I was so excited to read this book - amazing coverage and press at the moment. The cover is also just stunning.

This was an honest portrayal of a 23 year old black woman struggling to find her way in the world who ends up falling into a white couples open marriage, with their adoptive black daughter Akila. Raven Leilani's tone in this is sharp, precise and at some points witty. Our protagonist Edie is completely unafraid of showing us the messiness in her life, how out of control it's becoming and also the pain she experiences - coming from sexism, racism, poverty and family.

I for one really liked the stream of consciousness style of writing, I think this suited our characters mindset and this link with her creative side. I also really liked how the theme of art flowed through the novel. Throughout, we are given descriptions of Edie's paintings and how she paints as a way to escape from her ever growing problems. Loved the ending surrounding this idea as well. This is such an impressive debut and one that is definitely worth your time. Thanks so much for the ARC!

Clearly well written but left me frustrated and disappointed for the characters. Edie is a young black woman struggling through life. She has a reputation as the office slut and seems to lack all ambition and self-respect. Her real love is painting but she isn't good enough to pursue it. So instead she hooks up with a white married man, Eric, and by a quirk of fate, ends up living with his wife and adopted black daughter in the suburbs.

Its an oddball story that kept me turning the pages, wondering where it was going to lead. I found the different perspective and characters interesting, but was left feeling sad and despondent. I kept waiting for Edie to turn the corner, to find inspiration or be saved by someone more appropriate, but for me the story didn't lead anywhere.

I thought this would be a book about youth, sex, race, art, love and relationships — and it was certainly that and more — but it was also a book about precarity and class. The precariousness with which we have forced young people to live in: in this economy, in society, without a family, without a home. The writing is pin-sharp, full of witty observations that regularly made me laugh out loud or pause to consider. The characters all carefully drawn and rightfully complex as each other. The humour is tempered by tragedy, the exacting prose that dips into the backstory of its central character Edie, a young 20-something who barrels through the narrative, sometimes it seems against her own will. It has the contemporary, readable smart prose of other recent debuts from writers like Sally Rooney, Kiley Reid and Eliza Clark. A thoroughly enjoyable and thoughtful read.

A whirlwind of a book, full of the smallest details of life and how we spiral and try to stay afloat when everything is crashing down around us.

Oh wow! this was amazing. Sat and read front to back in one sitting, I have never felt so tense or concerned for a character before. Reven's ability to build believable characters is actually awe-inspiring, I was so invested in them and their stories every step of the way.
This book is razor-sharp, provocatively page-turning and surprisingly tender, Luster by Raven Leilani is a painfully funny debut about what it means to be young now.
I can't wait to read more from Raven and will definitely be hand selling this all year!!
Thank you so much to Net Galley and Pan Mac for the ERC.

Luster is about a young woman, making ends meet in a non descript office job and having a passive attitude with work and the men she sleeps with. After not having success with her artistic passion she is a woman who feels lost. She then meets Eric, a married man, but one who is in a relationship who is accepting of an open marrage. Edie soon become entwined in his familys life, including his teenage daughter. The book never pushed boundries as I had first imagined it would. It is a challenging, unacomdating read. I never felt the tenderness in any of the characters others suggest exisits. It felt like a book trying to create warmth and emotion through physical action but it just alienated me more. A book that pandered to the neverland generation, people who refuse to grow up, and this is somehow supposed to be desirable. The moments shared between the wife and other woman, were unimaginative and didn’t seem to have any spark for me.

The characters in the story are all generally pretty unlikeable but that doesnt detract from the joy of reading it. I particularly loved the interactions between 23 year old Edie and Rebecca as their distrust builds to an uncertain friendship.

For me, the book lost it's way a little at times and I found myself getting bored (gaming & comicon) but perhaps that's reflective of my 40+ years.

I've seen so many reviews of this book that imply this is true to modern life and being a young women today, which frankly fills me with dread for my children.

I'm writing this review a few days after having finished the book and already find that I'm struggling to recall parts of it. An enjoyable read for me but perhaps didnt live up to the massive hype this one has recieved.

This had the potential to be a good story, and the main character was interesting - (car crash interesting). But I could to get past the writing style - very long, rambling sentences full of cultural references that were incomprehensible to me, and lots of profanity and graphic sexual references. It was funny in parts, though, so an extra star for that.

Thanks to NetGalley and The Publisher for this eARC in exchange for an honest review.

