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. The Nightingale: The Multimillion Copy Bestseller from the Author of The Women Kristin Hannah
  5. The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois Honorée Fanonne Jeffers
  6. Crossroads Jonathan Franzen
  7. How to Kill Your Family Bella Mackie
  8. Concerning My Daughter Kim Hye-jin
  9. Blue Sisters Coco Mellors
  10. Maps of Our Spectacular Bodies: Longlisted for the Booker Prize Maddie Mortimer
  11. Yellowface Rebecca F Kuang
  12. The Book of Goose Yiyun Li
  13. Sea of Tranquility Emily St. John Mandel
  14. Lost Children Archive Valeria Luiselli
  15. Pachinko Min Jin Lee
  16. The Dutch House: A Novel Ann Patchett
  17. Remarkably Bright Creatures Shelby Van Pelt
  18. Alone With You in the Ether: A love story like no other and a Heat Magazine Book of the Week Olivie Blake
  19. A Woman Is No Man: A Novel Etaf Rum
  20. Our Wives Under The Sea: Winner of the Polari Prize Julia Armfield
  21. Ask Again, Yes: A Novel Mary Beth Keane
  22. Cleopatra and Frankenstein Coco Mellors
  23. The Maid Nita Prose
  24. Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine Gail Honeyman
  25. Trick Mirror: Reflections on Self-Delusion Jia Tolentino
  26. Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982: The international bestseller Cho Nam-Joo
  27. Shuggie Bain: Winner of the Booker Prize 2020 Douglas Stuart
  28. Nothing to See Here Kevin Wilson
  29. The Glass Hotel: The Haunting Novel from the Author of Station Eleven Emily St. John Mandel
  30. Under the Whispering Door TJ Klune
  31. Commonwealth Ann Patchett
  32. The Perks of Being a Wallflower Stephen Chbosky
  33. Babel: Or the Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of the Oxford Translators’ Revolution R.F. Kuang
  34. Wrong Place Wrong Time: A Novel Gillian McAllister
  35. My Brilliant Friend Elena Ferrante
  36. So You Want to Talk about Race Ijeoma Oluo
  37. Small Pleasures: A Novel Clare Chambers
  38. Before the Coffee Gets Cold: The cosy million-copy sensation from Japan Toshikazu Kawaguchi
  39. Half of a Yellow Sun Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
  40. Woman, Eating: A Literary Vampire Novel Claire Kohda
  41. My Sister, the Serial Killer Oyinkan Braithwaite