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    Queenie
    Queenie
    Queenie
    Audiobook9 hours

    Queenie

    Written by Candice Carty-Williams

    Narrated by Shvorne Marks

    4/5

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    About this audiobook

    *SOON TO BE A HULU ORIGINAL SERIES*

    *ONE of NPR’s and TIME’s BEST BOOKS of the YEAR * NAMED A MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK of the YEAR by WOMAN’S DAY, NEWSDAY, PUBLISHERS WEEKLY, BUSTLE, and BOOK RIOT!*

    “A book that sneaks up on you...I am hooked.” —Roxane Gay, New York Times bestselling author

    This acclaimed and “welcome debut from a seriously talented author” (New York Post) is a disarmingly honest, unapologetically black, and undeniably witty novel that will speak to those who have gone looking for love and found something very different in its place.

    Queenie Jenkins is a twenty-five-year-old Jamaican British woman living in London, straddling two cultures and slotting neatly into neither. She works at a national newspaper, where she’s constantly forced to compare herself to her white middle class peers. After a messy break up from her long-term white boyfriend, Queenie seeks comfort in all the wrong places…including several hazardous men who do a good job of occupying brain space and a bad job of affirming self-worth.

    As Queenie careens from one questionable decision to another, she finds herself wondering, “What are you doing? Why are you doing it? Who do you want to be?”—all of the questions today’s woman must face in a world trying to answer them for her.

    “A must-read novel about sex, selfhood, and the best friendships that get us through it all” (Candace Bushnell, New York Times bestselling author), Queenie is a remarkably relatable exploration of what it means to be a modern woman searching for meaning in today’s world.

    Editor's Note

    New release…

    Smart and funny, this debut novel uses witty charm to fearlessly lay bare the messiness of race and dating, family and mental health, and the struggle to keep it together. Timely and lively, it’s “Bridget Jones” meets “Americanah.”

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherSimon & Schuster Audio
    Release dateMar 19, 2019
    ISBN9781508277972
    Author

    Candice Carty-Williams

    Candice Carty-Williams is a writer, now a showrunner, and the author of the Sunday Times (London) bestselling Queenie, which was shortlisted by Goodreads for book of the year in 2019 and won the British Books Awards Book of the Year in 2020. In 2016, Candice created and launched the Guardian 4th Estate Short Story Prize, the first inclusive initiative of its kind in book publishing. Candice has written for The Guardian, i-D, Vogue, and pretty much every publication you can think of. She will probably always live in South London. Follow her on Instagram @CandiceC_W.

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    Reviews for Queenie

    4/5

    1,110 ratings52 reviews

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    • 2/5
      The main character is so whiny and obnoxious that she undermines every interesting topic that should be dealt with in this book (feminism, racism, millennials’ political involvement). I would have found it excellent if Queenie was more relatable and sensible.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 3/5
      It was nice to read about a first generation person dealing with mental health and getting support from her family however her character was intensely frustrating.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      Phenomenal, intelligent and important! Also funny and a page turner!

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      So many twists and turns from beginning to end. I need an update.!

      1 person found this helpful

    • 4/5
      Enjoyed listening to Queenie. This was the choice for our bookclub this month, and I had started reading it, but switched to audio book 1/2 way through . Thoroughly enjoyed the reader for the selection. She brought much life to these characters. Ending is satisfying, but seemed thrown together.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      Such a good read!! Or rather listen? From the authentic Jamaican accent to the prose this book is truly a treasure! Watching Queenie find herself was such an amazing journey. The author expertly laced BLACK issues such as BLM, gentrification, colorism with feminine issues of self worth and body image issues. I would absolutely listen to this book again!!

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      Wow. This book was amazing. It was like therapy for the soul. It reminded me so much about my own stories of family and relationships and just being a Jamaican woman. It’s authentic. It made me reflect on my past year and how I’ve grown and how I will continue to grow. Just like the book says “I am enough.” And “next year will be better”

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      I resisted listening to this book because there’d been a lot of hype about it and I never feel like hyped up books meet expectations. With that being said, this book is worth every bit of praise it’s received! I’m not even sure what to write other than it’s the best book I’ve listened to all year by far!

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      I think that many women in their twenties can relate to the trauma filled twenties. I loved the dynamic of the friendships, and I must say that I laughed a lot!