Sorry it's a no from me. Don't believe the hype! I found much of the storyline equally cringy and far-fetched. Nothing was remotely relatable and the detached cold writing style left my unengaged and uninvested.

I can't believe I actually read the same book as others. Really not for me. Grateful it was only 227 pages.

A perfect novel for fans of Such A Fun Age and My Year of Rest and Relaxation. Brilliantly insightful on race, class, family, loss and the unsettling years of being in your twenties. The writing is pointed, undestated and yet exquistely so. At times its matter-of-factness is startling, revealing the hithertoo unacknowledged emotional underlife that the narrator experiences, as a grieving woman, as a black woman, as a sexualised woman.

Edie is a 23 year old artist working at a publisher to make ends meet. She’s in a weird relationship with an older man Eric which turns into a strange ‘ménage à trois’ with Eric’s wife Rebecca. When Edie loses her job she goes to live with them at Rebecca’s invitation. The couple have an adopted black child Akila who is unhappy not least because apart from Edie is is surrounded by a world of white.

This book does not work as well for me as I hoped. First of all, although I respect Edie’s honesty and find her occasional humour refreshing, the premise seems so unrealistic. I cannot understand why a vibrant woman like her would get involved with Eric in the first place. Edie is very lonely, is very creative and has a desire to find a place to belong but it certainly isn’t where she ends up. She has little self esteem and sees herself in sexual terms which I find sad. Eric is not at all likeable, he can be very morose and his causal violence directed at Edie is appalling. She keeps seeing him despite these things and I just ask myself why??? For Rebecca to accept the situation even to the extent of drawing up rules and then allowing Edie into their home seems too unbelievable. Apart from Edie the characters are not particularly well defined and this is because of the style it’s written in which I find hard to get to grips with. It goes of topic, into tangents and becomes confusing. It’s extremely wordy with some very long sentences and large paragraphs and this loses the depth of character development. The dynamics between the three seem off kilter and odd and it’s hard to accept from Akila’s perspective too. What would a young teenager make of it???

Clearly Raven Leilani is very talented and has a great future ahead of her but this one is not a good fit for me. The book is very different which I like, it does make some pertinent points but these can get lost in the prose. It’s dark in places with racism, sexism and promiscuity and although these things do make you think I also find my attention wandering in sections. However, don’t let my inability to connect with the storytelling as other readers loved it.

With thanks to NetGalley and Pan McMillan:Picador for the arc for an honest review.

Luster is a melancholic, witty and sharp exploration of one young Black womans experience, at once a striking portrait of youth, loneliness, being an artist and finding oneself. I feel like this will be a polarising book off the bat with some readers who will thoroughly enjoy the unfiltered, unfettered prose and other readers being put off by this and some of the more troubling subject matter. While there were definitely times I was uncomfortable reading this book - I think that's kind of the point, as Raven Leilani doesn't shy away from stating it how it is through her prose. I empathised so much with Edie as she goes through numerous toxic encounters with men, as we read about her mothers suicide and how this has affected her and how alone and adrift she feels. Leilani delivers some really powerful explorations of race, class and gender and what it is to be a twenty something in todays world.

This is definitely more of a character driven novel, with it moving slowly forward, undulating with the undiluted thoughts and feelings of Edie as she finds herself in a strange relationship between Eric and his wife Rebecca and their adopted daughter Akila. The dynamic between all the characters is definitely strange, but interesting to read and I found myself trying to figure it out, but even till the end it remained kind of hazy. I thought the relationship between Edie and Rebecca - the other woman and the wife - the most surprising and subversive, there's moments of cruelty but also startling tenderness. I also felt for Akila, adopted by a white couple and being the only Black child in her neighbourhood, being subject to micro-agressions and outright racism which her parents, well meaning as they are have no idea how to handle. I liked how the small moments of compassion and care creeped up between her and Edie and were steadily woven in to the story, with Edie helping Akila with her hair, finding solace in playing video games together and encouraging Akila with her interests in writing and comics.

I found the most compelling bits of the novel to be the moments where Edie is alone and sort of pondering on her loneliness and solitude. I can honestly say that this has to be one of the most real and honest portrayals of loneliness and trauma I've read thus far, with the author managing to put into words so many subtle elements of how this feels and it's so haunting. This is a book which is full of pain, and it hurts to read at times, when I finished reading it, I felt a sense of loss and vulnerability which is indescribable but I think some of the best books can evoke these complex emotions. This book isn't an easy read by any means but I've found myself enjoying authors works who unashamedly let us in to the minds and experiences of their characters without justifying their actions or apologising for their messiness and complexity.

