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Review: Queenie by Candice Carty-Williams

Title: Queenie
Author: Candice Carty-Williams
Year Published: 2019


Genre: Adult fiction
Pages: 328
Rating: 4.5 out of 5

Location (my 2019 Google Reading map)UK

FTC Disclosure: I bought this book with my own money

Summary (from the inside flap of the book): Bridget Jones Diary meets Americanah in this disarmingly honest, boldly political, and truly inclusive novel that will speak to anyone who has gone looking for love and found something very different in its place.

Meet Queenie Jenkins: Catastrophist. Expressive. Aggressive. Dramatic. Loved. Lonely. Relatable. Her boyfriend has asked her to leave their apartment. Her boss doesn't seem to see or hear her. Her best friends try to help her. The series of men she meets online treat her hideously...and yet, she doesn't stop seeing them.

Queenie is in a spiral.

But what makes this breathtaking debut novel so fresh is that this is a spiral mostly of Queenie's own making. The world isn't just happening to her, dong her wrong. Instead, as Queenie careens from one questionable decision to another, she finds herself wondering, as we all do these days, "What are you doing? Why are you doing it? Who do you want to be?

Review: I was trying to figure out which book to read next when I read a blog post about this novel and the person said it was their favorite audio all year. Well, I am no good with books via audio so I took the hard copy off my TBR shelf and jumped right in. And really, check out the cover; I love it!

Queenie is a mess. She lets people walk all over her, treat her badly, take advantage of her, and hurt her, both physically and mentally. And it's all about to explode as she realizes she is not handling it well. Not at all. She is so good at making bad decisions that I wanted to grab her and pull her in the opposite direction of wherever she was going and make her stop. But, like in life, I couldn't get her on the right track. 

Her friends are wonderful and look out for her, take care of her, and help Queenie pick up the pieces, but they cannot stop her from making mistakes. Her family is a challenge, but they also love her even if they don't always show it.

And the men. They are her downfall. If Queenie just felt a bit better about herself, knew she deserves better, then the men might be less of an issue. But she doesn't and so they are. A problem. A big problem. 

Throughout this book you want Queenie to realize all that she has to offer, to get her act together, and to have a better life. I can't tell you if she does in the end, you'll have to read this enchanting, wonderful book yourself to find out.


Challenges for which this counts: 

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