Book 8 Luster and 2 Others

 

 

Luster by Raven Leilani fulfilled the category “Book You Can Read in One Sitting” for the PopSugar 2022 Reading Challenge. Once again, I overdid it and finished three books. They all were “meh.”

Luster was a book I included in last year’s challenge as a book about an artist. The novel has a main character who is very artistic. She works (at the start) for a publishing company, doing her art on the side. She gets involved with an older man, and things go downhill, roller coasting quickly. Edie has a voracious libido and finds herself out of a job because of it. Then she ends up living in the house of the man she’s having an affair with. And her life keeps thundering down a long, slippery slope.

The book also fits the category of “What the hell did I just read?” It was recommended to me by a coworker when I said I needed a book about an artist. When I told her I read it, she said, “Wow, huh?” I didn’t know what to say. The main character was young and rather unsympathetic. But her new situation was even more weird, living with this man and his wife and their child. Racial issues tried to intrude, but they seemed secondary to the main character. I think if the book was told from the adopted child of color’s point of view, we would’ve seen another story. My take on this title is “um, okay, sure.”

The next title I grabbed was an autobiography of Lauren Graham, Talking as Fast as I Can. I loved Gilmore Girls and her character Lorelei. I found the autobiography to be rather dry. The behind-the-scenes details and her career were interesting, but the book felt more like a history than a life story. I didn’t connect with her. It was funny and fun, but not remarkable.

Finally, I moved on to a classic, figuring the title would give me something great for the blog. Jonathan Livingston Seagull by Richard Bach was an interesting read. Kind of. I liked the beginning section of the book immensely. I loved that it was actually about a seagull! Jonathan’s journey to be something more was fantastic. If I’d been the editor, the story would have ended there. The novella, in later sections, becomes religious and high thinking. I don’t think I was ready for a view of Christianity as told by seagulls, but that’s me.

I still have two more books I could throw into this category, but I’ll stop here. Hopefully, no one is tired of my multiple book entries. C’est la vie!

I give Luster by Raven Leilani Four Dirty Paintbrushes because it was so…

I give Talking as Fast as I Can by Lauren Graham Four Cups of Coffee because it’s a theme.

And I give Jonathan Livingston Seagull by Richard Bach Four Shiny Rocks because that first section is something everyone should read.