#ravenleilani

[missmusiclove]

“Because in the moments we are closest, there is always a caveat, always a clock running out, and nothing can purely be sweet.” 👄✨👄 Luster by Raven Leilani is a contemporary literary fiction focusing on Edie, who is in her early twenties and trying to find herself. Told from Edie’s perspective, she narrates her lack of a career, lack of family and her complex relationship with her boyfriend and his wife. I have to say that I was way more interested in Edie’s relationship with Rebecca, rather then Eric, and I was glad the the book eventually focused more on that relationship. Tense and haunting, the relationship between Rebecca and Edie was complicated and full of things left unsaid. That being said, it was interesting watching the relationship with Eric begin, and navigating starting the relationship with Eric while they both navigated Rebecca’s rules was fascinating. The relationship was odd and unbalanced from the start, and quickly became murky and dangerous as it slowly disintegrated over the course of the novel. I absolutely loved the cold, almost detached writing style that Leilani used to tell the narrative. It highlighted the discontentment Edie was feeling, and her lack of real connection to anyone around her, and her utter lack of self respect or worth. For such a short book, this book packed a lot of punch! Complex and thought provoking, this book is not one I’ll soon forget. 👄✨👄 Luster is book 75 for 2022. #bookstragram #books #booksofinstagram #booklover #bookphoto #reading #aussieswhoread #avidreader #bookwhore #aussiereader #bookdragon #reader #readersofig #booksofig #bookcommunity #bookish #bibliophile #readersofinstagram #bookstagrammer #booklife #bookaddict #girlswhoread #readinggoals2022 #auskiwibooksta #bookquote #luster #lusterravenleilani #ravenleilani #literaryfiction #contemporaryfiction https://www.instagram.com/p/CjUljoxLk6y/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[the-page-ladies]

*******👍🥳CONGRATULATIONS🥳👍****** Congratulations Raven Leilani for winning the VCU Cabell First Novelist award for her book Luster!!! LUSTER is the story of Edie, a young black woman and aspiring author, who after losing her job finds herself living with her older lover, his wife and their adopted daughter. Full article link https://news.vcu.edu/article/Raven_Leilani_wins_the_VCU_Cabell_First_Novelist_Award_for_Luster #contemporarybook #fsgbooks #fictionbook #adultfiction #ravenleilani #bookaward #romancebook #lusterbyravenleilani (at Cleveland, Ohio) https://www.instagram.com/p/CQ2o3ycDFhP/?utm_medium=tumblr

[jammybaldivino]

11.”I was pretending not to worry about the consequences of my isolation. But whenever I talked to anyone, I found myself overcompensating for the atrophy of my social muscles. Raven Leilani, Luster. The book is about a portrayal of a 23-year-old Black woman struggling to claim herself amidst falling into a white couple’s open marriage. Unfortunately, this book is not for me, but the writing is really good. It’s uncomfortable sometimes but totally raw and honest. My takeaway is that I’m glad my twenties are over. ⭐️⭐️ 15.05.2022 #lusterbook #ravenleilani (at Dubai United Arab Emirates) https://www.instagram.com/p/Cdkxb6Tunv3/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[bibliobethblog]

Hello beautiful bookish folk and hope you’re having or have had a good Saturday. Winding down here in the UK 🇬🇧 and I thought I’d do a little #stacksaturday #matchyourdrinkstack or #matchyourmugstack as I saw on the gorgeous @allthegenres page. I’ve read five books from this stack and four are still on my TBR. That might be a shock to some of you as normally it would be the other way round 😂 However, I chose to take it easy today and picked them from my newest bookshelf - hardback favourites and TBR books coming up soon. Still to read are - The Echo Chamber, Luster, Consent and From The Wreck. Read and enjoyed/loved are - Triflers Need Not Apply, The Muse, a Thousand Ships, The Island Of Missing Trees and The Exhibitionist. As always, I’d love to know all your thoughts! Let’s have a chat in the comments. Have a lovely weekend everyone 🤗😘 #bookstagram #bookstagrammer #bookstack #redwhiteandbluestack #theechochamber #johnboyne #triflersneednotapply #camillabruce #themuse #jessieburton #luster #ravenleilani #athousandships #nataliehaynes #consent #annabellyon #fromthewreck #janerawson #theislandofmissingtrees #elifshafak #theexhibitionist #charlottemendelson #womensprizelonglist2022 #beautifulhardbacks https://www.instagram.com/p/CcJLER4LlUr/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[xcurseofcurvesx]

