User Reviews
Rating: really liked it
He put a hand on my thigh and moved it higher, digging his nails into my skin. That'll be a pair of tights gone.
This book is a bit deceiving. Queenie is such a funny and lovable character, with what I think of as a very British sense of humour. The book opens with multiple scenes that made me laugh and the author quickly builds up a warm and hilarious dynamic between Queenie and her girlfriends ("the Corgis"), and between Queenie and her Jamaican grandparents. This is everything I would have expected from a book being compared to Bridget Jones's Diary.
Which is why I feel like I need to issue a warning:
this book goes to some really dark places. Bridget Jones is klutzy and embarrassing; Queenie is a far more complex and real character. She is dealing with mental health issues and a post-relationship breakdown. The decisions she makes - like having unprotected sex with lots of different men - are clearly not healthy.
I know some readers will feel frustrated with her behaviour at times, but I also think the author never portrays it as a good thing, and instead honestly portrays a young woman dealing with severe anxiety in the only way she feels she can. I think it's a good example of some very serious issues being wrapped up in a book that is full of humour to balance out the sadness.
Queenie has just broken up with her long-term boyfriend Tom, who is white. Through flashbacks, we soon learn that their relationship was pretty messed up from the start, with Tom refusing to defend her against his family's casual racism. Queenie doesn't see it that way, though. This break-up has hit her hard. She responds to it by hooking up with guys and having various dating/sexual encounters that are a mixture of hilarious and cringy.
Carty-Williams explores dating, anxiety and racism through the eyes of a modern-day Jamaican Brit, and she does it all with a sense of humour and no aversion to cringe factor. Oversharing at inappropriate moments, dating disasters, and witty badass girlfriends are just some of the sources of hilarity in this book. I think the serious issues are actually more impactful because of their juxtaposition with the humour and friendship.
No, this isn't another Bridget Jones's Diary, but then we're not living in the 90s anymore either. Queenie is bolder, more complicated, more diverse and - ultimately - more feminist. And I see nothing to complain about in that.
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Rating: really liked it
This is the kind of novel whose excellence sneaks up on you. The beginning is kind of rocky and I wasn't sure where the book was going but then it gets great and unputdownable and I held my breath reading as fast as I could to see what would happen to Queenie. This is an amazing novel about what it means to be a black girl whose world is falling apart and needs to find the strength to put it back together. There is so much ground covered here from dealing with anxiety and self-loathing to complicated families and learning to let go of things and people that won't serve you well. And Queenie is the kind of narrator you cannot help but root for even as she makes infuriating choices. Wonderful, wonderful novel full of charm and wit and warmth and energy. Check it out.
Rating: really liked it
Queenie is the newest debut sensation coming out of the UK by Candace Carte-Williams. Sadly it was not my cup of tea for a few reasons. Firstly the good things about the book are the writing, especially the natural dialogue, and the fact that Queenie does get that mental health care that she so desperately needs. However as a whole this book is based on too many black women stereotypes. I really feel the author should have toned that down. I'm also not enjoying that this book is being pitched as the black Bridget Jones Diary. These two books aren't alike at all. Queen was not a comedy for me. I feel like it's an exploration of how a black woman watching abuse as a child and being abused affect her choices of men later on. The book's concentration on Queenie's promiscuous lifestyle, at times was hard to read and certainly was not funny. I would even say it could be triggering to some readers. Since the book is being pitched as humorous in the UK I had to ask myself who the target audience is supposed to be. The author doesn't seem to disagree with that pitch because I haven't seen her say the contrary. I also feel the cover was another way to attract black women to want to read Queen, although knowing what's in between the covers, I believe many black women would pass on it. I don't recommend it.
Rating: really liked it
5 shiny, rebellious, beautiful stars!
As soon as I started this book, I thought I was having a light reading. Because the book is advertised as modern version of Bridget Jones. But after a few pages later, I realized this is deeper, more heart wrenching, darker and twisted story of a young woman who is looking for a tree branch to not fall down from a cliff!
