20 best-selling fiction books like Luster by Raven Leilani

Cover of Luster by Raven Leilani

Luster

By: Raven Leilani

3.52

Format: 227 pages, Hardcover

Edie is just trying to survive. She’s messing up in her dead-end admin job in her all-white office,…

"Based on his liberal use of the semicolon, I just assumed this date would go well."

-Raven Leilani, Luster

"Based on his liberal use of the semicolon, I just assumed this date would go well."

-Raven Leilani, Luster

"I think of how keenly I've been wrong. I think of all the gods I have made out of feeble men."

-Raven Leilani, Luster

"I think of how keenly I've been wrong. I think of all the gods I have made out of feeble men."

-Raven Leilani, Luster

If you liked the fiction plot in Luster by Raven Leilani , here is a list of 20 books like this:

Cover of The Idiot by Elif Batuman

1. The Idiot

By: Elif Batuman

3.66

Format: 423 pages, Hardcover

A portrait of the artist as a young woman. A novel about not just discovering but inventing oneself… read more

Similar categories in Elif Batuman's The Idiot book and Raven Leilani's Luster

  • adult fiction
  • literary fiction
  • fiction
  • contemporary
  • novels
  • adult
  • audiobook
"For a while now, I have been conscious of a tension in my relationship with you,"

-Elif Batuman, The Idiot

"Lighting a match felt exciting and a little bit dangerous, and when the flame came into contact with the paper, it made a sound like the needle coming down on a record player—like the music was about…"

-Elif Batuman, The Idiot

"For the first time in my life, I couldn't think of anything I particularly wanted to study or to do. I still had the old idea of being a writer, but that was being, not doing. It didn't say what you …"

-Elif Batuman, The Idiot

"Suddenly it occurred to me that maybe the point of writing wasn't just to record something past but also to prolong the present, like in One Thousand and One Nights, to stretch out the time until the…"

-Elif Batuman, The Idiot

2. Eileen

By: Ottessa Moshfegh

3.81

Format: None pages, Hardcover

The Christmas season offers little cheer for Eileen Dunlop, an unassuming yet disturbed young woman… read more

Similar categories in Ottessa Moshfegh's Eileen book and Raven Leilani's Luster

Cover of Acts of Desperation by Megan Nolan

3. Acts of Desperation

By: Megan Nolan

3.74

Format: 288 pages, None

In the first scene of this provocative gut-punch of a novel, our unnamed narrator meets a magnetic … read more

Similar categories in Megan Nolan's Acts of Desperation book and Raven Leilani's Luster

  • romance
  • adult fiction
  • literary fiction
  • fiction
  • contemporary
  • novels
  • adult
  • audiobook
"You always think your pain is the most painful. You always think it's uniquely awful."

-Megan Nolan, Acts of Desperation

"I didn't want her near me, because she was the only one able to see me for what I was, but I couldn't lose her for the very same reason."

-Megan Nolan, Acts of Desperation

"You can't complain about feeling bad, about being depressed, if you aren't trying to sleep, trying to eat, trying to care about yourself."

-Megan Nolan, Acts of Desperation

"I made mistakes like this all the time, seeking affirmation from the very worst people, so that what I must have been after deep down was confirmation of the fears instead of their dismissals"

-Megan Nolan, Acts of Desperation

Cover of Rouge by Mona Awad

4. Rouge

By: Mona Awad

3.56

Format: 383 pages, Kindle Edition

From the critically acclaimed author of Bunny comes a horror-tinted, gothic fairy tale about a lone… read more

Similar categories in Mona Awad's Rouge book and Raven Leilani's Luster

  • literary fiction
  • fiction
  • contemporary
  • adult
  • audiobook
"If I had beauty, I decided then, I would never throw it away. I would never give it up."

-Mona Awad, Rouge

"I mean, we all have our dark days. Very dark days, sometimes. When our demons come out to play. No one lives entirely in the light, right?"

