Hey all!
Today I’m reviewing a debut novel, and if this novel is any indication of future storytelling, I hope we’re going to be hearing a lot more from Raven Leilani in the future.
Luster is the story of…a love triangle? No, that’s not quite right..
It’s the story of a family and an interloper? No, that’s not exactly it either.
It’s the story of a young woman floundering to find her place? Not fully true.
But it is actually all of these things, too.
Confused yet? So was I. But in the best sort of way. In only 164 pages (I read the ebook), Leilani manages to squeeze all of these possibilities into the story of Edie, a young artist in New York who finds herself the third party in an open marriage. This is never a secret. Eric and Rebecca have a carefully laid out set of expectations for what this means in their marriage, and for a bit, everyone is, sort of, happy. Until they wind up sharing more than any of them bargained for.
From here, I don’t know how to review this book without spoiling it. So, I’m not going to try. But I encourage you to pick this one up, when you can handle some realism. As this story develops, in my opinion, each of these characters is their best-worst version of themselves. And by that I mean we see the realest version of them, and the things they think they really want, even if the situations they find themselves in don’t always work out.
I was pulling for Edie and a resolution that would make her happy, despite the questionable decisions she made throughout the story. Because I appreciated the care with which she (mostly) treated the other characters. I think she really had good intentions, but was struggling to figure out how to make her life what she wanted it to be. That’s your twenties in a nutshell, right?
Sip on vodka from the freezer, while you mull this one over.
Jaclyn