Queenie has really a bad year but it’s not about her broken heart after her breakup or time out with her longtime boyfriend Tom. This is such a beginning of domino falling!
After her breakup, she realizes that she just blocks everything about her past and as seems like she has a job she’s been dreaming for so long and boyfriend who’s ready for longtime commitment do not bring her happiness.
But the breakup is the first wake up call which pushes her make so many wrong decisions about meaningless one night stands.
Then she loses one of her best friends’ trust( it isn’t her fault actually, only wrong things about the situation are choosing wrong besties and wrong f*ckbuddies), she gets rejected by all three men she’s hooked up, she loses her job. Finally she understands that she was already lost from the beginning. She doesn’t feel like she belongs to someone or somewhere.
She never thinks she deserves to be loved or she deserves good things in life. Now when she sees her own rock bottom, it’s time to discover her strengths and weaknesses, learn how to love and forgive herself and achieve to face her past demons!
This book is not only a typical love life story of a Jamaican English woman’s in mid-twenties. It’s about discovery of your own potential, learning what you want from the life, respecting yourself! It’s about friendship! It’s about forgiveness! It’s about family!
Sometimes you hate Queenie, sometimes you feel sorry for her but mostly you understand her ! She’s flawed, she’s broken, she’s confused but she’s strong enough to find her way and embrace her loved ones tightly to not fall from a cliff, again!
I really enjoyed her story and this is a great debut ! I love to read the upcoming book of this writer!
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Rating: really liked it
I don’t know where to start with this book. It’s the most offensive depiction of a black woman I have ever read. She is depicted as lazy, promiscuous, desperate, and broke. The first chapter was fine and then the rest was just awful.
A lot of the reviews I have seen are talking about Queenie being a hot mess. Isn’t that how most black women are contrived? Either that or angry black women. I wouldn’t say Queenie is a hot mess; I would just stay that she is a woman who hates herself. I don’t mind the interracial dating at all, I do it too, but I do mind the way that she just accepts the microaggressions in her relationships and fetishization that her sexual partners put her through. But you teach people how to treat you and she was letting anyone treat her anyway that they would like.
The way that the story is framed is problematic from the start because she is heartbroken about her boyfriend who is making her move out of their shared apartment. The same boyfriend who did not stand up for her when his uncle said a racial slur, who sent her home when she asked him why he wasn’t sticking up for her against the uncle when she said that what he said wasn’t acceptable, the same boyfriend who did not text her or speak to her for three months after asking for a break. Her New Year's Resolutions are about being nicer to people and getting back with Tom. She hasn’t been mean to anyone in this book. She literally has let people use her like a doormat. She believes she is beyond repair, creativity is not for her, she just negs herself into sleeping with men who do not care about her; all the while ruining her career over a heartbreak when Tom doesn’t care about her. She chases men who could never love her because she doesn’t love herself.
Look, I get trying to make black women seem vulnerable and fragile because that is the opposite of the media portrays but I don’t understand why this Queenie needed to be that person without any redeeming qualities. She is 25 years old even though she clearly has PTSD, she doesn’t talk about her past with anyone so that she can get past it. I understand the Jamaican against therapy thing. I’m Jamaican American; therapy is very much looked down on, but Queenie is an adult living in a first world country, she has deviated in every other way from her roots, why not this as well? And even when she does go to therapy, it’s not something she chooses; it’s recommended and she just allows it happen. Just like she allows herself to be sexual degraded and abused by someone who won’t even allow her to touch him; she is having sex with these guys unprotected. Reading this was traumatizing.
Every sentence seems to denigrate her. Writing in her notebook is soiling it, throwing some glitter on her face instead of taking care of herself. She is off for a long holiday and she just binges and cleans up after other people.
