Becca Reviews: Queenie by Candice Carty-Williams

Queenie is 25ish, Jamaican British living in London and coming to terms with the fact that her and her boyfriend are on a break. At the same time, she is dealing with a very recent miscarriage, moving out of their shared flat, and struggling with her work performance.

I really enjoyed some elements of this novel. I loved both grandparents and the insight into living with a Jamaican Grandmother, as well as her own secrets and past heart-ache. The Grandfather's surprising warming to Queenie's mental health struggle was very touching.

Overall, I found Queenie as a character hard to digest. I understand that she fully hit that self-destruct button but damn Queenie. I think what was off for me was the balance of self-awareness and her self-destructive behaviour, she knew she was doing damage to herself but did nothing about it. I suppose there is truth in that sometimes but this was extreme.

I became frustrated with her. Okay, lots of folks have moments in their youth where they're boy-obsessed and aren't bothered about the quality of the attention, they just want the attention but this was a FAR TOO reacurring theme. She didn't want one-night stands, she wanted Tom back so she didn't want to meet anyone nice and form a meaningful relationship, so by definition she was left in limbo. But hey she sleeps with loads of boys anyway and then gets annoyed at herself for doing so - like do it or don't babe.

It seems Queenie really needs to work on not only her communication skills but also her people-reading skills! I understand the point was that she was massively in denial but it felt like this was pushed to the extreme.

The tropes of not touching Queenie's hair etc felt overused and surface level. Whilst I like this element I wanted more like this rather than just this repeated. I am aware that it is not the author's job to teach me about her culture and race but I think it could have been tweaked ever so slightly and been much stronger.

I think the disconnect comes with the fact that I am white. This, I suppose, is the message. The first 3/4's of the book reads like a chic-lit, only getting into the juicy stuff toward the end. It is worth holding out for though! Once Queenie begins to unpack her trauma and the events that led her to be the way she is it does become more clear and explains her past actions.

Something I noted was that I expected the BLM march to be powerful but it fell flat. However, upon discussing this at bookclub we noticed that from this point Queenie starts to explore her feelings and actions rather than just brushing them aside. Exploring the intersectionality of her past trauma, combined with the everyday shit and prejudices she faces as a black woman.

A lot of Queenie's trauma for me can be condensed down to her being bullied for being an oreo - black on the outside but white on the inside. It's mentioned that not only was she referred to this at her school but also by her stepdad so already she did not have a place. This is a common sideline of racism I hear about that people, often women, are not black enough for some people and not white enough for others so they have a lose-lose situation.

I am confused by the target audience as it is portrayed as comical but nothing was funny to me, between the abuse and the borderline non-consenual sex, or at least violent sex, this was sometimes hard to read. We also discussed at bookclub about how this sometimes felt like a white woman was writing this and pretending to be a black woman, throwing in some mentions of a hair wrap here and there. The sterotypes of her being a mess and very angry, even toward her loving friends, didn't sit well with me.

I am glad I read it. I also made an effort to check some reviews from black women and I can say that on the whole this novel did NOT sit well with the writers of those reviews.

Read: 14/01/2025

Published: 19/03/2019

ISBN: 1501196022

Price: £8.22 (GBP)