Reviews with content warning for Suicide - Luster

If you have ever been in your twenties, you probably have known someone like Edie. This person is intelligent and talented, but for some reasons (often related to past traumas) they somehow always manage to self-sabotage or run out of luck. It can be frustrating and awful when it happens in real life, but they'll always have a hell of a story, and our thankfully fictional Edie certainly delivers.

Leilani manages to trace the intricacies of her characters and their interactions with each other-- which is great, because not much else happens in the book. (If you're not really into character driven books, you probably won't like this one.) Edie, Rebecca, Eric, and Akila all feel fully fleshed out, with their occasionally hostile, occasionally tender interactions providing the meat of the story. Even small-seeming interactions tell you something about the characters and their relationships to one another.

"She has terrible handwriting, doesn't she?" he says... He smiles, this small cruelty hanging in the air between us. And though I can tell he feels a little bad about having said it, he seems relieved when I join in. (32)

Although Edie is introduced to the Walkers through Eric, her interactions with his wife Rebecca and their adopted daughter Akila are my favorite parts of the book. Rebecca and Edie share a tense relationship that eventually warms to reluctant camaraderie, and Edie does her best to help try to guide Akila through the rockiness of adolescence made worse by her isolation as a Black girl in a white suburb. Any one of these characters could have been one note-- Eric as a midlife crisis schmuck, Rebecca as a jealous wife, Akila as a precocious child who merely serves to provide wisdom to the adults, Edie as a "misunderstood," traumatized artist. Yet Leilani serves to make them awkward and flawed, but overall well-intentioned.

Edie will likely be polarizing to readers, who might be frustrated watching her make questionable decisions and suffer the consequences

(ex. get fired from her office job for impulsively hooking up with a long list of coworkers)

or be turned off by her cynical and kind of out of pocket behavior. I personally loved her narration and thought that she felt raw and very real. She's certainly been through her share of traumas and is scraping by on the economic margins in a very expensive city, and this background makes her choices seem more realistic. As a narrator, she's sharply observant, raw, and often pretty funny.

Like most white people who eat beans in the woods undeterred by the fresh fecal evidence of hungry bears, Eric finds his mortality and soft meaty body a petty, incidental thing. I, on the other hand, am acutely aware of all the ways I might die. (11)

I also loved Leilani's writing style, which is poetic and really evocative of both sensory details and interior emotions. However, I can understand why a decent number of other reviewers didn't like it-- if you like a more subdued writing style it will probably strike you as overwrought. At times, the writing style did bother me, generally just during the occasional flow-of-consciousness run on sentence. For me, though, it hits more than it misses.

In the city, there is a smell. Hell's Kitchen, a rotting, fungal fruit. Midtown, smelling of mildew and old pecorino. I forgot that this is what happens in New York when it rains... (200)

Besides complex characters and well-crafted writing, Leilani provides insightful commentary on race, sex, love, and artistry. Why young women "[make] gods out of feeble men." How intergenerational trauma and racialized poverty affect families and continue vicious cycles. Why people make self-destructive decisions when it comes to sex and relationships. The story addresses these issues and weaves them seamlessly into the narrative, with Edie connecting her own story to that of generations of everyday triumphs and tragedies and her relationships with Rebecca, Eric, and Akila fleshing out these themes.

Overall, very enjoyable writing, humor, and commentary, though definitely might be a bit polarizing depending on your taste in problematic narrators and purple prose.

Content Warnings

maddiechristine15's review against another edition

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dark emotional reflective medium-paced

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

4.5

Content Warnings

norcalchris's review against another edition

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dark funny 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

4.75

Some of the most impressive and daring writing I’ve ever experienced. Darkly funny at times, vaguely sinister, and shines an unflattering light on the rotten ugly within and around us.

Will be an obvious reread in the future and a study piece on writing style and voice.

I’m not giving it quite 5 stars because I had no problem putting it down halfway through and reading a full other book before I picked it back up and at times the long streams of consciousness became exhausting. Regardless, will be one of the best books I read this year and glad I bought a physical copy.

Content Warnings

lashanda's review against another edition

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dark tense medium-paced

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

3.5

I have mixed feelings about Luster. I think at times, the writing style took away from what was just a really interesting plot. Leilani is a great writer, but sometimes metaphors and descriptions would be drawn out for too long. I found myself skimming some lengthy descriptions about halfway through because it was clear they were not leading to anything.

As well, the way the characters acted and reacted in situations was borderline psychotic, to the point where you wonder if the entire book is just a fever dream. The book is weird and I like weird, I'll give it that, but its strangeness is also its weakness.

Content Warnings