Slipping the black lives matter stuff in this narrative feels so forced. She won’t even speak up when she is given the chance and at the same time is trying to write about the police killings in America. The author alludes to Queenie being overlooked at work because she is black. But
SHE DOESN’T DO ANY WORK. She has a full-on hour argument with one of her dates after going home with him about racism. She’s walking out because he calls her chocolate and the whole scene just devolves from there.
The author discusses why Queenie doesn’t date black men for a second. For one sentence. Why bother give an explanation at all if you are going to gloss over it? It can just be a preference and that’s fine too, but don’t tell your readers it’s because of anxiety or abuse. It can hardly be surmised that a person will steer clear of an entire race of people because childhood trauma with one person. I mean, come on.
Characters: Cassandra is a bad friend...Seriously asking if a restaurant is black enough and you make her the voice of reason who then turns her back on Queenie for sleeping with her boyfriend. She comes back at the end of the book, doesn’t even apologize, insults Queenie for being accepting and grown up about forgiving her and then just is accepted back into the party. The things that Cassandra said would not be forgivable,
AT ALL. But we are just accepting this. It happens so close to the end of the book that it just feels like lazy writing and further evidence that Queenie has no respect for herself.
Darcy is the only work friend who is not awful and yet we get no character development for her. She is simply a non-problematic foil for Queenie.
Kyazike is a good friend but I feel like the author uses her to highlight “blackness”; the stereotypes are strong and exaggerated with this one.
All of the men - I don’t know what kind of propaganda this is, but there was not a single male of dating age who was decent in this book. Tom is awful for the aforementioned reasons(see paragraph 3), Ted is a married man with a pregnant wife who has sex with Queenie in the office toilets and then hounds her until he finally corners her to talk to her and then writes her a letter demanding that she not tell his wife. Adi fetishizes her body and has sex with her and then bad mouths her in front of his wife in the street. Guy is in a relationship with Cassandra and has sex with Queenie so roughly that the clinic she goes to thinks that she’s been sexually abused. Courtney, the guy Queenie goes on a date with after she starts therapy, is an all lives matter guy who believes in reverse racism. Even Sid the drummer has difficulty with understanding the word no.
Seriously. What is this? The Ending Everything just get wrapped up; which Queenie literally recounts in the bathroom mirror at the end of the book. I’m glad she doesn’t end up with a guy at the end, but it’s not for lack of trying. It’s honestly odd that even at the end, she has to be told not to call her ex, who has a girlfriend and even though she says “he made things better”, he never did. In the end, this is a book that I wouldn’t recommend to anyone.
I’m not saying that the story didn’t need to be told, but not this way. I am at a lot for words as to why this was so well received. This book is an embarrassment. This book is a dangerous thing. This book could have been something that black women could read and feel inspired to change and grow and soar. It could have inspired black women to make a change in their lives but I couldn’t sympathize or empathize with Queenie because the character was weak and coddled by the people around her. She didn’t grow because everything works out in the end and she has no real consequences for her actions.
It’s a no from me. 1 star.
2019 POPSUGAR Reading Challenge - A own voices book
2019 ATY Challenge - A book where the author’s name contains A, T, and Y
Rating: really liked it
This book is being pitches as Bridget Jones Diary meets Americanah, but it feels more like Bridget Jones Diary meets Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine with a black lead. I had really conflicted feelings the entire time while reading this book, but I will say that it completely sucked me in and I found it completely compelling, even though I basically spent the entire book wanting to yell at Queenie.
Rating: really liked it
A tiresome novel that made me cranky. Everything about
Queenie screams middle school angst. Queenie and her crew think and act like 12 year olds trapped in 25 year old bodies. Take away some of the sex, replace their jobs with 7th grade classes and you have the tedious dramas of adolescence. I liked the clever use of texts. That's about it.