-Mona Awad, Rouge

"That I can’t protect you from my terrible places that I still go, can’t help but go because no one protected me, no one saved me, no one ever held out their hand and walked me away. But I’m trying to…"

-Mona Awad, Rouge

Cover of Our Wives Under the Sea by Julia Armfield

5. Our Wives Under the Sea

By: Julia Armfield

3.78

Format: 240 pages, Paperback

Miri thinks she has got her wife back, when Leah finally returns after a deep-sea mission that ende… read more

Similar categories in Julia Armfield's Our Wives Under the Sea book and Raven Leilani's Luster

  • literary fiction
  • fiction
  • contemporary
  • adult
  • audiobook
"El océano profundo es una casa embrujada: un lugar donde se mueven en la oscuridad cosas que no deberían existir."

-Julia Armfield, Our Wives Under the Sea

"She refused almost every aspect of my help, the way women will when they've been bred to accept little more than the baset civility."

-Julia Armfield, Our Wives Under the Sea

"I don't know why I expected you to read my mind,' I say, when I call back to leave her a message, 'I was just doing what I always do, assuming the world revolves around me."

-Julia Armfield, Our Wives Under the Sea

"The space around us is a claw half grasped, holding tight without quite crushing, and I wish, in the idle way I always wish these days, that I felt more confident in my ability to breathe."

-Julia Armfield, Our Wives Under the Sea

Cover of Penance by Eliza  Clark

6. Penance

By: Eliza Clark

3.90

Format: 336 pages, ebook

Do you know what happened already? Did you know her? Did you see it on the internet? Did you li… read more

Similar categories in Eliza Clark's Penance book and Raven Leilani's Luster

  • literary fiction
  • fiction
  • contemporary
  • adult
  • audiobook
"Do you know what happened to her already? Did you catch it in the papers? Are you local? Did you know her? Did you see it on the internet? Did some website the trawls local news for the worst details…"

-Eliza Clark, Penance

Cover of The Guest by Emma Cline

7. The Guest

By: Emma Cline

3.29

Format: 304 pages, Hardcover

A young woman pretends to be someone she isn't in this stunning novel by the New York Times bestsel… read more

Similar categories in Emma Cline's The Guest book and Raven Leilani's Luster

  • adult fiction
  • literary fiction
  • fiction
  • contemporary
  • novels
  • adult
  • audiobook
"Younger men had to make everything mean something, had to turn every choice and preference into a referendum on their personality."

-Emma Cline, The Guest

"He assumed her attention when he spoke. He had his insecurities, his anxieties. But underlying it all was the certainty that the world would be generous in its orientation toward him."

-Emma Cline, The Guest

"All the women in the show hated each other, hated each other so much, just so they could avoid hating their husbands. Only their little dogs, blinking from their laps, seemed real: they were the wome…"

-Emma Cline, The Guest

Cover of The Rachel Incident by Caroline O'Donoghue

8. The Rachel Incident

By: Caroline O'Donoghue

4.09

Format: 304 pages, Hardcover

A brilliantly funny novel about friends, lovers, Ireland in chaos, and a young woman desperately tr… read more

Similar categories in Caroline O'Donoghue's The Rachel Incident book and Raven Leilani's Luster

  • romance
  • literary fiction
  • fiction
  • contemporary
  • adult
  • audiobook
"I was twenty and I needed two things: to be in love and to be taken seriously."

-Caroline O'Donoghue, The Rachel Incident

"He was a doctor and I was supposed to take what he said seriously; but he was a dentist and my dad so I didn’t."

-Caroline O'Donoghue, The Rachel Incident

"It's not that we weren't capable of warmth as a family. But we were regularly seduced by the concept of being wronged."

-Caroline O'Donoghue, The Rachel Incident

"I thought of my parents as heads on Easter Island, and it took moving two miles away to realise they had been people all along."

-Caroline O'Donoghue, The Rachel Incident

Cover of I'm a Fan by Sheena Patel

9. I'm a Fan

By: Sheena Patel

3.32

Format: 207 pages, None

In I'm A Fan, a single speaker uses the story of their experience in a seemingly unequal, unfaithfu… read more

Similar categories in Sheena Patel's I'm a Fan book and Raven Leilani's Luster

  • romance
  • adult fiction
  • literary fiction
  • fiction
  • contemporary
  • novels
  • adult
  • audiobook
"It is toxic. I am familiar"

-Sheena Patel, I'm a Fan

"Happiness or safety. Or isn't that the same thing?"

