Queenie Book Review

Book: Queenie

Author: Candice Carty Williams

Pages: 352

Publish Date: November 5th 2019

Start Reading Date: January 4th 2021

End Reading Date: January 13th 2021

My Goodreads Rating: 4*

Queenie is about Queenie Jenkins, who is in her mid 20’s. Her relationship breaks down, her work life is a mess, and her friendship group is varied. 

First Thoughts

I’ve seen people mention the book but I’ve purposely not gone into full detailed reviews about it.  Because I want to love the book without anyone’s influence. 

While I was filling out the top bit I didn’t realize just how new this book is.  I thought it had been out for years. 

While Reading

• I’ve only read like a page and a half and absolutely adore the book.  

• I’m a little further on right now, and I have found a book that I know I’m going to enjoy.  

• Honestly I wanna be like Queenie.  Maybe not.  I like sassy Queenie, but dislike the Queenie that is on a break from Tom.  I like Queenie that wants to stand up for police brutality.  

• This is a book that I needed. 

• It’s frustrating. I wanted to like Ted, he seemed so normal.  But he is frustrating me to no ends. 

• It’s also frustrating that Cassandra chose a man over a friend who she’s know for 10 years when the man was such a dick. I mean Guy was sleeping with your best friend, and when she didn’t know the two of you were dating, it wasn’t her fault. 

• There have been some things that have happened in the book that frustrated me more than Ted being an absolute dick, and Guy being a moron, and that’s how Queenie is being treated by people.  The sexual health clinic nurse/doctors talking to her like she’s not worthy of their time.  Gina (Queenie’s boss) flip flopping around Chuck. It infuriated me that she let some men absolutely take advantage of her yet others she didn’t.  

• Queenie is an absolute boss.  She’s been struggling a lot, and though she doesn’t realize it before she went to therapy she was trying to speak out about what she was doing.  Not well, but in her own way.  After therapy she’s definitely becoming herself again.  Even a better version of herself.  I’m proud that she stands up for herself and what she believes in.  

• Queenie has definitely matured throughout the book.  I hope she keeps maturing. 

• She has some really good friends.  Minus Cassandra.  

• Kyazike and Darcy are the kind of friends that people need in their lives.

Conclusion 

What I will say about this book is it keeps you on your toes a lot.  There is a lot of back and forth between current time and in the past (around 3 years or so).  

Rashan Charles.  I know it’s a fictional book, and that there are elements of today’s world in it but I didn’t expect just how realistic it is to the real world. Rashan Charles being one of those real world people that made it into the book. And fair play to Candice for bringing real life into her book.  

Also along with the realities of life that came into this book is a Black Lives Matter March that Queenie went to. I kept having to remind myself that this book came out before 2020. 

The sexual health clinic.  I think it’s a good idea to include things such as a sexual health clinic into the book.  It gets people used to the idea that they are out there and they can be used. 

It’s hard to write a review that makes sense for this book because so much happened within it. 

I hated how bad she was treated by the men in the book.  Tom, Adi, Guy and Ted.  These men were the ‘main’ men that Queenie had a relationship with wether it was a long term relationship or just a sexual relationship, and they turned on her quickly because it suited them. Yes she walked right to three of these men, because her confidence was low, and it came to bite her on the rear.  

In one part of the book Queenie says she’s been called a ‘bounty’ because she’s black on the outside and white on the inside. She was dating a white man in Tom, she slept with two white guys in Guy & Ted, and one was Asian.  She works for a company that is mainly white people within it, who have people of privilege within it, I find people want to fit in with who they work with, or socialize with so they won’t act how you’d expect them to act.  Take a look at her family. They expect her to be the way they are, but she’s not.  

As a whole I found the book really good.  I gave it 4* on goodreads.  I love that the author included things such as the Black Lives Matter moment, sexual health clinics, mental health issues, relationships and friendship breakdowns, therapy, bringing real life events, places and shops into the book.   It’s the perfect book to be a stand alone book.