Boundless Press | Luster
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Luster
Raven Leilani
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A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK OF THE YEAR
A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: NPR, O Magazine, Vanity Fair, Los Angeles Times, Glamour, Shondaland, The New York Times Book Review, Boston Globe, Buzzfeed, Kirkus, Time, Good Housekeeping, InStyle, The Guardian, Literary Hub, Electric Literature, Self, The New York Public Library, Town & Country, Wired, Boston.com, Happy Mag, New Statesman, Vox, Shelf Awareness, Chatelaine, The Undefeated, Apartment Therapy, Brooklyn Based, The End of the World Review, Exile in Bookville, Lit Reactor, BookPage, i-D
A FAVORITE BOOK OF THE YEAR: The New Yorker, Barack Obama
A BEST BOOK FOR HOLIDAY GIFTS: AV Club, Chicago Tribune, New York Magazine/The Strategist, The Rumpus.
WINNER of the NBCC John Leonard Prize, the Kirkus Prize, the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize, the Dylan Thomas Prize, and the VCU Cabell First Novelist Award. AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER NATIONAL INDIE BESTSELLER * LOS ANGELES TIMES BESTSELLER * WASHINGTON POST BESTSELLER.
“So delicious that it feels illicit . . . Raven Leilani’s first novel reads like summer: sentences like ice that crackle or melt into a languorous drip; plot suddenly, wildly flying forward like a bike down a hill.” —Jazmine Hughes, The New York Times Book Review.
“An irreverent intergenerational tale of race and class that’s blisteringly smart and fan-yourself sexy.” —Michelle Hart, O: The Oprah Magazine.
No one wants what no one wants. And how do we even know what we want? How do we know we’re ready to take it?
Edie is stumbling her way through her twenties—sharing a subpar apartment in Bushwick, clocking in and out of her admin job, making a series of inappropriate sexual choices. She is also haltingly, fitfully giving heat and air to the art that simmers inside her.
And then she meets Eric, a digital archivist with a family in New Jersey, including an autopsist wife who has agreed to an open marriage—with rules.
As if navigating the constantly shifting landscapes of contemporary sexual manners and racial politics weren’t hard enough, Edie finds herself unemployed and invited into Eric’s home—though not by Eric. She becomes a hesitant ally to his wife and a de facto role model to his adopted daughter. Edie may be the only Black woman young Akila knows.
Irresistibly unruly and strikingly beautiful, razor-sharp and slyly comic, sexually charged and utterly absorbing, Raven Leilani’s Luster is a portrait of a young woman trying to make sense of her life—her hunger, her anger—in a tumultuous era. It is also a haunting, aching description of how hard it is to believe in your own talent, and the unexpected influences that bring us into ourselves along the way.
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Posts about this title from Boundless Press
Boundless Press\ \ Jananie\ \ • Dec 31 2022
every book i read in 2022 rated & reviewed in 1 sentence
join as a channel member to get access to perks: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJn0v3OAEAX3-V4crjcHtRA/join
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💌 for business/sponsorship inquiries please contact eric@smallscreenmarketing.com 💌 for all other inquiries please contact me at thisstoryaintover@gmail.com
faqs 🤍 how do you pronounce your name? - my name is Jananie—pronounced JEN-nah-nee (like a knee!)
🤍 what's your background/ethnicity/etc? - both my parents are Sri Lankan Tamil, and I was born and raised in Canada!
🤍 what is your job? - aside from youtube I also work in product marketing!
63 books
Boundless Press\ \ Jananie\ \ • Sep 16 2022
all 24 books i read this summer ✨ reading wrapup
join me as I breakdown all 24 books I read this summer!! let me know what your favourite book you read this summer was! 🥰
🤍 timestamps ↳ 0:00 intro ↳ 1:17 know my name by chanel miller ↳ 2:29 empire of sand by tasha suri ↳ 2:59 on earth we're briefly gorgeous by ocean vuong ↳ 4:12 blue skinned gods by s. j. sindu ↳ 4:52 this is how you lose the time war by amal el-mohtar & max gladstone ↳ 5:50 the roughest draft by austin siegemund-broka & emily wibberley ↳ 6:43 convenience store woman by sayaka murata ↳ 7:59 book lovers by emily henry ↳ 8:43 violeta by isabel allende ↳ 9:28 the paris apartment by lucy foley ↳ 10:09 daughter of the moon goddess by sue lynn tan ↳ 10:57 this woven kingdom by tahereh mafi ↳ 11:56 crooked hallelujah by kelli jo ford ↳ 12:35 little fires everywhere by celeste ng ↳ 13:24 an american marriage by tayari jones ↳ 14:53 eleanor oliphant is completely fine by gail honeyman ↳ 15:18 the vanishing half by brit bennett ↳ 16:25 red, white & royal blue by casey mcquiston ↳ 17:35 i'm glad my mom died by jennette mccurdy ↳ 18:53 luster by raven leilani ↳ 19:54 disorientation by elaine hsieh chou ↳ 20:53 you exist too much by zaina arafat ↳ 21:43 rosewater by tade thompson ↳ 23:03 the school for good mothers ↳ 24:52 outro
📚 join my book club 📚 read books by BIPOC each month and join me during monthly liveshows to discuss! 🤍 announcement Video: https://youtu.be/u-aI8tD1RcQ 🤍 discuss on Fable: https://l.fable.co/readincolour 🤍 discuss on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/readincolourbookclub/ 🤍 discuss on Twitter: https://twitter.com/ReadinColorClub
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💌 for business/sponsorship inquiries please contact eric@smallscreenmarketing.com 💌 for all other inquiries please contact me at thisstoryaintover@gmail.com
faqs 🤍 how do you pronounce your name? - my name is Jananie—pronounced JEN-nah-nee (like a knee!)
