Queenie

by Candice Carty-Williams

Hardcover, 330 pages

English language

Published by Gallery/Scout Press.

ISBN:: 978-1-5011-9601-0

(15 reviews)

Queenie Jenkins is a 25-year-old Jamaican British woman living in London, straddling two cultures and slotting neatly into neither. She works at a national newspaper, where she’s constantly forced to compare herself to her white middle class peers. After a messy break up from her long-term white boyfriend, Queenie seeks comfort in all the wrong places…including several hazardous men who do a good job of occupying brain space and a bad job of affirming self-worth.

As Queenie careens from one questionable decision to another, she finds herself wondering, “What are you doing? Why are you doing it? Who do you want to be?”—all of the questions today’s woman must face in a world trying to answer them for her.

5 editions

Serpina reviewed Queenie by Candice Carty-Williams

Review of 'Queenie' on 'Goodreads'

3 stars

How to review this book...
I do think it's a good book with a good message. Queenie is a 25 years old woman, who loses her boyfriend, job, one of her best girl friends and her dignity in a very short amount of time. Her life sucks, men are using her, she has to move back into her grandparent's house and all of this is coated with a thick layer of racism on top.
This is a good story, relatable in some parts and uncomfortably unrelatable in other parts (I'm a white woman). So why do I only give three stars? Because I hate contemporary stories. I dislike the genre and don't enjoy spending my time reading about normal people with normal problems.
If your job is bad, you better be a reaper. If your family is dysfunctional, your parents better be Lillith and the Archangel Gabriel. If your partner sucks, they better be a vampire, or at least a fae.
If I read books without any fantasy elements, they're usually at least some cozy mysteries.

But Queenie was a gift some Christmases ago and a) I plan to reduce my physical TBR this year significantly and b) in honor of Black History Month, I wanted to read it and I finished it, because I think the story deserves to be read, even though I don't like it much. I skimmed roughly two thirds of the book, but I followed the plot and the development. And if you like contemporary stories, I would recommend the book.

pithypants reviewed Queenie by Candice Carty-Williams

Review of 'Queenie' on 'Goodreads'

3 stars

Whelp. This was depressing. This came on my radar as a "Black version of Bridget Jones," so I went into it thinking it would be a rom-com of sorts. Alas: I totally (ignorantly) overlooked the additional baggage a Black protagonist is going to bring into a story like this. If you read it superficially, you would just think, "This woman has low self-esteem, makes terrible decisions, and has entirely too much random/dangerous sex." But the author does a good job showing the broader system/society that has shaped Queenie, and ends up somehow turning it into a story about healing and reclaimed power.

Eduardo Santiago reviewed Queenie by Candice Carty-Williams

Review of 'Queenie' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

There really ought to be a “stick with it, it gets better” warning sticker on some books: had I followed the one-hundred-minus-my-age rule I would’ve missed out on this gem. The first third was tedious: high-drama young woman with abandonment issues makes poor life choices, chronicles it with snark and sass but ultimately it’s just an uninteresting and sad story.

But my flight was canceled/rebooked. I had many more hours of travel, this was the only physical book I brought with me, and it was a library book with good references. (Plus, Carty-Williams’s writing is addictingly engaging.) I stuck with it and am grateful. Queenie redeems herself with grace: the other two-thirds are sweet, thoughtful, deeply moving—and relevant. Carty-Williams tackles abuse (physical and psychological), trauma, mental health, self-care and -love, and does so with tenderness and humor.