenging dark emotional inspiring reflective sad tense slow-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

5.0

This was the first book I wanted to annotate in a long time. The prose was so beautiful, I wanted to savor every second of it. This book explores themes of life and death, creation (in both art and life), intimacy and love of all kinds, and an artist's view of the world. I really fell in love with the characters and although the story was more of a thoughtful reverie as the narrator moved through a period of a few months in which she moved in with the family of the man she was seeing. I ended up loving her relationship with the wife most - that strange jealousy and deep understanding, the push and pull of a person who creates and a person who deconstructs. Anyway, I highly recommend it!

Content Warnings

tenderbench's review

Go to review page

adventurous challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
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

4.5

Content Warnings

vrcreads's review

Go to review page

dark emotional 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

4.25

Content Warnings

ulmaridae's review

Go to review page

"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.

Content Warnings

thesawyerbean's review against another edition

Go to review page

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.

Content Warnings