Luxe by Ashley Antoinette

By: Unknown on Tuesday, September 22, 2015

Title:  Luxe   
Author:  Ashley Antoinette
Publication Date:  September 8/15 by St. Martin's Press
Length:  352pgs
Genre:  women's fiction
Shelf:  review
Rating: ★★★★

Back Cover Blurb:

From the New York Times bestseller Ashley Antoinette, author of thePrada Plan series comes a boldly fierce and strikingly dramatic novel, Luxe.

Bleu Montclair knew as a young girl that she would one day escape the hard, unrelenting streets of Flint, Michigan, and when her desperate prayers are answered in the form of a scholarship to UCLA, Bleu knows she's struck gold. But soon after arriving, all her beautiful, bright dreams begin to fall apart. Endless temptations abound in the form of cars, clothes, booze, drugs, and Bleu cannot keep up. When her roommate gives her the opportunity to make a lot of money fast, Bleu goes all in-and heads straight down a path of violence and addiction that only her newest protector, Iman, can save her from.

My Review:

This story is raw & real. Antoinette draws readers deep into this world, chock full of dark undertones. But it is the realism of the story that drew me in. The realities of rape and drug addiction are prominent through. At the same time, Luxe is full of twists and turns that kept me on my toes. The novel itself was well written, allowing readers to flow through the story.

The characters that Antoinette creates are so emotional. Their stories are hard hitting. They’re the type of people that you can’t look away from, even if they live worlds away from you. Seeing Bleu fight and rise above her past was quite intriguing. The in depth development of her character, as well as her relationships was all encompassing. I definitely had mixed feelings about her decisions and actions, but that made Bleu all the more real for me.

This was definitely a captivating and hard hitting novel. It was full of the darkness of life and the hard hitting realities that many of us choose to ignore on a daily basis. Antoinette brings it all to life in a big and un-ignorable way.

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