Reviews with content warning for Sexual content - Queenie

Reviews tagging 'Sexual content'

Queenie by Candice Carty-Williams

243 reviews

la_karina1818's review

emotional funny hopeful lighthearted fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

At the get go, it had a very promising start as I have discovered I love contemporary books set in London as I feel so attached to the whole London vibe and setting. In regards to Queenie and her story I feel sympathetic towards her as someone who had gone through similar issues and filling a missing part of you through male attention. A quarter of the way through I began to feel a bit less sympathetic towards her as she was clearly avoiding the fact that all the men she had sex with were either abusive, fetishising her or straight up being possessive over her. She doesn't care about that because it all came around to her having self esteem issues and not feeling good enough, but there should be some boundaries at some point, which I found to be unrealistic in the whole story as she should know better. The issues that were presented a quarter of the way through made the story less impactful and just more ridiculous in her way of thinking. At the beginning the issues presented in Queenie's life were of any adult, like work motivation, struggling to find a living space and then it all turns into really dumb shit like "Will I get an STD if I have unprotected sex?". All of this makes her appear significantly more stupid and foolish than she actually is because she does have a conscience and is aware of right and wrong but then she is fallen to that level. At first I thought that after all the sleeping around that she is doing, there are no repercussions to her actions but then it all goes wrong in the worst way possible. The revelations like Guy being Cassandra's boyfriend were too good to be true, Ted being married with a pregnant wife was also quite disturbing because of how pushy he was towards Queenie.

Queenie's conflict throughout the entire book was whether to move on from Tom or to still keep hope that they will be back together. She feels remorse for the way she acted by her pushing him away, but I don't think she should undermine her feelings and emotions because he cruelly made her leave his life. I was happy that at least she realized she should move on and begin a new life. Queenie to me is someone who shouldn't have her voice and opinion be taken away or undermined by the men in her life and I am happy she realizes this and that she can move on.
The discussions of racial and cultural identity was also a fascinating part of her story which did not feel pushed but are an important part of her struggle. In the UK even though there is huge diversity, it is still disregarded by some people and not seen as important to preserve the cultural identity of different ethnic groups. It is a struggle today with many young people in the UK of other backgrounds to keep the balance between their own cultural identity and fitting in with the British image. Overall it was an interesting outlook on the struggles of black women in the UK in regards to dating, family and the way they are perceived in other areas of society.

Content Warnings

amal_101's review against another edition

Go to review page

emotional funny sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? N/A
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

Queeeenie! I feel for Queenie. At times I wanted to DNF. There are so many heavy topics main character was experiencing but at the same time you want to constant ask her why? oh why?

It’s written well. Great dialogue between characters. I was listening to the Audiobook but I think this would’ve been good to have read instead.

Content Warnings

charliebe's review against another edition

Go to review page

dark emotional funny hopeful tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

Content Warnings

chris_reads's review against another edition

Go to review page

dark emotional funny inspiring slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

Content Warnings

plantybooklover's review

Go to review page

dark emotional hopeful informative medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

spoiler alert ** In this novel we meet Queenie, a young 25 yr old who's gone through a sudden "break" with her long term Boyfriend whom she had assumed she was going to marry. Queenie works at a national paper- and has some devoted friends and a fairly good relationship with her Jamaican Grandparents and immediately it's easy to get sucked in to this well written story.
Set in current times (but neatly avoiding the Pandemic) Queenie unfortunately starts quite a downward spiral after her breakup. Her work suffers, her friends have to listen to long ongoing discussions all revolving around her entirely and she starts to go out with just any man who happens to turn up. These men are hideous, and awful, and Queenie continues to blandly see them, and announce her wild sexual exploits at work. Eventually this catches up to her and she is wrongfully accused of sexual harassment and made to leave the office. Throughout the novel, Queenie highlights struggles faced by black women- being sexualized and fetishized, having their hair appropriated and touched by everyone and anyone, being stereotyped as a loud or angry woman. Queenie faces them all.
To be honest, I found myself not liking Queenie very much- for the most part- and through most of the story- Queenie is entirely focused on how Queenie sees the world and what/how the world can provide for Queenie. She seemingly has no insight into her own behaviors and no real interest in the lives of others- there's very little character development of any of her 3 friends or even her mother or aunt, probably because Queenie is only aware of Queenie. We have all had friend where it's their show 100% of the time.
That said, when Queenie essentially loses her job, she ends up in therapy. Through therapy- Queenie does develop a touch of insight, realizing some things about her very traumatic childhood, and is able to emerge from her downward spiral. She's reinstated at her job, and returns with an intention to actually work- which she follows through on. The ending recaps what Queenie calls her "nervous breakdown" and how things seem to be on the up and up- for her, her mother and most of her friends. By the end, I was cheering for Queenie, although honestly, I'm not sure I'd want to be her friend since it seems like it would just be a Queenie support role...
I think this book was so well written and it was very interesting. I did the audio book- which made the book much more palatable for me. I do recommend, but it strikes me as missing an intended mark and landing between a fun gal-pal beach read and a serious commentary on the situation of the world from the lens of a black woman.

Content Warnings

marissasa's review against another edition

Go to review page

emotional funny hopeful sad tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

This story is a realistic and sharp look at a Black-British 20-something woman's life and struggles. I read most of the book physically and listened to a few chapters on audiobook, which was very entertainingly British and Jamaican with all the narrators' accents. Queenie herself is a deeply hurt and traumatized character, who for the first part of the book continuously makes bad choices and spirals deeper and deeper into her messy situation. Throughout it all you get to see her struggle with her suffering but also slowly start to realize her own role in her pain, but the writing very intentionally showed this growth in a humorous and relatable way through Queenie, her friends, and her family's unique voices. I loved that each character felt like a real person and had their own motivations and personalities, even the smaller side ones. The character development in this book was really well done, and showed the wide range of both positive and negative relationships that young women today may find in their lives. I found myself both cringing at her choices and rooting for things to go right for her, which made her feel so realistic and so human and relatable. I loved seeing our flawed character begin to accept that she has issues and actively try to get better for her own health and happiness through therapy and setting boundaries. So much of the dialogue and humor in this book felt like things I would talk about with my own friends in real life, and I genuinely felt like the use of email and text messages in this format added to the book in meaningful ways. I'm so glad Queenie got a realistic but positive ending that felt satisfying but not too cliché.

Content Warnings

piafrank's review

Go to review page

dark emotional tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

Content Warnings

berenike_and's review against another edition

Go to review page

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

Content Warnings

reshusky's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous emotional medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes

4.0

Content Warnings

beckyyreadss's review against another edition

Go to review page

challenging dark emotional mysterious sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

I wanted to read this book as I've heard so many good things about it. My wonderful friends bought this book for me for my birthday. This book was not what I was expecting it to be.

This book is based around 25-year-old Queenie Jenkins who is a Jamaican British woman living in London and she is 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.

Wow, this book was difficult and it’s only when I was about 50% through that I realise that this is about her mental health . . . and I think that was the point of it. It was very hard-hitting and brutal and shows you how mental health can affected different people and not even realise it until they’ve hit wrong bottom. Queenie had a lot of bad stuff happen to her from the moment of page 1 up to the last chapter and you can see how she handles it and how things got worse and worse. I would 10000% as always check the trigger warnings with this book as it was brutal and the way that Candice describes Queenie’s mental health can be a bit triggering. I didn’t have anything to hate about this book, I just thought it was really slow-paced and heavy.

I would love another book to see how Queenie is doing later on in life, when she’s back on track but not as a chick flick or anything like that. Just a little novella on how Queenie and the Corgis are doing.

Content Warnings

More...