Luster (Leilani) - Book Reviews

Book Reviews
There is nothing on offer like Luster―the story of a Black woman who is neither heroic nor unduly tragic.… She is destructive but tender, ravenous for experience but deeply vulnerable―and often wickedly funny.
Parul Sehgal - New York Times


The relationship between Edie and Rebecca is a living thing with its own heartbeat, and it is here that Leilani is at her most nimble, her writing sinewy and sharp…. [I]t is Edie’s hunger for recognition—more than her desire for self-improvement or the humiliation of heterosexuality, or her attempts to wrestle her life into something worth the pain—that colors the novel.
Jazmine Hughes - New York Times Book Review


Luster is a crackling debut about sex, art and the inescapable workings of race…. [J]ust when one fears that Luster might sink into endless woeful lusting, the book slyly pivots…. Edie addresses us in a funny, shrewd narrative voice that precisely describes the wide-ranging contours of her life.
John Powers - NPR


There are no perfect Black women in Raven Leilani’s debut novel, Luster, and that is by design.… Edie’s matter-of-fact confessions, underscored by Leilani’s caustic prose, are on-brand for Millennial literature of the past few years…. The most interesting moments in Luster are those between Edie and other Black women and girls, especially Akila, because they subvert expectations of what Black women should mean to one another.
Atlantic


Blistering… thrums with observational humor…. Luster is not a novel concerned with romantic drama. It’s all about attention―why we crave it and what forms it takes. Leilani carefully pulls the strings of Edie, Rebecca, Eric and Akila, revealing how lonely they all are…. Unsettling and surreal.
Time


[S]trikingly observed…. What ensues over the next 200-plus pages is indeed a wild ride: an irreverent intergenerational tale of race and class that’s blisteringly smart and fan-yourself sexy…. Leilani paints a complex, gloriously messy portrait of three people pushing boundaries.
Oprah Magazine


Darkly funny with wicked insight…. This keenly observed, dynamic debut is so cutting, it almost stings.
Elle


Wildly beguiling…. [Leilani is] a phenomenal writer, her dense, dazzling paragraphs shot through with self-effacing wit and psychological insight.
Entertainment Weekly


[This] moving examination of a young black woman’s economic desperation and her relationship to violence… is perceptive, funny, and emotionally charged. Edie’s frank, self-possessed voice will keep a firm grip on readers all the way to the bitter end.
Publishers Weekly


Luster is a gritty novel about appetites—for sex, companionship, attention, money—and what happens when they are sated…. Edie is deftly written… suffering from the rootlessness of an addict’s child…. Leilani’s writing is cerebral and raw…. [She's] a powerful new voice.
BookPage


(Starred review) Leilani’s radiant debut belongs to its brilliant, fully formed narrator. Old soul Edie has an otherworldly way of seeing the world and reflecting it back to readers…. A must for seekers of strongly narrated, original fiction.
Booklist


(Starred review) An unstable ballet of race, sex, and power. Leilani’s characters act in ways that often defy explanation, and that is part of what makes them so alive.… Sharp, strange, propellent—and a whole lot of fun.
Kirkus Reviews