A review by tashadandelion
Queenie by Candice Carty-Williams

dark emotional hopeful reflective sad medium-paced
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

This is a heart-breaking but ultimately hopeful tale of a young woman coming to terms with her self-loathing and its origins and making every effort to claw her way back from the edge of self-obliteration. At once a condemnation of present-day sexual predation practices by men and an indictment of the racism running through it, it's foremost a story of self-awareness's awakening. Queenie, a 2nd generation Jamaican-Englishwoman, has a good job she's worked hard to get, but as she slowly realizes she's lost her comfortable, kind, long-term white boyfriend, Tom, she spirals out of control
with non-stop meaningless and damaging one-night stands during which she's treated poorly and objectified not just as a set of convenient orifices, but also as someone deserving abusive, dismissive treatment due to her ethnicity. In time she begins to unravel and it is only with the help of a persistent therapist, stalwart friends, and a caring family that she puts on the brakes and begins the painful process of learning to love and value herself.
I know it's not the done thing these days to reject casual sex as a way of life (in a world where Tinder is considered normal), but this novel does an excellent and painful job of taking the rose-colored glasses off of that practice and exposing it to the harsh light of truth. 
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