Raven Leilani's Luster is one hell of a debut novel. Her style of prose is so brutally visceral, voluble and effusive, yet the sentences are so precise. The specificity is astounding, even in those fleeting moments in everyday life so easy to glaze over.

The candour of her calamitous key protagonist is endearing from the off. Edie is a young black woman who aspires to make art – earnestly so, as Leilani has said – but is constantly teetering on the precipice of failure. She struggles to make ends meet and clings on to her cockroach-infested apartment. Edie also has a knack for self-sabotage. After losing her demeaning job in a publishing company, she joins the gig economy and lands headfirst in a customer's cheesecake.