Stay Home Book Club - Eating Books

August – Yellowface by R.F. Kuang

August 2023 – Yellowface by R.F. Kuang

February 2023 – Beloved by Toni Morrison

March 2022 – Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner

October 2021 – I’ll Be Gone in the Dark by Michelle McNamara

June 2021 – Call Me By Your Name by Andre Aciman

May 2021 – The Collected Schizophrenias by Esmé Weijun Wang

February 2021 – Luster by Raven Leilani

January 2021 – Writers & Lovers by Lily King

September 2020 – The City We Became by N.K. Jemisin

During the pandemic, when we were all forced to quarantine, I started Stay Home Book Club to encourage people to stay inside. Book selections range from fiction to nonfiction, essays to true crime, classic to contemporary. Considering how restrictive our lives were then, I wanted to offer an assortment of titles. Now that we are past quarantine, the book club allows me to do my two favorite things: Read. And stay home.

Join the book club: Use hashtag #StayHomeB00kClub and tag @eatingb00ks on social media to join the conversation. I will make several posts on Instagram throughout the month to talk about the book and you are welcome to participate in the discussion.

This page includes affiliate links for Bookshop.org. By purchasing, I will make a small commission and you will be supporting independent bookstores.

#StayHomeB00kClub

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macmillan gifted us all books last christmas (i mean, what else), and one of the books i chose was luster by raven leilani. it is now my february stay home book club pick 📖 ✨ this book was on countless best of lists, including @nytimes notable book of the year, winner of the kirkus prize and @center4fiction first novel prize among many other accolades.

synopsis: 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.

use hashtag #stayhomeb00kclub to read along and join the discussion 📖 will let this one run over into mid-march due to the late announcement.

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all problems with writing and performing come from fear. fear of exposure, fear of weakness, fear of lack of talent, fear of looking like a fool for trying, for even thinking you could write in the first place. it’s all fear. if we didn’t have fear, imagine the creativity in the world.” // lily king 🖊🤍

lily king has a gift for astute observation. there were many times that i nodded my head along while reading to whatever aside she just made, most done with cutting precision. this book is full of quotable passages on writing, creativity, grief, men, women, love, shame, etc. i enjoyed these moments the most.

my last review was a little harsh on our protagonist, and while i still have the same hang ups about her, i think my irritation stems from seeing a lot of myself in her. i’ve had similar strings of depression and anxiety and so many of her thoughts, actions, and coping mechanisms rang true. i still think this struggle between living creatively or getting a “real” job is a problem of her own making, but i warmed up to her by the end of it (once she became more decisive and less in her own head.) overall, this was a really enjoyable reading experience. i already look forward to seeking out more of lily king’s writing.

the ending was a little too perfectly wrapped up in a bow for my taste, but i am also a weirdo who likes downer endings. even so, it was nice to see her finally win after everything.

what did you think? #stayhomeb00kclub

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