Queenie
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4.3 • 57 Ratings
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- $1.99
Publisher Description
*NOW A HULU ORIGINAL SERIES*
“A book that sneaks up on you...I am hooked.” —Roxane Gay, New York Times bestselling author
This acclaimed and “welcome debut from a seriously talented author” (New York Post) is a disarmingly honest, unapologetically black, and undeniably witty novel that will speak to those who have gone looking for love and found something very different in its place.
Queenie Jenkins is a twenty-five-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.
“A must-read novel about sex, selfhood, and the best friendships that get us through it all” (Candace Bushnell, New York Times bestselling author), Queenie is a remarkably relatable exploration of what it means to be a modern woman searching for meaning in today’s world.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
Queenie’s life is complicated. At 25, she’s attempting to decipher the men in her life—their clumsy come-ons, strategic silences, and sexual predilections—while also navigating family drama and a journalism career that isn’t as politically purposeful as she’d hoped. Candice Carty-Williams’ effervescent debut novel offers up pointed and witty social commentary about the rocky waters of British race relations and celebrates the knotty joys of female friendship. Queenie is a profound pleasure.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Carty-Williams's smart, fearless debut follows Queenie Jenkins, a Jamaican-British woman, after her longtime white boyfriend, Tom, asks for a "break." Queenie's impulsive behavior (promiscuity; distancing herself from friends) begins to unearth memories of childhood abuse, causing her to make more bad choices in an effort to alleviate her pain. When her career as a newspaper reporter begins to suffer and she's issued her final warning before being fired, she decides to confront her demons head on. To emerge from her crisis, Queenie begins psychotherapy, much to the consternation of her grandmother, who sees Queenie's mental health issues as a weakness she need only be strong to overcome. The result is a novel that stares directly into the pitfalls of being black in white spaces and (through flashbacks with Tom) the challenges of interracial relationships. Carty-Williams doesn't shy from the messiness of sexual relationships, racial justice issues such as police brutality, or Queenie's promiscuity, and the narrative is all the more effective for its boldness. This is an essential depiction of life as a black woman in the modern world, told in a way that makes Queenie dynamic and memorable.)
Customer Reviews
Absolutely splendid
I loved this, through and through. Where it not for the ending and the seemingly rushed sequence, or how I wanted to smack the most annoying friend of all, I would’ve rated it a 5. But it was a good read, with nice flow..