Overall, Luster is a truly memorable novel and a stunning debut which will be sure to turn many heads.

Instead of a book about being young right now, like it says, it feels more a book that cuts open loneliness in many people whose stories become messily interlinked and lays it bare in all its discomfort. Very good and quick read.

This book has become an absolute sensation so I was thrilled to be able to read it and wow it did not disappoint.

The central character, Edie is a young black woman, she has struggles which makes you think about the world we are living in and how you could possibly form your own character when people are so opiniated about who you should be.

Highly recommend.

I’m still unsure what to think of this .... I didn’t love it but didn’t hate it either .
About half way through I was asking myself where it was going as it doesn’t really have a plot but for some reason it kept me wanting to read . I found all the main characters both annoying yet intriguing .
I think I was expecting more of a page turner and I don’t really know what genre to put this in . It’s a quick read and even though the ending left me flat I would still be keen to read more from this author .

Finishing this book was a real slog. Everybody in it is messed up. None of the characters have any redeeming qualities. I didn't care about any of them, and the deeply dysfunctional love triangle which comprises the plot felt wholly designed for shock value. If this is what being young is allegedly like, I'm glad I'm old.

DNF at 20%. I think I succumbed to the hype when requesting this. It’s a novel which sits snuggly in the literary fiction world, a genre I tend to get excited about. It’s the story of a young Black woman who finds herself entwined with an older, white, married man. Their relationship made me feel deeply uncomfortable from the off, something that I wasn’t expecting. I’m not sure if it was the age gap (20+ years), the fact it was an affair, the way he treated her or her obsession with sex. The dynamics just made my skin crawl. I really tried to set that aside but he was truly grotesque and horrible and I just couldn’t shake this feeling of imminent fear. These feelings made reading this a deeply unpleasant experience and in the end I felt I had to DNF for the sake of my own well-being. I know this is a book that will have an audience and will appeal to readers who like unlikeable characters, complex relationships, American literature, and literary fiction reminiscent of Jonathan Franzen or Ottessa Moshfegh. I have left a three star rating because this is very much a “it’s not you, it’s me” deal (and probably reflective of my current headspace), and I know that this novel will have a solid fan base so I don’t want to affect its success on UK publication.

'Luster' by Raven Leilani is a book that left me feeling very ambivalent. It tells the story of Edie, a young black woman who due to her childhood experiences is compelled to behave in ways that are harmful to her and others. She develops first an internet, and then a real life relationship with Eric (a married man), and gradually becomes embroiled in his family, forging an uncomfortable relationship with his wife and adopted daughter.

For me this was a compelling read, but not an enjoyable one. Like Candice Carty-Williams 'Queenie'; 'Luster,' brilliantly depicts the human flaws in Edie without giving into current narratives about how black women can be depicted (saint or slave, or both). There are occasions I marvelled at the writing, and the cleverness of the similes used, but I didn't find it comic - in fact I often found it a very sad, and anxiety provoking read. This was particularly due to some of the things Edie does, and a sense that she is re-enacting trauma. Like some of the other characters in the novel, I felt compelled to care for Edie and also to push her away.

Therefore whilst I felt this was a well written book, deserving of plaudits and praise, it isn't a book that I loved in the sense that I want to return to the world it depicts. Perhaps things are just to tumultuous in 2020 for me to enjoy reading about this level of complexity, despite it feeling very realistic.

Edie is a walking disaster, barely holding onto her job, involved with a married man, living in a tiny and mice-infested flat, barely making ends meet. She is tough and funny though and I liked the writing - at times clinical and at times really funny and full of emotions. At times it was uncomfortable to read but I enjoyed the messiness and the tenderness of it.

Reading this I could instantly see why this is as hyped as it is. This is a book of contradiction, it's unpleasant and uncomfortable to read but in the way that you are hooked and can't put it down.
The story follows 23 year old Edie who starts an affair with a married man, and then finds herself moving in with his family.
Initially the wife, Rebecca, is wary of Edie but seeing their relationship change and evolve was my favourite part of this story.
I really enjoyed this and can't believe that this is a debut, i'll be looking out for more of Leilani's work in the future.