🤍 what's your background/ethnicity/etc? - both my parents are Sri Lankan Tamil, and I was born and raised in Canada!
🤍 what is your job? - aside from youtube I also work in product marketing!
24 books
Boundless Press\ \ Jananie\ \ • Aug 27 2022
Reading That Girl Books from TikTok
For 16 free meals with HelloFresh across 7 boxes AND 3 free gifts, use code JANANIE16 at https://bit.ly/3vEXTqV
Go check out the creators I mentioned 💗 @MinaReads @alyxandriaang
🤍 timestamps ↳ 0:00 Intro ↳ 7:10 The books ↳ 9:43 Luster ↳ 15:18 Disorientation ↳ 20:38 You Exist Too Much ↳ 26:09 Defining what a hot sad girl book is
other places to find me 🤍 my website: https://www.jananiekvelu.com/ 🤍 my series # EpicBookRecs on the Epic Reads Channel: https://bit.ly/2XziOfz
💌 for business/sponsorship inquiries please contact eric@smallscreenmarketing.com 💌 for all other inquiries please contact me at thisstoryaintover@gmail.com
faqs 🤍 how do you pronounce your name? - my name is Jananie—pronounced JEN-nah-nee (like a knee!)
🤍 what's your background/ethnicity/etc? - both my parents are Sri Lankan Tamil, and I was born and raised in Canada!
🤍 what is your job? - aside from youtube I also work in product marketing!
3 books
Posts about this book from across Bindery
Kenny 🫧 \ \ kenny girl reads\ \ • Apr 14
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pov: your favorite genre is just women going through something
it’s no secret that my favorite genre is just women going through things…and tbh the less plot driven the better 🙂↕️
here are some of my favorites and some that are high up on my tbr!
did i miss any? add your picks in the comments because i’m always looking to read more 🫶🏼
#litfic #womensfiction #bookrecommendations
niche book recs | literary fiction recommendations | best book recommendations | lit fic bookstagram | literary booksta | favorite books | reading books | bookish guide
27 books
Mareas\ \ Marines\ \ • Dec 13 2025
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books for your mid-twenties
4 books
30
Sunny's Book Truck\ \ CJ\ \ • Jul 29 2025
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[Hi nerds \
\
Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you may have seen the New York Times latest interactive piece compiling the Top 100 Book of the 21st Century. I, along with some of my bookish peers, immediately noticed a few authors who were snubbed, so I got to work on compiling my personal top 100.\
\
I gave myself a few restrictions, so the below list is made up of only women and queer authors. Translated works post 2001 count, but I also let a few books in that were repackaged recently (re: McNally Editions) that I would argue truly found their readership for the first time in the past 20 years, despite their earlier pub dates. I also limited myself to just one title per author, which was probably the hardest part of this list making.\
\
I also want to note that this isn’t necessarily my favorite top 100 books, nor what I am deeming the greatest. Some I’ve included simply for the cultural phenomenons they’ve become in my realm of the bookish internet.\
\
Finally, I am not a genre or poetry reader unfortunately, so this list leans literary and is restricted to titles I’ve already read. All books have been compiled on Bookshop.org here if you’d like to purchase any of them. The below list is not ranked, I’m not doing that to myself! I’d love to see your own if you make one. Let me know what you think I left off in the comments, I’m ready to fight.\
\
The Top 100 \
\
- Just Kids: the only romanticizing of 1970’s New York I can stand for.\ \
- Boy Parts: finally an American Psycho but for the girlie pops.\ \
- Dancing On My Own: a brand new essay collection I think everyone should read.\ \
- Hunger: my introduction to fat phobia and diet culture.\ \
- Commonwealth: this wouldn’t be a list by me without an Ann Patchett.\ \
- A Room Called Earth: neurodivergent rep at it’s finest.\ \
- The Night Circus: my carney ass loves this fantasy novel.\ \
- The New Me: satirical workplace culture, classic “women vs. the void”.\ \
- The Idiot: a perfect campus novel.\ \
- A Field Guide to Getting Lost: this broke my brain in college.\ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \
