REVIEW: Queenie

“He truly wasn’t very funny but:

1. Apart from Kyazike, who is ten times as funny as me, I don’t find anyone as funny as me, even in this, the darkest period of my life.

2. Actually, no man is as funny as me or any woman I’ve ever met.”

Why Did I Read This Book?

Pictures of this book have been floating around my social media feeds for some time now so when I went to my local supermarket (pre-lockdown of course) and they were selling two books for £8, I just had to pick up a copy.

What Did I Think?

I expected Queenie to be a good read as you don’t win the Sunday Times Bestseller title easily. I expected it to be something similar to what I had read before and a nice, quick read to add to my ‘completed’ list. What I did not expect was for this book to entice me from the very first sentence and for me to become fully engrossed in Queenie’s story. So much so, I found myself constantly updating my boyfriend (whether he liked it or not) on events that had happened in the book just like I do when I get off a call with my best friend.

The scenes in Queenie are so honest and encapsulating that you feel like you’re there seeing and feeling everything that happens to her, with her. Perhaps this is why when you’re reading this book, all you can do is think about what happens next. Questioning how you’d react if everything was going wrong for you.

I have to say, I don’t think I could have been as strong as Queenie is when in the space of a few days, her actions begin to bite her back. We’ve all been there, haven’t we? When the repercussions of our actions make us regret we ever went down the path we chose. Yet Queenie is a perfect role model in showing us how to be resilient and fierce when it feels like your whole world is crashing down on you.

There are a lot of lessons to be taken from Queenie, both from the character and the story itself. The ending is beautiful and left me with a warm feeling inside which I have to say, I’ve not felt so strongly from a book in a LONG time. I’m glad it ends like it ends and in a strange way, I felt happy for Queenie despite everything. 

The (literal) laugh-out-loud humour that Candice Carty-Williams incorporates into the story just adds that extra bit of sparkle. She has this wonderful talent in turning casual racist and sexist remarks into comedy, which makes us as the reader laugh but also makes us relate to Queenie as we have surely either experienced or heard casual racism and sexism at one time.

Queenie has to be one of the best books I’ve read in a long time and the fact that I was not expecting it makes it all the more better. I know these quarantine days are hard but if you can try and get your hands on a copy I promise that you will LOVE it. Even if this genre isn’t something you usually read. Be careful though, I can’t promise you’ll get anything done when you start this book and you may even find that your partner ends up asking you “how’s Queenie getting on?”

“Keep one foot on the ground when two are in the air.”

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