Reviews with content warning for Racial slurs - Luster

Reviews tagging 'Racial slurs'

Luster by Raven Leilani

139 reviews

tanwe's review against another edition

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emotional reflective 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

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lilyblum's review against another edition

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3.0

This book was nothing like how I had imagined it to be. I thought it was going to be spicey, steamy and chaotic, however, it was depressing, messy and tense.
I felt so sorry for Edie and I would not have been able to handle her life circumstances. So in a sense this book was written so well that it made me feel a lot, even if negative emotions. Edie reminded me of that one woman in Cleopatra and Frankenstein and the dreamlike story telling of the one in Hot Milk. Messy, flawed and broken female characters seem to be on my radar lately. I despised Eric and felt ambiguous about Rebecca -as you are supposed to probably- but felt so much gentleness for Akila.
A short and confusing read, not sure if I’d recommend it but definitely look up trigger warnings in advance!!

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risqkae's review against another edition

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dark emotional funny sad tense medium-paced

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

4.5

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. There wasn’t too much to the plot, but you wouldn’t really notice because the author’s writing in the book was beautiful and easy to get through. Being only a year older than Edie at the time of me reading this book and also being an African-American woman, it was refreshing to see someone who looks like me so nicely crafted, even with the traumatic and dark parts to her personality and life. Nuanced representation is still hard to come by. It didn’t feel like any of the heavy topics that were brought up were being forced into the book either, just made it more interesting to read. I’ve read some reviews where they said that the plot of the book in general was unrealistic, but I would have to disagree. You hear out of pocket crazy stories all the time on the news and on social media so a 20 something black woman ending up in her white lover’s house with his equally white wife and adopted black child actually doesn’t seem too far-fetched in this day and age. Each character was distinctly their own person and their interaction with each other also felt very authentic. My only critique would be I wanted to see if Edie had more pockets of true happiness and joy and I don’t think we ever got that for real, it was always for one split second. I feel like everybody has the capacity for those moments even if their life is tragic. Overall, the book felt like one big intrusive thought and I loved that about it.

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charliedon'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
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

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jkreads's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional 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

5.0

It's been a while since I last felt FED by a book, but this one felt like a whole meal. The prose was so lush, it was such a pleasure to consume. I listened to the audiobook and the narration was great.

Raven Leilani has such an exquisite way of describing the mundane - something as ordinary and dare I say, cliche, as a twenty-something living in a crappy roach and mouse infested apartment in New York is recounted in a way that almost adds a layer of magic and whimsy to it.

Don't get me wrong, nothing about it is glamourised, it's bleakly realistic, but the language used is just so divine.

I'm not usually a litfic girlie, I tend to get bored, but I was HOOKED by Luster literally straight away. I anticipated that I would get bored halfway through like I usually do during anything that isn't a fantasy or a romance, but I was pleasantly surprised that Luster kept me hooked from start to finish. Everything about this book felt cliched or inevitable, which it leaned into, but it's really a testament to Leilani's writing that the story was so captivating because in my opinion this is not something that's easy to pull off. I can't wait to read more by this author in the future!

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stellahadz's review against another edition

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dark medium-paced

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

3.5

I wanted to like this book, but I think the writing style and characterization didn't really resonate with me. Most of the characters felt very flat, which may have been a deliberate choice by the author, but it didn't engage me as much as I would have liked. Still, I think Raven Leilani writes well and if she wrote another novel I would definitely give it a chance.

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