Rating: really liked it
Caution: Rated R for adult content 🔥🔥🔥
This book follows Queenie, a girl struggling with her mental health after a breakup. While I empathized with her anxiety troubles, there were other parts that just had my head shaking. 🤔 She struggles to be alone and she sleeps around, a lot. Her escapades are obviously careless and don’t always turn out so well. 😬 Truthfully, she’s a train wreck. Can we all agree, that unprotected casual sex in 2020 is just plain stupid? 🤦🏼♀️
Rating: really liked it
Why I love it
by Jojo Moyes
I have to confess I have a prior interest in
Queenie’s author, Candice Carty-Williams. A few years ago, I created a competition offering up my cottage to an aspiring writer in need of time and space to complete their project. Candice was the first winner, chosen from more than 600 applicants. She had never driven outside London before, and it took her six hours to make a two hour journey (the kind of thing that would happen to her character, Queenie!), but when she arrived she declined a cup of tea and went straight to work—she was that determined to make the most out of the opportunity.
Fast forward two and a half years;
Queenie is one of the most anticipated books of the year. It grabbed me from the opening chapter because it did something that happens far too seldom—it took me into a world I didn’t know: that of a 25 year-old black woman living in London, straddling two cultures and slotting neatly into neither. Queenie is fresh and flawed and she made me wince and made me laugh and made me think.
Candice is a unique writer. Even that 500-word contest entry told me there was something special about her. After re-reading the finished work I knew I had been right. I’m excited to see
Queenie meet a wider audience, and to see Candice’s star really shine. We need more voices like hers.
Read more at: https://bookofthemonth.com/queenie-442
Rating: really liked it
Whoever is trying to sell this book as a Bridget Jones alike is misleading people.
If you watch as much British TV, as I do, you would get a better idea if you imagine Queenie as a cross between "Fleabag" and "Chewing Gum."
I wouldn't want you to open this book and expect a lighthearted dating comedy with a ditzy heroine who finds love in the end. What you will find is a woman dealing with her past trauma and her recent breakup by engaging in terrible sex with terrible men, which eventually leads her to a mental breakdown. Does this sound like a Bridget Jones type of fun? I didn't think so.
Queenie is both easy to read (its writing style is very accessible) and also hard to read (Queenie puts herself in just horrendous situations). There is some humor, and good British humor that appeals to me on many levels, and only that humor saves this novel from being a complete pit of misery.
Read this for observations about racism, abuse and mental illness stigma. The thing that stuck with me the most is Queenie's experience of men who view her as nothing but a sex object, something to enact their sex fantasies upon. Their unwillingness to connect with her and see her as a person is soul-crushing.
Rating: really liked it
3.5 stars.
As this debut novel by Candice Carty-Williams opens Queenie is not in a good place. She’s a twenty five year black woman living in London, writing articles that she considers trivial for a London magazine. She’s also on a very much unwanted relationship break from her long term boyfriend Tom.
This emotional void dictates her life and we watch with mounting disbelief as she makes bad decision after bad decision, her life spiralling out of control.
‘I wanted to feel good about myself. I was so far from that, so far from being who I was, but I couldn’t seem to stop myself from self-destructing.’
The atmosphere of the novel, however, is breezy and humorous, which makes the dark, shocking bits even more wince inducing when they pop up, and they pop up very often.
I did sometimes find these changes in tone strange and there were times amidst the litany of gynaecological detail, weird abusive sexual encounters and bizarre behaviour that I felt I’d strolled into a party I hadn’t been invited to.
The characterisation of Queenie and her female friends was really effective, they lived and breathed, were warm, funny, wise and supportive. The male characters less so. They were mostly cartoonish stereotypes, thinly drawn plot devises (with one or two exceptions).
On top of her emotional disasters Queenie also has to deal with the everyday racism of those around her. Not always overt and aggressive but often subtle, unthinking, insensitive or ignorant. I was surprised at first at the level of incidents that she encounters, but then after some thought, realised that sadly, I wasn’t that surprised at all.
