Confusing Disrespect With Intimacy

A Closer Look Into "Luster" by Raven Leilani (Part 2)

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The Book

“Luster” by Raven Leilani is slightly different to the books that I would usually discuss. In fact, this is the second time I’m looking into this narrative, although it’s more through the lens of the character’s journey rather than the overall arc of the story.

This fiction read has an edge to it (which I love). It challenges the readers to confront an uncomfortable narrative through the eyes of the protagonist, in a stylised form of writing. In many ways, the paragraphs are fragmented, stories are incomplete, and reveals little while still giving just enough information for context on her life. Looking closely, the writing represented how our protagonist, Edie, was received by the world; invisible and mostly on the periphery without a true sense of belonging.

I won’t say that this read was necessarily something that I found inspirational, in fact it was a deeply uncomfortable book to read. But I also found it compelling. Not just in the way that the writing was artistically presented, but also how much awareness we can gain through something that’s so psychologically involved. Sometimes what moves us in the right direction is the discomfort we feel when we’re looking at the wrong direction.

There were so many points in the story that really broke my heart for the protagonist. It felt to me that she was so used to the trauma she experienced that it shaped her baseline of understanding. This is what she believed her life amounted to and what she deserved, which left her without many goals for the future. Much of her focus also centered men who, from my point of view, didn’t offer her very much.

Leilani is so good at capturing her character’s experiences and weaving that into the writing. As a reader I felt that I wasn’t just on the outside looking in, but I was actively living through some of the protagonist’s internal processing by having so much remain unfinished and disjointed. It prompted me to question what it means to feel so inadequate that we would allow people to mistreat us.

• Is it a form of regaining control?

• Is it that we simply accept the life that we are given when it’s all too much?

• Is it just that we can become so used to that version of life that we don’t believe that it can be any different?

Photo by Poppie Pack on Unsplash

“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

Our emotions can be the driver behind our decisions, and when those aren’t balanced, we may find ourselves making decisions that are out of alignment. The book shows us how a person raised without consistent guidance or emotional reflection becomes someone who interprets connection through fragments. Her identity, like the writing in the book itself, is made of unfinished sentences and almost-belongings. It’s not that she doesn’t want wholeness; it’s that she was never taught how to experience it.

I wondered if the character was aware that there are people who experience love and belonging, and that she was allowed to want that experience for herself too. Every individual can and should experience love and belonging. It requires a little more effort and information, of course, especially when we’re not born into an environment that actively teaches and embodies that form of nurturing. However, there are so many ways in which we can become aware of how other people are going through life.

Whether it’s by observing peers, healthy relationship dynamics, or even seeing how people interact online. The resources are there for us when we’re consciously looking for them. Even so much as just acknowledging the distinction can be a point of healing. At the very least, it puts us at the forefront of our healing journey. It may even give us something to look forward too when we’re feeling optimistic.

Choosing to heal doesn’t just make us feel better, but it also gives us the tools we need to eventually grow into the person we intentionally want to become. To experience the version of life that lights us up, not the one that keeps us in a loop of disappointment. Choosing that journey means you have the chance to live the life you want, not just have the life you were [maybe] given.

The Closest Form of Intimacy

From the first page, Edie is presented as a woman standing just outside every circle she wishes to enter. She doesn’t quite belong anywhere: not in her childhood home, not among her peers, not at work, and certainly not in the home of the married man she becomes involved with. Her age, her finances, her trauma, and her ethnicity all function as barriers that repeatedly cast her as the “other.” She is so accustomed to existing on the margins that the reader can’t help but hope she will eventually claim a higher standard for herself. But she doesn’t – and that absence of awakening becomes part of the ache of the narrative.

This book was uncomfortable in the most revealing way; it forces you to consider how isolating life can become when no one ever teaches you what you’re allowed to want, what you’re worthy of, or what intimacy should actually feel like. Edie’s repeated lowering of her own standards creates the illusion that meaningless encounters are the closest she can get to intimacy. And in that void, she does what many women raised in scarcity do: she ‘makes a god out of a feeble man’. She elevates someone profoundly undeserving simply because his attention – however limited – momentarily interrupts her invisibility.

