3.5/5
Queenie is a young Jamaican-British woman living in British, navigating two cultures, but never fitting into either neatly. After a messy break-up with her long term white boyfriend, Queenie seeks comfort and intimacy in all wrong places, including a string of damaging men who slowly destroy Queenie's self image. Queenie begins a mental spiral where she's constantly questioning herself, her self worth and what she's doing with her life.
This was a really timely read for me. Queenie was such a nuanced character. She was far from perfect. She went from mildly unlikeable to my favorite character throughout this book. Queenie is a character study that doesn't shy away from character flaws or bad decisions. Let me be clear, Queenie makes several questionable and plain bad decisions. While in the moment she doesn't realize how harmful they are, throughout the book she begins to grow and change. One thing that really shocked me was how against therapy her family was. It speaks to my own ignorance, but I definitely thought the helpful aspects of therapy were well known.
After Queenie's messy break up, she begins having a lot of casual sex. I thought it was great she could feel free enough to do that. However, her partners were awful men. None of them cared even the slightest about Queenie. It was always about their pleasure and in some cases disgusting racial fetishization of Queenie. There was quite a lot of unprotected sex in this as well. If you're going to have casual sex with multiple partners, that is A-OKAY, but please for shit's sake use protection.
Queenie had a really great support system in her coworker, Darcy and best friend, Kyazike. There's also Cassandra, but I was not a fan of her for several, one of them being how racist she was. Queenie's boss also seemed to truly care about her, and gave her several chances at work. But Queenie's downward spiral made her really bad at her job sadly. The middle 50% of this book was hard to read and a bit depressing. I really wanted Queenie to succeed, and the last 25% made it all worth it. Even though Queenie has been through so much, she does make it through and the book ends on a very hopeful note.
There's a lot to talk about in this book and I know I didn't even cover the half of it. I would definitely recommend this book, but be prepared for how heavy it gets.
Queenie is a young Jamaican-British woman living in British, navigating two cultures, but never fitting into either neatly. After a messy break-up with her long term white boyfriend, Queenie seeks comfort and intimacy in all wrong places, including a string of damaging men who slowly destroy Queenie's self image. Queenie begins a mental spiral where she's constantly questioning herself, her self worth and what she's doing with her life.
This was a really timely read for me. Queenie was such a nuanced character. She was far from perfect. She went from mildly unlikeable to my favorite character throughout this book. Queenie is a character study that doesn't shy away from character flaws or bad decisions. Let me be clear, Queenie makes several questionable and plain bad decisions. While in the moment she doesn't realize how harmful they are, throughout the book she begins to grow and change. One thing that really shocked me was how against therapy her family was. It speaks to my own ignorance, but I definitely thought the helpful aspects of therapy were well known.
After Queenie's messy break up, she begins having a lot of casual sex. I thought it was great she could feel free enough to do that. However, her partners were awful men. None of them cared even the slightest about Queenie. It was always about their pleasure and in some cases disgusting racial fetishization of Queenie. There was quite a lot of unprotected sex in this as well. If you're going to have casual sex with multiple partners, that is A-OKAY, but please for shit's sake use protection.
Queenie had a really great support system in her coworker, Darcy and best friend, Kyazike. There's also Cassandra, but I was not a fan of her for several, one of them being how racist she was. Queenie's boss also seemed to truly care about her, and gave her several chances at work. But Queenie's downward spiral made her really bad at her job sadly. The middle 50% of this book was hard to read and a bit depressing. I really wanted Queenie to succeed, and the last 25% made it all worth it. Even though Queenie has been through so much, she does make it through and the book ends on a very hopeful note.
There's a lot to talk about in this book and I know I didn't even cover the half of it. I would definitely recommend this book, but be prepared for how heavy it gets.