By the end I was cheering for Queenie and despite some reservations about the novel, I became attached to her character and really wanted things to work out.
When I look back at this book I’m not sure that all of the humour worked, but it did develop into a poignant and thought provoking read, taking us a long way to understanding Queenie and her difficult journey.
Rating: really liked it
Rating 4.75
I loved this book. Such an unexpected gem of a read. I went into this one blind. I knew nothing about it, I read no reviews. I frequently check out my library for new audio books. I saw this bold orange cover of a book called Queenie. It drew me in. I listened to a sample of the audio. A heavy accent by the narrator. It drew me in. I grabbed a copy of the audio and jumped right in.
Queenie is a hot mess. She's a 26 year old Jamaican woman, living in London, and just completely a mess. We meet her as she is taking a 'break' from her live-in boyfriend, which HE wants, not her. He asks her to move out and by this point, she's already on a downward spiral. She can't face reality. She's out of control. She puts herself in a few dangerous situations (I think). She's got no money, living in a nasty flat with a few flatmates, she's not there for her job, she lets the WORST men abuse her, she has issues with how people see her as a black woman. She doesn't feel she's worth it, she really has had a hard life. It's an absolute train wreck but you can't help but watch. When she hits the lowest of lows, she must bring herself back up. And so you watch her bring herself out of the pit and show her strength.
To be honest, I almost stopped with this one. Initially, it was a bit sexually graphic for me. Just not what I tend to read. I actually started another book, but then I did read a few reviews. One said 'stick with it' (Thanks Esil!). So I pushed on and I'm so glad I did. The book gets off to a bit of a rocky start. But it immediately just jumps in to a life already out of control. All I can say is stick with it. When someone has issues, and is mentally struggling, it's never a pretty sight. But you must see everything in it's entirety to see where Queenie is at. I'm so glad I stuck with this one. It made me cringe, made me glad I'm married (oh the horrors of dating apps), made me laugh, but made me root for Queenie. Even though, a few times, I wanted to shake her....you knew she would just make the worst decisions.
I also must say, publishers - DON'T COMPARE THIS TO BRIDGET JONES. This is so not like Bridgette Jones, other than a young girl living in London and dating. Queenie is so much more. If you think you are going to find a Bridgette Jones here, skip this one. Romantic comedy this is NOT.
Anyway, I loved this book and just loved the audio narration. The narrator did a fabulous job. A highlight of a read for 2019 for me. I'll remember this one for some time. So why not 5 stars..... I'm stingy with 5 stars. But I had to knock it a bit for being quite sexually graphic (yes, made it hard to listen to the audio when husband is around saying 'what ARE you listening to') and the reading of emails and text back and forth initially drove me bonkers. So far, this is my top read of the year. And I'll just say, give this one a shot and just stick with it. It's such a reward in the end.
Rating: really liked it
A wonderful read that starts off like it is a Black woman romantic comedy set in a White (London, UK) world, and turns out to be a lot more. Queenie is sort of not doing good, estranged from her mum, struggling to focus at work and with her partner whom she lives with, things are just not going right for her, but she does have a small number of (female) friends, that she can rely on. And she's anything but a stereotype, she's mostly Anglicised, dates White men, is a bit awkward and is also a catastrophist!
The cooling off of her relationship sets her down a spiral that may change her life forever. This is more than a refreshing, transparent and highly entertaining look at a particular Black Woman's life, loves and struggles, it's a look at the multiple layers of modern Black society; it's an almost unsettling look at how similar to the mainstream Black lives really are, whether first generation Jamaicans through to third generation Gen Zs - unsettling because you realise that across a lot of media it's the differences that are focused on!
And with more than half the main cast being Black, what Carty-Williams also nails is how the Black Lives Matter movement resonates throughout the 2nd and 3rd generations, how it is not all and everything, but its reach is deep and resonant. But let's be honest, this book is wonderful because it takes a Black female-centric story, which is not necessarily a wholly positive one, but one that feels real, and makes it darkly comedic, suspenseful, informative, life-affirming, and above all, Goddamn entertaining. I read somewhere that this is the Black Bridget Jones... nah blood, this is so much more. 9.5 out of 12
2020 read
Rating: really liked it
I hate to cringe.