-Sheena Patel, I'm a Fan

"I never came with him. I never felt safe enough to."

-Sheena Patel, I'm a Fan

"The world is made for couples. Even the unhappy ones."

-Sheena Patel, I'm a Fan

Cover of My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh

10. My Year of Rest and Relaxation

By: Ottessa Moshfegh

3.63

Format: 289 pages, Paperback

From one of our boldest, most celebrated new literary voices, a novel about a young woman’s efforts… read more

Similar categories in Ottessa Moshfegh's My Year of Rest and Relaxation book and Raven Leilani's Luster

  • adult fiction
  • literary fiction
  • fiction
  • contemporary
  • novels
  • adult
  • audiobook
"What next? I couldn't imagine."

-Ottessa Moshfegh, My Year of Rest and Relaxation

"I wasn't an insomniac, but I was miserable."

-Ottessa Moshfegh, My Year of Rest and Relaxation

"Life was repetitive, resonated at a low hum."

-Ottessa Moshfegh, My Year of Rest and Relaxation

"I just wanted to sleep all the time. I had a plan."

-Ottessa Moshfegh, My Year of Rest and Relaxation

Cover of Happy Hour by Marlowe Granados

11. Happy Hour

By: Marlowe Granados

3.50

Format: 280 pages, Paperback

With the verve and bite of My Year of Rest and Relaxation and the whip-smart, wisecracking sensibil… read more

Similar categories in Marlowe Granados's Happy Hour book and Raven Leilani's Luster

  • adult fiction
  • literary fiction
  • fiction
  • contemporary
  • novels
  • adult
  • audiobook
"Being unattached is exhausting."

-Marlowe Granados, Happy Hour

"being a muse is not for the weak"

-Marlowe Granados, Happy Hour

"Money was limited, but my taste was not."

-Marlowe Granados, Happy Hour

"isn't a vacation when you forget what day it is?"

-Marlowe Granados, Happy Hour

Cover of Big Swiss by Jen Beagin

12. Big Swiss

By: Jen Beagin

3.68

Format: 336 pages, Hardcover

Greta lives with her friend Sabine in an ancient Dutch farmhouse in Hudson, New York. The house is … read more

Similar categories in Jen Beagin's Big Swiss book and Raven Leilani's Luster

  • romance
  • adult fiction
  • literary fiction
  • fiction
  • contemporary
  • adult
  • audiobook
"¿Habla más de un idioma?"

-Jen Beagin, Big Swiss

"You bullied other bullies,"

-Jen Beagin, Big Swiss

"she’d always been less of a shit-talker and more of a shit-thinker"

-Jen Beagin, Big Swiss

"At least I know where the hell I am and what’s happening. Which way is north?"

-Jen Beagin, Big Swiss

Cover of Cleopatra and Frankenstein by Coco Mellors

13. Cleopatra and Frankenstein

By: Coco Mellors

3.74

Format: 384 pages, Hardcover

For readers of Modern Lovers and Conversations with Friends, an addictive, humorous, and poignant d… read more

Similar categories in Coco Mellors's Cleopatra and Frankenstein book and Raven Leilani's Luster

  • romance
  • adult fiction
  • literary fiction
  • fiction
  • contemporary
  • novels
  • adult
  • audiobook
"And you’re in love?"

-Coco Mellors, Cleopatra and Frankenstein

"People are like this too, you know,"

-Coco Mellors, Cleopatra and Frankenstein

"When the darkest part of you meets the darkest part of me, it creates light."

-Coco Mellors, Cleopatra and Frankenstein

"Cleo and Frank could not make each other happy, no matter how hard they’d tried."

-Coco Mellors, Cleopatra and Frankenstein

Cover of Boy Parts by Eliza  Clark

14. Boy Parts

By: Eliza Clark

3.77

Format: 304 pages, ebook

Irina obsessively takes explicit photographs of the average-looking men she persuades to model for … read more

Similar categories in Eliza Clark's Boy Parts book and Raven Leilani's Luster

  • literary fiction
  • fiction
  • contemporary
  • adult
  • audiobook
"Was it my idea to have him hurt me, or did he just let me think it was?"