Ultimately, reading “Luster” made it painfully clear how important it is to have a community where your presence isn’t questioned, or where you’re fighting to be seen. But you’re loved, accepted and who you are is fully valued and acknowledged for who you are. Without that grounding, it’s too easy to misinterpret crumbs as devotion and to continue placing people on pedestals they never deserved in the first place.

You Are Not Your Past

The key message I extracted from the book is that when we grow up without steady mirrors – without people who help us understand our experiences and anchor our worth – we internalize the belief that we deserve very little, and then we behave that way. Our inner belief is shaped by those who disempowered us. Edie is not drawn to chaos for its own sake. She is drawn to intensity because it is the only thing that cuts through her numbness. She confuses volatility with intimacy because her early experiences taught her that support and safety are luxuries, not expectations. And so she keeps reaching for people who give her the bare minimum, because the bare minimum still feels like more than she had.

This book portrays a protagonist who has learned to ‘make gods out of feeble men.’ Putting that into psychological perspective, when you have lived in emotional isolation, even inconsistent affection can feel like devotion. Even a man with nothing truly meaningful to offer can look like a savior simply because he acknowledges you. Edie doesn’t pedestalise these men because he is extraordinary – she pedestalises him because she has been conditioned to see any moment of recognition as a lifeline.

The message of the book is not merely that Edie deserves more, but that many women are taught so early to expect less. So much so that we become fluent in elevating the unworthy. This book asks, with unsettling clarity: what happens to a woman’s life when her hunger, not her standards, becomes the loudest voice guiding her choices? In the end, Edie’s choices only debilitated her self-worth further.

Healing is painful, difficult, and will open our eyes to truths we may not be ready to acknowledge yet. But, it confronts us with the reality we need. In certain cases, it won’t just prevent us from living the reality that we’re currently in, but may even prevent it from becoming worse. Reading Edie’s story, I couldn’t imagine that her experience was helping lift her up. If anything it was reinforcing a narrative that was already keeping her in such a low state. With every relationship, she was not only applying extreme measures to be somewhat seen, but it also cost her psychologically and emotionally.

My Final Thoughts

Edie’s willingness to engage men who are fundamentally beneath the standard she deserves isn’t just about desire – it’s about survival patterns. She gravitates toward men who overestimate themselves because she has been conditioned to underestimate her own worth. These men are feeble, not in strength but in character: men whose self-importance is inflated, who rely on women’s emotional labor to feel substantial. In a world where Edie’s own identity feels fragmented, their false confidence initially looks like certainty. But as she moves through the broken, episodic chaos of the narrative, the truth becomes obvious: the fragmentation mirrors the emotional incoherence of the men she keeps attaching herself to.

The story feels disjointed because Edie herself is disjointed – no smooth arc, no false clarity, only the sharp edges of a woman learning in real time where she’s been selling herself short. Reading this book I want to emphasize that we have the opportunity to identify, acknowledge and grow from these types of thought patterns. If, like Edie, there have been moments where you’ve sold yourself short, it doesn’t have to stay that way. We can reclaim the shine that the word ‘luster’ represents, and instead of projecting it, we can create it for ourselves. We do this by finding our place and belonging. Recognizing that we may not be in full bloom yet, but that we have room to grow and should seek out opportunities that help challenge us in that respect.

Practicing self-awareness can be deeply confrontational at times, but it’s also a necessary aspect of growth. We cannot transform ourselves without coming into contact with the truth. It’s only from that standpoint that we can measure where we are, so that we can develop the steps necessary to determine how to get to where we want to go. Without that awareness, the desire to have better and the willingness to overcome challenges to get there, are simply distat dreams. We may not only find ourselves going in circles, but maybe also developing a baseline that we feel we can’t escape.

At the heart of it, learning to live on your own terms requires us to heal as much as we can. That’s true freedom - when we can make decisions that come from an aligned place, not just survival. Healing helps us establish a healthier baseline for our interactions with ourselves and others, and gives us the tools to be able to understand and acknowledge our emotions. That way, we make decisions that actually serve us in the long run; in terms of where we’d like to go, and how we’d like to get there. We’ll also stop confusing disrespect as a form of intimacy. It challenges our baseline and helps us connect to those that truly respect and love us.