Queenie as a tragicomic story of womanhood, updated for the Tinder age perhaps, with a black body occupying a space already familiar to its white predecessors. But that would be to profoundly underestimate this debut novel, which tells a far deeper story than the one it has been compared to. Candice Carty-Williams, a young Londoner, has a flair for story-telling that appears effortlessly authentic. Her title character is a woman you both know and cannot forget ... Carty-Williams manages to engage the head and the heart, plunging the reader into Queenie’s descent, while simultaneously helping us unpack it ... This is the fertile heart of Carty-Williams’ writing: complex dynamics of interracial friendship, of the gaps that exist between generations, layered with the specific intricacy of a Jamaican immigrant family and the blurring boundaries of workplace relationships, are spun into an entertaining seam ... Carty-Williams has taken a black woman’s story and made it a story of the age.
... superb ... Lurking just beneath the glittering, fast-paced surface of the story are all sorts of disturbing things ... I have never read a novel that shows the experience of everyday, low-level racism so vividly, or so convincingly ... a funny, clever, heartbreaking lightning bolt of a first novel, by a writer bristling with talent.
...[a] hilarious, heart-shattering, deeply lovable novel ... If Queenie sounds a little like 2019’s answer to Bridget Jones’ Diary, there are a few surface-level commonalities ... She’s an exceedingly charismatic narrator, giving the reader full access to her texts, emails, and a list of New Year’s resolutions...every bit as memorable as Bridget's. But that’s pretty much where the similarities end. Debut author Candice Carty-Williams has created a truly one-of-a-kind heroine in Queenie, whose story is universally relatable without ever flinching in the face of challenging subjects that are more important now than ever ... Refreshingly, Carty-Williams forces nothing in Queenie’s life into tidy bundles — not the pile of braids on her head, not her mental health struggles, not her relationships ... All hail Queenie.
Carty-Williams creates an utterly knowable character in Queenie, who’s as dimensional and relatable as they come ... Fast moving and with a strong sense of Queenie’s London, this entertains while tackling topics like mental health and stigma, racism and tokenism, gentrification, and the isolation of social-media and dating-app culture. This smart, funny, and tender debut embraces a modern woman’s messiness.
... smart and breezy ... One of many excellent things about this novel is how it lets Queenie face that truth [that everyone has difficulties] without downplaying her own troubles ... Carty-Williams’s... [is a] supple [writer]...
Candice Carty-Williams has created an intricately layered character in Queenie ... Queenie lacks so much self-esteem that you, mostly lovingly, want to shake sense into her, be the friend to tell her all the wonderful things about herself, that she can’t seem to see for herself ... Thankfully, for her and the reader, she is held up by a cast of truly endearing characters, who were actually the saving grace for me for over half of the novel. Her friends, whom she humorously refers to as The Corgis, give life to the story ... Candice Carty-Williams has introduced a character that is broken, relatable and hopeful. She represents hope for things getting better, and she’s a fighter. In her weakness, she finds her strength ... I’m so happy I stayed with her and her story to the end, despite is being iffy for too many pages, because I would have missed the beginning of her transformation and what I hope is just the start of Queenie knowing how valuable, strong and lovely she truly is. Queenie’s is a story of identity, finding and trusting a love that lasts in yourself, Queenie is a character you won’t forget.
Plotwise, Carty-Williams tends toward certain tropes: missed cues, unlikely coincidences. But her unvarnished takes on depression, gentrification, cultural taboos, and casual racism — from the cringey sexual-chocolate puns of OkCupid prospects to the colleague who briskly dismisses 'all that Black Lives Matters nonsense' in a meeting — cut to the bone. And her debut reads a lot like its smart, sensitive protagonist: full of flaws and contradictions, and urgently, refreshingly real.
At turns hilarious and reflective, the book is also an exploration of race, sex and shame among young women. Queenie’s is a rare and urgently needed voice.
There comes a moment when you may no longer like the book and consider putting it down. Granted, the novel is a bit disorienting, with too many ideas and too little linking them together, but by the end—whether or not you like Queenie, you’ll admire her. ... Through the first-person lens, it feels as if Queenie is always holding the most important idea just out of frame. The first time she has sex after the break from the boyfriend, we may accept that she’s drunk and lonely, but by the time she’s having sex on the bathroom floor in her office, it feels like the book owes us more. Surely, there has to be something driving this self-destructive behavior, but at more than halfway through the book there still aren’t any clues. This is what makes the book frustrating, while the story itself remains interesting ... has a light-hearted touch with a heavy message, but the message gets lost in the multiple societal issues William’s tries to raise in this one story ... There comes a point where the book is exhausting—the sexcapades have become repetitive and we’ve written Queenie off as an unredeemable mess ... Queenie’s quarter-life crisis is, at times, more than what we want to bear. Perhaps, that is precisely the point. Just as we are ready to call it quits, Queenie breaks ... William’s gives us excellent character development with Queenie, but the pacing is painfully slow. At first read, Queenie’s story feels like hyperbole—surely no woman has ever fallen this far from self-awareness ... The picture isn’t pretty but that’s the beauty of Queenie. It’s honest. William’s manages to pull all the elements together for a conclusion that is neat, even if not fully resolved—the way it should be after such a lengthy battle. As much as we’ve struggled with the novel, we reach the finish a little reluctant to end our time with Queenie.
Queenie is funny, clever and curvaceous ... Queenie, in essence, is every modern black woman who has ever questioned her abilities and her place in this world. With resonant reflections on race, relationships, sex and friendships, Queenie is a terrific debut that’s delivered with a touch of British humor and plenty of feel-good moments.
One of many excellent things about this novel is how it lets Queenie face that truth without downplaying her own troubles ... this story about finding yourself, not Mr Right, isn’t a 'black Bridget Jones' so much as a 21st-century one.
The novel’s conversational, irreverent tone works well in its first third ... Carty-Williams is good on intergenerational attitudes toward mental health, and the pressure of working 'twice as hard to get half as much' ... And yet while Queenie herself is a necessary platform for undoubtedly important discussions, her character lacks consistency and dimensionality. The casual racism of her ex’s family, his dismissal of and therefore complicity in it and the effect this had on the couple is at odds with the strident rejection of black women’s fetishisation that Queenie so strongly exhibits elsewhere. Occasional jump-cuts to scenes in their past can be structurally confusing without providing much information ... The book’s redemptive ending feels at best rushed, at worst simply hard to believe ... In raising so many societal injustices, from domestic violence to consent, the Black Lives Matter movement and London living costs, there’s no time for an in-depth investigation of any one issue. For a book trying to provide vital insights into experiences that are still, in 2019, under-represented, Queenie is lacking in definition of the titular character.
...[a] smart, fearless debut ... a novel that stares directly into the pitfalls of being black in white spaces ... Carty-Williams doesn’t shy from the messiness of sexual relationships, racial justice issues such as police brutality, or Queenie’s promiscuity, and the narrative is all the more effective for its boldness. This is an essential depiction of life as a black woman in the modern world, told in a way that makes Queenie dynamic and memorable.
Queenie's attempts to get over Tom, the long-term white boyfriend who dumps her at the beginning of Carty-Williams' debut novel, send her stumbling through a mined landscape of interracial dating and friendship ... Why she ever fell for that drip Tom and why she still loves him so much are never at all clear, but perhaps that's how these things go. A black Bridget Jones, perfectly of the moment.