-Eliza Clark, Boy Parts

"My mam always used to tell me that you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar. And Eddie from Tesco is a fly, but he's got a taste for vinegar. It's like vinegar is all he's ever had from peop…"

-Eliza Clark, Boy Parts

"You want to think you're not like other women, but you are, you know. You're still... that's still how the rest of the world, how men are going to see you. Like, I know you hate labels, but you like.…"

-Eliza Clark, Boy Parts

"Do you like it rough? I think so. I think I must. Men are rough, aren't they? Have I always had a taste for rough stuff, or did I acquire that? In the back of Lesley's car, on the floor of a friend's…"

-Eliza Clark, Boy Parts

Cover of Open Water by Caleb Azumah Nelson

15. Open Water

By: Caleb Azumah Nelson

4.04

Format: 145 pages, Hardcover

Two young people meet at a pub in South East London. Both are Black British, both won scholarships … read more

Similar categories in Caleb Azumah Nelson's Open Water book and Raven Leilani's Luster

  • romance
  • adult fiction
  • literary fiction
  • race
  • fiction
  • contemporary
  • novels
  • adult
  • audiobook
"Trauma makes you considerate."

-Caleb Azumah Nelson, Open Water

"You are more than the sum of your traumas"

-Caleb Azumah Nelson, Open Water

"You do not want to die before you can live"

-Caleb Azumah Nelson, Open Water

"...love was not always synonymous with care."

-Caleb Azumah Nelson, Open Water

Cover of Milk Fed by Melissa Broder

16. Milk Fed

By: Melissa Broder

3.57

Format: 304 pages, Hardcover

A scathingly funny, wildly erotic, and fiercely imaginative story about food, sex, and god from the… read more

Similar categories in Melissa Broder's Milk Fed book and Raven Leilani's Luster

  • romance
  • literary fiction
  • fiction
  • contemporary
  • adult
  • audiobook
"This interplay between hope and reality was also a part of the mourning."

-Melissa Broder, Milk Fed

"There are emanations of god we can’t even see. What’s important is that you feel it."

-Melissa Broder, Milk Fed

"Life was a lot less bleak when you were staring straight down the barrel of a burrito."

-Melissa Broder, Milk Fed

"I wanted a love contingent on nothing finite. I wanted a love without end. Everyone was always saying you had to give it to yourself. Self-love, self-love."

-Melissa Broder, Milk Fed

Cover of Acts of Service by Lillian Fishman

17. Acts of Service

By: Lillian Fishman

3.08

Format: 240 pages, Hardcover

A provocative debut of sex and sexuality as a twentysomething New Yorker pursues a sexual freedom t… read more

Similar categories in Lillian Fishman's Acts of Service book and Raven Leilani's Luster

  • romance
  • literary fiction
  • fiction
  • contemporary
  • novels
  • adult
  • audiobook
"We love what disturbs us if it chooses us and tell us how we matter."

-Lillian Fishman, Acts of Service

"How can a body be safe when it's only a body? How can we expect that no stranger will be tempted to torch an empty house?"

-Lillian Fishman, Acts of Service

"Somehow, [...] I grew up talking about sex as this thing women should have however they wanted. Sexual freedom as this great sort of penacle beyond morality, or anything provincial. So I am supposed …"

-Lillian Fishman, Acts of Service

Cover of Ripe by Sarah Rose Etter

18. Ripe

By: Sarah Rose Etter

3.63

Format: 288 pages, Hardcover

A year into her dream job at a cutthroat Silicon Valley startup, Cassie finds herself trapped in a … read more

Similar categories in Sarah Rose Etter's Ripe book and Raven Leilani's Luster

  • adult fiction
  • literary fiction
  • fiction
  • contemporary
  • adult
  • audiobook
"The open office floor plan is a form of strangulation."

-Sarah Rose Etter, Ripe

"Maybe there must always be two of us—our real selves and the ones we create to survive in the world as it is."