- Dept. of Speculation: vignette perfection!!!!\ \
- Circe: greek myths and witches for grown ups.\ \
- Little Weirds: a tender and perfect essay collection.\ \
- Assembly: a perfect execution of restraint.\ \
- Calypso: again, this wouldn’t be a list by me without Sedaris. I love him.\ \
- White Teeth: what can be said about Zadie Smith that hasn’t already been said?\ \
- The Doloriad: literally the most evil book I’ve read to date.\ \
- Nevada: trans roadtrip narrative, a queer cornerstone.\ \
- Birnam Wood: a perfect sprawling character driven thriller.\ \
- Beautyland: the most earnest novel on this list.\ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \
- No One Is Talk About This: perhaps the great Twitter novel?\ \
- Sisters: a modern gothic ghost story.\ \
- Paul Takes the Form of a Mortal Girl: queer smut!!!\ \
- Detransition, Baby: queer questioning of what it means to make a family.\ \
- Infinite Country: border politics and big family dramas.\ \
- Bunny: do we think this was the first TikTok book for lit fic? Horror lite.\ \
- Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead: misanthrope representation.\ \
- Real Life: bad friends and bad sex in the Midwest!!!\ \
- The Undocumented Americans: I loved this personal exploration of citizenship.\ \
- Pond: one of a kind, shimmering.\ \ \ \ \ \ \ \
- The Glass Castle: one of my favorite memoirs of all time.\ \
- The Friend: dog freaks unite.\ \
- Land of Milk and Honey: food writing!!!\ \
- Martyr!: sad sack artist, diaspora, hidden identities.\ \
- The Rabbit Hutch: Blandine is one of the most memorable narrators ever.\ \
- White on White: an excellent art novel.\ \
- I Love You But I’ve Chosen Darkness: maybe my favorite desert novel?\ \
- The Performance: climate change, a book in acts, I loved it.\ \
- Lapvona: this is my favorite Moshfegh, fight me!\ \
- The Life of the Mind: academia woes.\ \ \ \ \
- The Wall: dystopian adventure novel excellence!\ \
- Cold Enough for Snow: what claim do we have to know another's inner world?\ \
- The English Understand Wool: I could have read 1000 pages more of this.\ \
- Hurricane Season: one of kind, relentless, harrowing.\ \
- A Little Life: some call it trauma porn, some call it the book of our generation.\ \
- Girl, Woman, Other: a polyphonic modern classic.\ \
- Convenience Store Woman: lonely and charming.\ \
- Freshwater: a completely effective depiction of dysphoria.\ \
- The Sluts: cursed!!!! I loved it.\ \
- No One Belongs Here More Than You: this changed my teenage brain chemistry.\ \ \ \ \
- I Hold a Wolf by the Ears: surreal, eerie, perfect.\ \
- Luster: women on the verge, art, race, open marriages.\ \
- Indelicacy: I loved this tiny novel. Labor, class, women.\ \
- Pew: hysteria and mass psychosis build in this creepy little gothic story.\ \
- Open Throat: we need to be reading more about gay mountain lions.\ \
- Severance: our great apocalypse novel.\ \
- Motherhood: Heti went inside of my brain to write this.\ \
- Tonight I’m Someone Else: this book reminds me of a heatwave. Desire, youth!\ \
- The Employees: an incredibly singular look at work and consumption.\ \
- A Manual for Cleaning Women: this book smells like cigarettes and windex.\ \ \ \ \ \ \
- The Body Is Not an Apology: an actually helpful guide to radical self-love.\ \
- Pachinko: an intergenerational family epic.\ \
- Burnt Sugar: THE mommy issues novel!\ \
- The Year of Magical Thinking: loss and charting the unknown waters of grief.\ \
- A Minor Chorus: queer Indigenous survival.\ \
- Strangers to Ourselves: I really loved this deep dive into mental health.\ \
- Second Place: my favorite Cusk. Art, marriage, family.\ \
- The Copenhagen Trilogy: a masterful piece of confessional writing.\ \
- Painting Time: for everyone with art school trauma.\ \
- Mona: the third act of this short novel is incredible.\ \ \ \ \ \ \
- Monstrilio: literary horror with a monster metaphor.\ \
- In the Dream House: the most original memoir I’ve ever read.\ \
- Hot Milk: rage, myth, modernity!\ \
- Monarch: cryptic and weird, Jungian and eccentric.\ \
- Death by Landscape: an incredible essay collection about the age of extinction.\ \
- Vanishing Twins: marriage, queerness, LA.\ \
- The Shame: internet obsession and envy.\ \
