A review by chloe_liese
Queenie by Candice Carty-Williams

5.0

This book had me laughing and crying in the first chapter, as Queenie’s world unfurled. Revealing the damage of “casual racism”, Queenie plumbs the depths of workplace, familial, relational, and personal pain that is born out of such systemic, whitewashed and dismissed abuse. With an endearing cast of international characters from her first-generation Jamaican émigrés grandparents, aunts and mother to her Ugandan friend and many others, this story also captures the eclectic beauty and hardship of multi-generational and multi-cultural relationships. Queenie struggles but her pain is not to be rushed or looked down on. She’s making us uncomfortable as we read because she’s confronting us with what this world does to the body and mind of people of color—hurts, denigrates, oppresses, and silences. I hope many more books like Queenie will continue to shock us out of complacency and inspire us to fight for a better world.