-Sarah Rose Etter, Ripe

"When you're young, every part of life seems big and monumental. Once older you can see it for what it is: smaller pieces of a larger game you have no choice but to play."

-Sarah Rose Etter, Ripe

"If the brain is elastic and memory is faulty, maybe all of these stories are wrong. Maybe it happened a different way altogether. Maybe I was happy and I just forget that now."

-Sarah Rose Etter, Ripe

Cover of Luster by Raven Leilani

19. Luster

By: Raven Leilani

3.52

Format: 227 pages, Hardcover

Edie is just trying to survive. She’s messing up in her dead-end admin job in her all-white office,… read more

Similar categories in Raven Leilani's Luster book and Raven Leilani's Luster

  • romance
  • adult fiction
  • literary fiction
  • race
  • adult
  • fiction
  • contemporary
  • novels
  • african american
  • audiobook
"Based on his liberal use of the semicolon, I just assumed this date would go well."

-Raven Leilani, Luster

"I think of how keenly I've been wrong. I think of all the gods I have made out of feeble men."

-Raven Leilani, Luster

"The first time we have sex, we are both fully clothed, at our desks during working hours, bathed in blue computer light."

-Raven Leilani, Luster

"I am inclined to pray, but on principle, I don't. God is not for women. He is for the fruit. He makes you want and he makes you wicked, and while you sleep, he plants a seed in your womb that will be…"

-Raven Leilani, Luster

Cover of Exciting Times by Naoise Dolan

20. Exciting Times

By: Naoise Dolan

3.23

Format: 243 pages, Hardcover

An intimate, bracingly intelligent debut novel about a millennial Irish expat who becomes entangled… read more

Similar categories in Naoise Dolan's Exciting Times book and Raven Leilani's Luster

  • romance
  • literary fiction
  • fiction
  • contemporary
  • adult
  • audiobook
"Eunice Fong said: “Miss, are you sick?"

-Naoise Dolan, Exciting Times

"My wanting to cry was a reflection mainly of my social conscience"

-Naoise Dolan, Exciting Times

"It's normal to miss your family,' he said. I said that was why I didn't"

-Naoise Dolan, Exciting Times

"I wondered which other phrases he´d plucked. I felt like a bird he kept for quills."

-Naoise Dolan, Exciting Times

Cover of Animal by Lisa Taddeo

21. Animal

By: Lisa Taddeo

3.71

Format: 336 pages, Hardcover

Honestly, sometimes I think it’s the only recourse. Killing men in times like these.Joan has spent … read more

Similar categories in Lisa Taddeo's Animal book and Raven Leilani's Luster

  • literary fiction
  • fiction
  • contemporary
  • adult
  • audiobook
"Let me tell you something, he said, looking into my eyes like an asshole."

-Lisa Taddeo, Animal

"When someone suffocates you with what they believe is love, even as you feel your air supply being cut off, you at least feel embraced."

-Lisa Taddeo, Animal

"The men noticed I'd stopped playing. Men are never okay when you stop. I had the fear of angering a man. Of not being an amenable woman. I had the fear of being murdered."

-Lisa Taddeo, Animal

"He looked a little wounded, and I realized that true power came from not caring about anyone. That was the last time I would sleep with a man. I was through with the gender."

-Lisa Taddeo, Animal

20 Top contemporary books like Luster by Raven Leilani

Transform Your Habits

The Idiot

Elif Batuman

3.66

Transform Your Habits

Acts of Desperation

Megan Nolan

3.74

Transform Your Habits

Rouge

Mona Awad

3.56

Transform Your Habits

Our Wives Under the Sea

Julia Armfield

3.78

View all the books

20 Top fiction books like Boy Parts by Eliza Clark

Transform Your Habits

I Who Have Never Known Men

Ros Schwartz , Jacqueline Harpman

4.22

Transform Your Habits

Acts of Desperation

Megan Nolan

3.74

Transform Your Habits

Rouge

Mona Awad

3.56

Transform Your Habits

Our Wives Under the Sea

Julia Armfield

3.78

View all the books

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