- Braiding Sweetgrass: sacred Indigenous nature wisdom.\ \
- Sarahland: maybe my favorite short story collection ever.\ \
- The Pisces: classic Broder, still her most memorable to me.\ \ \ \ \ \ \
- Bluets: there’s no one like Nelson, a genre busting legend.\ \
- The Days of Abandonment: unhinged Ferrante is my favorite Ferrante.\ \
- Boulder: motherhood, thankless identities, freedom.\ \
- Emergent Strategy: society-help to craft the collective future we deserve.\ \
- Paradise Rot: horror and wonder, hyper-sensual.\ \
- Dogs of Summer: 90’s queer girlhood expertly depicted.\ \
- The Book of Ayn: radical selfishness and ego-death in our modern age.\ \
- Y/N: the extremities of fan culture, a lucid fever dream.\ \
- Fake Accounts: a precise skewering of internet culture.\ \
- Brutes: girlhood is horror!!!\ \ \ \ \
- Tender is the Flesh: we love a cannibalism plot.\ \
- Something New Under the Sun: a darkly satirical take on our ecological reality.\ \
- Normal People: it was a cultural reset.\ \
- The Hard Crowd: Kushner is one of my favorite thinkers, I love this collection.\ \
- Hamnet: transportive, the only book that could get me to care about Shakespeare.\ \
- Revenge of the Scapegoat: familial trauma, chronic illness, academic labor.\ \
- The Goodby People: post-Manson, pre-Disney Los Angeles.\ \
- The Seas: a perfect, sparkling coming of age novel.\ \
- They: an uncanny depiction of artistic suppression and its consequences.\ \
- The Deeper the Water the Uglier the Fish: sisters, abuse, mental illness.\ \ \ \ That's all for today! Love you, mean it!](https://sunnysbooktruck.binderybooks.com/item/JJficBy182vkmlZBITvZ/)
Sunny's Top 100 Books of the 21st Century
Girls and gays edition
27 books
16
Boundless Press\ \ Jananie\ \ • Dec 31 2022
every book i read in 2022 rated & reviewed in 1 sentence
join as a channel member to get access to perks: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJn0v3OAEAX3-V4crjcHtRA/join
💌 for business/sponsorship inquiries please contact eric@smallscreenmarketing.com 💌 for all other inquiries please contact me at thisstoryaintover@gmail.com
faqs 🤍 how do you pronounce your name? - my name is Jananie—pronounced JEN-nah-nee (like a knee!)
🤍 what's your background/ethnicity/etc? - both my parents are Sri Lankan Tamil, and I was born and raised in Canada!
🤍 what is your job? - aside from youtube I also work in product marketing!
63 books
Boundless Press\ \ Jananie\ \ • Sep 16 2022
all 24 books i read this summer ✨ reading wrapup
join me as I breakdown all 24 books I read this summer!! let me know what your favourite book you read this summer was! 🥰
other places to find me 🤍 my website: https://www.jananiekvelu.com/ 🤍 my series # EpicBookRecs on the Epic Reads Channel: https://bit.ly/2XziOfz
💌 for business/sponsorship inquiries please contact eric@smallscreenmarketing.com 💌 for all other inquiries please contact me at thisstoryaintover@gmail.com
faqs 🤍 how do you pronounce your name? - my name is Jananie—pronounced JEN-nah-nee (like a knee!)
🤍 what's your background/ethnicity/etc? - both my parents are Sri Lankan Tamil, and I was born and raised in Canada!
🤍 what is your job? - aside from youtube I also work in product marketing!
24 books
Boundless Press\ \ Jananie\ \ • Aug 27 2022
Reading That Girl Books from TikTok
For 16 free meals with HelloFresh across 7 boxes AND 3 free gifts, use code JANANIE16 at https://bit.ly/3vEXTqV
Go check out the creators I mentioned 💗 @MinaReads @alyxandriaang
🤍 timestamps ↳ 0:00 Intro ↳ 7:10 The books ↳ 9:43 Luster ↳ 15:18 Disorientation ↳ 20:38 You Exist Too Much ↳ 26:09 Defining what a hot sad girl book is
other places to find me 🤍 my website: https://www.jananiekvelu.com/ 🤍 my series # EpicBookRecs on the Epic Reads Channel: https://bit.ly/2XziOfz
💌 for business/sponsorship inquiries please contact eric@smallscreenmarketing.com 💌 for all other inquiries please contact me at thisstoryaintover@gmail.com
faqs 🤍 how do you pronounce your name? - my name is Jananie—pronounced JEN-nah-nee (like a knee!)
🤍 what's your background/ethnicity/etc? - both my parents are Sri Lankan Tamil, and I was born and raised in Canada!
🤍 what is your job? - aside from youtube I also work in product marketing!
3 books