A review by linkalipski
Queenie by Candice Carty-Williams

lighthearted fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

This book was a birthday gift as my friend really enjoyed it but my experience was different. I didn’t enjoy the book because I find the main character to be insufferable and I don’t understand the choices of the author.

The book is dominantly dialogues. A bit too much in my opinion: I’d say 80% is dialogues, mostly the primary type but at times indirect, with 10% of the book being her inner thoughts (which is mostly imagined dialogues or self-talk) and 10% action descriptions. 

While the author did a good job in  giving each characters distinct voices, the surrounding text lacks enough descriptors to make it unique and specific. This means that if you extract a piece, the writing doesn’t stand alone and reads very generic. A good example of that is the pool scene (page 302). In places, you could think you’re reading about a Karen being entitled and mean against children. Whereas if you add the missing text elements that are unique to this character, then you’d be reading about racism. Simple additions would have sufficed, such as describing the kind of stare the little girl has or the tone of the dialogue.
Eg, “Tabitha, come here!” Will read differently if the tone is embarrassed, through clenched teeth and an attempted smile or said with anger and exasperation or shouted with panic and alertness. Which will change the scene completely. But those indicators are constantly missing so the scenes are impoverished. 
 
The book is very fast to read thanks to the dialogues and the rather short sentences. The style is a mix of swear words, london slang and young people speech. 
A few missed errors (unless they were chosen by author although that begs the question of why) such as the use of the abbreviation “irl” in descriptive text and “he asked” after a statement.

I did not find the character to be  relatable in the slightest: Queenie is rude, entitled, self-centred and selfish, an awful friend and a lazy worker. She lies too and is overly melodramatic. The drama part could be because she’s in her twenties but I find that insulting to that age group as not everyone who is young behave like they have a personality disorder. I don’t get why she was created as a character, what was the point. I experienced no joy reading her. There is no real character growth either. In fact, all ends well for her despite her shallow superficial “growth”. She expects apologies from everyone but hardly dishes them out herself and when she does, it’s not from a place of true understanding and kindness but with self-serving intent led by loneliness. 

The book is a collection of the worst cliches and I don’t understand why. I find that it actually makes things worse rather than help cultural shifts towards abandoning unconscious biases. Here are some of the unnecessary stereotypes in the book: black characters have absent fathers/broken families and talk in street slang, the jewish character lends money, the Pakistani character flaunt his money from their thriving family business, men are all sex crazed sexist pigs, white people are racists, women bosses are cold b*tches, rich people are arrogant and immoral, BDSM practitioners are violent, etc. 

I was really upset that, once again, BDSM is used to demonise the practice. The kink community does not engage in risky sex without prior discussions, even more so if acts involve potential physical injury. The violent scene reads like rape to me. It was unclear if author meant it as so because there were missing indicators in text to clarify the level of consent of Queenie and how she felt about it. To me, it was a rape scene.

Also, it is rather ironic that a character who is supposed to be a feminist, uses the term hysterical to describe a woman. I don’t know if the author meant for that irony or if she herself, does not know the origin of the term and why it should be avoided. 

Overall, the writing was lacking depth so it reads like a compilation of Twitter threads on racism experiences mixed with instagram gossip. We can feel the author’s agenda as opposed to feeling like this is a real character, to whom real unfair experiences happen. That said, that’s her first book so I think it’s a good start. She has many aspects of dialogue nailed so with some maturing in the other areas of writing, I have no doubt she will write some good stories in the future.




Expand filter menu Content Warnings