Luster was one of my favourite reads of 2020. I loved the grit and the rawness of the emotions. I highly recommend this read 🥰 The #blackathon2022 instagram challenge starts today and runs until Feb 13th. This fits the prompt of a book by a black author. #luster #ravenleilani #booksbyblackauthors #readbyamity #bookstacks #readblackauthors #ausbookstagram https://www.instagram.com/p/CZq81bGr4Pz/?utm_medium=tumblr

[trixie-and-ames]

Luster: A Novel By Raven Leilani I'm not even sure where to begin with this. I devoured Luster in a day. I could not put it down. Edie is a twentysomething woman of color working for a publishing company in NYC when she finds herself in a relationship with an older married white man from Jersey. To be frank, Edie's a hot mess. Which might be why when she loses her job and can't make rent, her lovers wife has Edie move into their home in the 'burbs. This sounds absurd but I've known people who have been in similar situations. Rebecca and Eric have an adopted tween who happens to be black as well. Bit by bit this unusual family goes through transformation, it's curious and beautiful to watch people who wound up having one another's backs. To reach out a hand and help someone who is struggling. Evolution comes in all forms. Raven Leilani is a marvelous storyteller. I am not a valid literary critic. Just a voracious reader and lover of words. I don't dissect and pontificate. What I felt about Ms Leilani is that in Luster I have witnessed the birth of a Toni Morrison or Alice Walker. And that is the highest praise I can offer to Raven Leilani. Is there any higher than that? #booksofinstagram #booksbooksbooks #readersofinstagram #readmorewomen #ilovetoread #ravenleilani #luster #booklover P.S. my book clutter is insane https://www.instagram.com/p/COvPmKhFDFU/?igshid=2gdvrgpshujg

[itsredwritinghood]

While this book is wonderfully written, it makes me happy to be happily married and well out of my 20’s. It’s so uncomfortable, weird, and hard to read, but life is that way when you don’t have your shit together, your emotions are all over the place, you don’t have any direction, and so on and so forth...sometimes all this craziness lands you in unbelievable situations...this is one of those stories...#bookstagram #bookgeek #bookworm #booknerd #inkdrinker #luster #ravenleilani #readersofinstagram #readmorebooks #books #reading #bookish #audiobooks #read #bibliophile #read #bookaddict #bookaholic #bookaholicsanonymous #bibliotherapy #bookwyrm #audiobookstagram https://www.instagram.com/p/CMAUSbhgwJq/?igshid=1pvanqid0gxg0

[miss-mesmerized]

Raven Leilani – Luster

Edie, a 23-year-old artist, is somehow stumbling through her life. She does not have a stable partnership and the men she encounters are certainly not the ones to plan a future together, well she does not even know if that is what she wants. When she meets Eric, again, this does not seem to go beyond sex since he is twice her age, married and without the least intention of leaving his wife and daughter. When Edie finds herself suddenly unemployed without money or place to stay, something quite extraordinary happens: Eric’s wife invites her to live with them. However, it is clear who sets the rules: Rebecca.

 Raven Leilani’s novel “Luster” has been named among the most anticipated novels of 2020, thus, I was quite curious to read it. The constellation of inviting the young mistress of one’s husband to live in the same house seemed quite promising for an interesting battle between two women. However, I struggled a bit with it, maybe this is due to the fact that the author quickly moves away from the central conflict and the protagonist remains a bit too bland for my liking.

 When moving to the Walker family’s house, Eric is away on a business trip. Instead of having two grown-up women who have to negotiate their respective place in the household, Edie turns into another kid who is bossed around by Rebecca and forced into the role of a nanny and tutor for Akila, Rebecca and Eric’s daughter. She herself does not appear to actually dislike this arrangement and easily gives in to it. Rebecca, on the other hand, is not the self-confident and successful women, her behaviour towards Edie is quite harsh but only because she is weak and in this way wants to secure her place.

