Listen and read

Step into an infinite world of stories

  • Listen and read as much as you want
  • Over 400 000+ titles
  • Bestsellers in 10+ Indian languages
  • Exclusive titles + Storytel Originals
  • Easy to cancel anytime
Subscribe now
Details page - Device banner - 894x1036

Luster

441 Ratings

3.6

Duration
6H 39min
Language
English
Format
Category

Fiction

Razor sharp, provocatively page-turning and surprisingly tender, Luster by Raven Leilani is a painfully funny debut.

'A taut, sharp, funny book about being young now. It's brutal–and brilliant.' - Zadie Smith, author of White Teeth

'A book of pure fineness, exceptional.' – Diana Evans, Guardian

Winner of the Dylan Thomas Prize Shortlisted for the British Book Awards Fiction Debut of the Year Longlisted for the Women's Prize For Fiction

Edie is just trying to survive. She’s messing up in her dead-end admin job in her all-white office, is sleeping with all the wrong men, and has failed at the only thing that meant anything to her, painting. No one seems to care that she doesn’t really know what she’s doing with her life beyond looking for her next hook-up. And then she meets Eric, a white, middle-aged archivist with a suburban family, including a wife who has sort-of-agreed to an open marriage and an adopted black daughter who doesn’t have a single person in her life who can show her how to do her hair. As if navigating the constantly shifting landscape of sexual and racial politics as a young black woman wasn’t already hard enough, with nowhere else left to go, Edie finds herself falling head-first into Eric’s home and family.

A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: Guardian, New York Times, New Yorker, Boston Globe, Literary Hub, Vanity Fair, Los Angeles Times, Glamour, Time, Good Housekeeping, InStyle, NPR, O Magazine, Buzzfeed, Electric Literature, Town & Country, Wired, New Statesman, Vox, Shelf Awareness, i-D, BookPage and more.

One of Barack Obama’s Favourite Books of 2020

Finalist for the National Book Critics Circle John Leonard Prize, the PEN/Hemingway Award.

'A giddy joy, crafted with mischievous perfection.' – Mail on Sunday

© 2021 Picador (Audiobook): 9781529036022

Release date

Audiobook: 21 January 2021

Others also enjoyed ...

  1. Sorrow and Bliss: A Novel Meg Mason
  2. The Underground Railroad: LONGLISTED FOR THE MAN BOOKER PRIZE 2017 Colson Whitehead
  3. An American Marriage: A Novel Tayari Jones
  4. Concerning My Daughter Kim Hye-jin
  5. The Nightingale: The Multimillion Copy Bestseller from the Author of The Women Kristin Hannah
  6. How to Kill Your Family Bella Mackie
  7. Crossroads Jonathan Franzen
  8. The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois Honorée Fanonne Jeffers
  9. Maps of Our Spectacular Bodies: Longlisted for the Booker Prize Maddie Mortimer
  10. Sea of Tranquility Emily St. John Mandel
  11. The Book of Goose Yiyun Li
  12. Lost Children Archive Valeria Luiselli
  13. Trust: the dazzling twisty story of power, greed and love that begins in 1920s New York Hernan Diaz
  14. The Dutch House: A Novel Ann Patchett
  15. Yellowface Rebecca F Kuang
  16. Pachinko Min Jin Lee
  17. Ask Again, Yes: A Novel Mary Beth Keane
  18. Alone With You in the Ether: A love story like no other and a Heat Magazine Book of the Week Olivie Blake
  19. Our Wives Under The Sea: Winner of the Polari Prize Julia Armfield
  20. The Maid Nita Prose
  21. Cleopatra and Frankenstein Coco Mellors
  22. Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982: The international bestseller Cho Nam-Joo
  23. Trick Mirror: Reflections on Self-Delusion Jia Tolentino
  24. Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine Gail Honeyman
  25. Nothing to See Here Kevin Wilson
  26. Under the Whispering Door TJ Klune
  27. The Glass Hotel: The Haunting Novel from the Author of Station Eleven Emily St. John Mandel
  28. Shuggie Bain: Winner of the Booker Prize 2020 Douglas Stuart
  29. The Mercies Kiran Millwood Hargrave
  30. Exciting Times: A Novel Naoise Dolan
  31. The Perks of Being a Wallflower Stephen Chbosky
  32. My Brilliant Friend Elena Ferrante
  33. The Song of Achilles: A Novel Madeline Miller
  34. Babel: Or the Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of the Oxford Translators’ Revolution R.F. Kuang
  35. Legendborn: TikTok made me buy it! Tracy Deonn
  36. So You Want to Talk about Race Ijeoma Oluo
  37. Wrong Place Wrong Time: A Novel Gillian McAllister
  38. All The Light We Cannot See Anthony Doerr
  39. Small Pleasures: A Novel Clare Chambers
  40. Half of a Yellow Sun Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
  41. Before the Coffee Gets Cold: The cosy million-copy sensation from Japan Toshikazu Kawaguchi
  42. The House in the Cerulean Sea: An Uplifting, Heartwarming Cosy Fantasy About Found Family TJ Klune
  43. Woman, Eating: A Literary Vampire Novel Claire Kohda
  44. My Sister, the Serial Killer Oyinkan Braithwaite