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A review by poppysreads
Luster by Raven Leilani
3.0
Thank you to @netgalley and the publishers for the free copy of the Luster audiobook to listen to in exchange for an honest review!
Luster is an interesting novel about a young woman in her 20s called Edie, who meets an older man online called Eric and begins a relationship with him. The book follows Edie as she ends up losing her job, and eventually finds herself living in Eric’s house with his wife Rebecca and adopted daughter Akila. The rest of the story focuses on Edie’s relationship with Rebecca, but also on the developing bond between Akila and Edie. Edie is the only Black woman Akila knows, and becomes somewhat of a role model and guide for her.
I was really intrigued by this book - I’d read rave reviews about it but also negative ones, and as it was also longlisted for the Women’s Prize I was very keen to read it. Overall, I’d say it is a good book and was definitely worth the read. It had some interesting characters and dealt with some relatable themes (of being a millennial in your 20s, lost and lonely and not sure of your place in the world). However, I’m not sure I ‘enjoyed’ this book much. The writing style was very cold and detached, and there were just a lot of situations I didn’t find that believable. There were times listening to this when I thought, would the characters really let themselves get into this situation? It just didn’t seem that credible that they would, and this made it difficult to immerse myself in the story.
Also, it was quite confusing and jarring that at the beginning of the book, Edie is hilarious, however once you get to about 50% of the way through she completely loses any humour? The story itself also began in quite an engaging way, and then at around the midway point it became kind of boring and uneventful, and sort of focused on the minutiae of the characters living alongside each other.
Overall I wouldn’t say I loved this but I did quite enjoy the first half. The narrator had quite a cold delivery which I thought paired well with the detached style of the prose. I think I would’ve enjoyed the story more if there had been consistency throughout, and a bit more credibility to the situation and characters.
Luster is an interesting novel about a young woman in her 20s called Edie, who meets an older man online called Eric and begins a relationship with him. The book follows Edie as she ends up losing her job, and eventually finds herself living in Eric’s house with his wife Rebecca and adopted daughter Akila. The rest of the story focuses on Edie’s relationship with Rebecca, but also on the developing bond between Akila and Edie. Edie is the only Black woman Akila knows, and becomes somewhat of a role model and guide for her.
I was really intrigued by this book - I’d read rave reviews about it but also negative ones, and as it was also longlisted for the Women’s Prize I was very keen to read it. Overall, I’d say it is a good book and was definitely worth the read. It had some interesting characters and dealt with some relatable themes (of being a millennial in your 20s, lost and lonely and not sure of your place in the world). However, I’m not sure I ‘enjoyed’ this book much. The writing style was very cold and detached, and there were just a lot of situations I didn’t find that believable. There were times listening to this when I thought, would the characters really let themselves get into this situation? It just didn’t seem that credible that they would, and this made it difficult to immerse myself in the story.
Also, it was quite confusing and jarring that at the beginning of the book, Edie is hilarious, however once you get to about 50% of the way through she completely loses any humour? The story itself also began in quite an engaging way, and then at around the midway point it became kind of boring and uneventful, and sort of focused on the minutiae of the characters living alongside each other.
Overall I wouldn’t say I loved this but I did quite enjoy the first half. The narrator had quite a cold delivery which I thought paired well with the detached style of the prose. I think I would’ve enjoyed the story more if there had been consistency throughout, and a bit more credibility to the situation and characters.