 There are some minor aspects which I found quite interesting but which did not really blend into the story such as Akila and the fact that she is black and adopted. She and Edie become the victim of police brutality – a brief scene which is not pursued on a psychological, societal or political level and of which, there, the function remains unclear to me. This happens at several points where the characters find themselves in a crucial emotional situation which is not elaborated and makes them all appear a bit inanimate, like actors on a stage who perform a role in which they feel awkward and which they cannot really identify with.

 Edie is neither a representative of a lost generation who does not know what to expect from a highly uncertain future, nor is she a special individual who struggles after some major life event. She also does not really develop throughout the novel which, all in all, makes her shallow and admittedly quite uninteresting. Maybe the plot might have been much more appealing from Rebecca’s or Akila’s point of view.

https://missmesmerized.wordpress.com/2020/07/06/raven-leilani-luster/

[scribblingcynic]

'I have to be honest, I'm having trouble reading you, and I'm usually great at that kind of thing.' I finish my beer and try not to show how overjoyed I am that none of my need and loathing have come across. 'You're kind of aloof,' he says, and all the kids stacked underneath my trench coat rejoice. Aloof is a casual lean, a choice. It is not a girl in Bushwick, licking clean a can of tuna. 'I'm an open book,' I say, thinking of all the men who have found it illegible. I made mistakes with these men. I dove for their legs as they tried to leave my house. I chased them down the hall with a bottle of Listerine, saying, I can be a beach read, I can get rid of all these clauses, please, I'll just revise.

Luster by Raven Leilani

[bosch]

Coffee and book, @westberlin, October 2021 ☕️📖 | #boschcoffee #boschbooks #ravenleilani #westberlin #dropcoffee https://instagr.am/p/CVUyHYWMezn/

[hopelessromanticlittleshit]

“Based on his liberal use of the semicolon, I just assumed this date would go well.” . . . . . This is my favourite type of writing. An unflinching dissection of what is considered ugly or uncomfortable, gross even. I just cringed my way through @raven_leilani ‘s debut novel and it was all that and honest and haunting and all sorts of other good adjectives. . . . . “Suddenly it feels painful to be this ordinary.” . . . #books #book #bookstagram #reading #booklover #bibliophile #bookcovers #bookaddict #bookblogger #bookphotographer #booksofinstagram #instabooks #bookcollector #read #reader #belletristbabe #bookofthemonth #sareaders #whatshouldireadnext #bookrecs #booksta #literaryfiction #bookishgirl #currentreads #igreads #amreading #luster #ravenleilani #picador #panmacmillan (at Weltevredenpark, Gauteng, South Africa) https://www.instagram.com/p/CGfUQVrnET4/?igshid=1n4squfxlxrtw

[bibliobethblog]

Hello everyone and hope you’re all doing okay. Thank God for taking photos in advance, that’s all I can say 😅 Today I’m sharing with you the first part of my birthday book haul! I was thoroughly spoilt this year which was so lovely as it wasn’t a great birthday, I wasn’t very well (story of my life 😂) This lovely collection of books was gifted to me by Mr B and his fabulous family. And you might see a little connection with the books, they’re all Women’s Prize 2021 novels. These are all the books I didn’t have so I’m over the moon to now have all 16. You’ll be so proud of me 🤣 out of this little stack I’ve already read one - the incredible Piranesi which I buddy read with @tarheelreader a few days ago. I’d love to know your thoughts on any of these books or authors. Are you reading or have you read the Women’s Prize books this year? What was your favourite? Let’s have a chat in the comments! Also apologies for the weird angle in this pic but I really wanted to get them all in one shot 😅 #bookstagrammer #bookstagram #bookhaul #bookhoarder #birthdaybookhaul #womensprize #womensprizeforfiction2021 #womensprizelonglist #shinynewbooks #dawnfrench #becauseofyou #piranesi #susannaclarke #thegoldenrule #amandacraig #summer #alismith #luster #ravenleilani #nooneistalkingaboutthis #patricialockwood #nothingbutbluesky #kathleenmcmahon #burntsugar #avnidoshi https://www.instagram.com/p/COyJJ6mL62w/?igshid=cm5jcjtxi95q

[dianeintransit]

Favorite tweets

My dad didn’t make it. Feels impossible to grieve knowing how much worse this is going to get. I’m so grateful to everyone who reached out, to everyone on the front lines risking their lives to help. Please keep distancing. Nothing is worth someone you love not coming back home.

— Raven Leilani (@RavenLeilani) April 1, 2020