I know this is not a universal feeling, and that is why there are things that are known as “cringe humor” now. But I do not enjoy the feeling of extreme secondhand embarrassment.
And I ESPECIALLY don’t want it in my books. Three hundred pages = too much time spent with my shoulders at my ears.
So when I saw this was billed as similar to Bridget Jones’s Diary, I reacted as if to the news that a beloved friend was moving, if I were feeling particularly dramatic at the time: by dropping to the ground and shouting NOOOOO to the sky.
Turns out this level of drama was not warranted. Oops.
Because, mercifully and to my neverending gratitude, this story wasn’t as much “laugh at this ridiculous and inept protagonist.” It took itself seriously.
Thank God.
Another pleasant surprise this book gave me, on the level of seeing an adorable baby and having the baby wave at you (which is a blessing), was its discussion of sexual assault.
Books that contain sexual assault narratives often do so in black and white, but there are so, so many grayer areas. It was a brave and bold choice by this story to not shy away from that, and one I really appreciated.
It’s still me, though, so all that gratitude and appreciation bullsh*t couldn’t last.
(Sorry I said it was bullsh*t. I’m just trying to seem cool.)
I had two main complaints:
1) I wish there were more recognition of how excellent the people in Queenie’s life are.
Everyone in her life cares about her so much. Even, like, her boss. And whose boss cares about them?! This is capitalism we’re talking about.
2) There was a lot of casual & systemic racism that was never addressed.
Outside of the saint-like miracle-purveying people mentioned above, some of the other people in Queenie’s life were casually racist, and that was never really mentioned. Including a plotline in which her employer is racist towards her in what stories they select and what they listen to - and that plotline just disappears.
It would be unrealistic to expect these loose ends tied up, because racism will likely not be solved in a volume of literary fiction (no matter how good it is), but the disappearance of these storylines was disquieting.
This could also be really hard to get through. Queenie goes through so much. She is so unhappy. And I am the kind of reader who pours myself into my books, so I feel what the characters feel. Queenie's sadness and suffering made me very, very sad. But watching her progress at the end was enough of a reward to make that easily worthwhile.
Bottom line: This is a tough read (and not a perfect one for me), but there’s a lot of good here.
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thank god for character development.
review to come / 3 stars
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"bridget jones' diary meets americanah"
so either i will adore this book and give it 5 stars and think about it constantly, or i will forever be haunted by another quirky protagonist continually spilling coffee on herself and falling into the lap of not only colin firth but hugh grant???
high risk, high reward.
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i am spending this month reading books by Black authors. please join me!book 1: The Stars and the Blackness Between Them
book 2: Homegoing
book 3: Let's Talk about Love
book 4: Why I'm No Longer Talking to White People about Race
book 5: The Sellout
book 6: Queenie
Rating: really liked it
quite liked this! hovering between a 3 and 4, but feeling generous this morning. our protagonist, queenie, definitely falls into the category of "people you look at and wonder how is she still living?" in the best of ways (iykyk). a good chunk of the book is spent watching her self-destruct and refuse to change, so you have to have patience for that, but this is ultimately a redemption story that covers a lot of ground. to that end, this covered some really powerful themes/topics -- objectification of Black women, depictions of the physical manifestations of anxiety/unresolved trauma, etc. -- certainly casts a wide net, but it doesn't go as deep as i had hoped in some places.
i also wish that there had been a little more explanation of queenie's past a little earlier. most of that comes when she finally acquiesces and enters therapy, and i know the reason behind that is bc she had repressed a lot of it, but it all flooded out fast near the end of the book. realistic? yes. frustrating as a reader? also yes.
