This book is like a punch to the heart. I know we are still only in the summer but I also know that it’s going to be one of my number one reads this year. The writing, the story, the depth, the descriptions, the messiness, the honesty… Luster is a book that is real, and that will grab you and shake you. I wanted to turn away at times, and throw the book down, but I couldn’t, I wanted to stay by Edie and see where she landed. 

Edie is a messy character. But I was also a very messy 20-something living in Bushwick in Brooklyn, making crappy decisions, and dealing with trauma and grief, so I get it. It’s actually super refreshing to lose yourself in a character like Edie, relate to her, learn from her, and with her. Her voice is so honest and her character so deep and so raw, it felt like you were on a journey right with her while reading this book. It’s not an easy book to read, at all, and there is no instant satisfaction within the plot, you spend quite a bit of time squirming, revisiting your own bad judgment calls, and also feeling very uncomfortable. But it’s worth it. My favorite books are those that shake me, show me something else, and make me think deeply, and Luster did just that.

Edie is a 20-something Black woman living in a roach-infested Bushwick apartment, working an unsatisfying job at a publishing house, leading quite a lonely life peppered with questionable sexual choices. She is also an artist but doesn’t believe in her talent. She meets Eric online, who is married to a wife who agrees to an open marriage situation (with rules). Certain events lead Edie to moving in with Eric, his wife Rebecca, and their adopted Black daughter Akila. This leads to a dark, but moving, strange, but also weirdly normal set-up that you know will never have a happy ending, but is that what the reader wants anyway? 

Raven Leilani has a very specific writing style: her run-on sentences translate directly to Edie’s thought process, and it makes the reader feel like they are living the scenes through Edie rather than by her side. I love that, and I love how smart the prose is, so many funny moments that shouldn’t really be funny but are because they are real life, and so many dark moments that you also feel intensely. I also really loved how Edie turns back to art and uses it as her way to move backwards through trauma, and then forwards in her life. There is a strong push to believe in oneself in the book, something I think we all need to do more of.

This is one of those books that I want to buy for all my friends, and go on and on about. I can totally understand why it is one of the most anticipated releases of this summer!

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the advance copy in return for an honest review.