      1 person found this helpful

    • 3/5
      The beginning was hard. The narrators voice and it was slow to start. About 60% in, it got better
      .
    • 5/5
      A beautiful coming of age story about navigating childhood trauma.
    • 4/5
      Slow start but worth it at the end. Loved the new age references. Loved it!
    • 1/5
      I really wanted to like this book, but Queenie was exasperating. She got herself into situations of her own free will and then when things didn’t go her way she would go further down that dark path. I did like the portrayal of mental health, seeking therapy, how childhood trauma affects the way we act in relationships, gaslighting and how we internalize racism. You have to teach people how to treat you and Queenie was allowing everyone to treat/use her anyway that they desired.
      However, this book is based on too many black women stereotypes. Either we are a hot mess, or we have an attitude for expressing ourselves on things we like or don’t like (For example, don’t touch our hair, we aren’t a pet zoo!) or we are seen as the angry black women. All of her friends were a mess as well.
      Tom was a big problem for me. Being in an interracial relationship myself, I wouldn’t tolerant my boyfriend or husbands making excuses for his family’s racial comments. PERIOD!
      Queenie’s comment about being afraid of black men was interesting to me (which was a brief sentence in the book), since she dated/fucked white men that had jungle fever and only wanted her for her big ass. But she wasn’t scared of them. This made no sense to me.
      The ending was rushed and didn’t seem like Queenie learned her lesson. Everyone praising her, really?? Then the bathroom part, Why the hell are you still wanting to text Tom? I might have screamed at the book reading that part, LOL!
      This book could have been used to inspired women of color to get help and stand up for themselves in a world that doesn’t love us. It could have helped other to empathize with women of color as to some struggles we go through in relationships, work, dating life, and cultural differences. This book failed!
    • 5/5
      When Queenie was able to resist her sexual temptations and move on with her life.
    • 5/5
      This book started off really slow but in the end, I found that I really enjoyed it. Since I am Jamaican, there are a lot of familiar references throughout the book that made it very comfortable and relatable.
    • 5/5
      This story did start slow. Queenie Jenkins was getting on my last nerve. But as I listened, I started to relate to her. The honesty of the story was so compelling. I found myself cheering Queenie on. She is such a brave young woman. I love that she put herself first.

      Mental health is so important. I love how the author addressed it and laid out how the African diaspora deals with getting help.

      As a middle aged black woman in America, I highly recommend this book!!!
    • 5/5
      A HUGE shout out to the actress Shvorne Marks for her INCREDIBLE performance. She made this story come alive and transcend it so well that I could see all the different characters playing their part as if I was in a movie theatre! A big bravo for the laughters and the tears you brought to me through this book.
    • 2/5
      I sooo wanted to like this book but QUEENIE was annoying. She got into situations of her own free will and then when the ? hit the fan she keep going further down that dark path. I'm glad she FINALLY came around and got help when she knew she needed it. But it's most definitely "Bridgett Jones Diary" Vibes for sure.
    • 5/5
      I loved it so much. This is what is really going on with women today. We have problems and we want to remain strong. I’ve learned that it’s okay to go through things and dust yourself off and start over.
    • 3/5
      I thought it was just okay. It was nice to have a story about Queenie finding her voice and moving on after a tough breakup, we've all been there, but the story -in my opinion, was a bit flat.
    • 4/5
      It was a very entertaining listen... The narration made the book engaging. Good story line and character development
    • 5/5
      Best book ever. Lovr how her history was woven into the story.
    • 5/5
      As a black plus-sized millennial woman, this was SO relatable from every angle - dating, strained familial relationships, cultural stigma around seeking therapy, ebbs and flows of girlfriends, making space for yourself in corporate office politics, self sabotage. It gives a true depiction of the roller-coaster of spiraling and healing.
    • 5/5
      Starts off a bit slow but a good read. Helps you to look at your life and how things in the past can truly effect you. Queenie was maneuvering through a lot of issues but she was able to seek the help she needed and make better decisions in the long run.
    • 5/5
      Very interesting topic, great narration and accents. Descriptive writing - I could picture the people and situations.
    • 5/5
      Moving! So very much needed being a black women. Relatable on so many levels. Thank you for this!
    • 4/5
      This is a hate to love book for me. I hated this book I mean hated it, but in the end loved it. I think I will think about this book for a while. If the first half the book makes you want to throw it keep reading you will be so pulled in that the last half you just to continue so you can see the light at the end of the tunnel. This book will take you on an emotional roller coaster, I mean a roller coaster with a lot of lows, but stick with it you will enjoy the journey in the end. Seriously battling if i should give this 4*s or 5*s. ??
    • 3/5
      Im listening as i read the book and the person who is reading skipped over a lot of words. Im not sure if her version is a bit different who id she didnt rhink ot mattered...its throwing me off.
    • 5/5
      This was so damn good! You have to read this one!
    • 4/5
      Queenie is a dark and funny novel about a black 20-something woman living in London. Queenie is going through multiple issues, and doesn't cope with them very well, bouncing from one awful sexual encounter to another while she and her long-term (white) partner are 'on a break'. She tries to pitch black-centric stories to the magazine she works for, only to have them rejected and replaced with a suggestion to write more about fashion. She also has longstanding issues from childhood which involve her semi-estranged mother. Strong themes of mental illness, gentrification, female friendship, family and race in the modern age are interwoven throughout.Looking at this list of problems and themes, it surprises me that Queenie has been marketed as a Bridge Jones-style novel. It is not - it's much darker and more complex. The style is very readable and accessible - I zipped through the book in less than a day - but you have to be ready to deal with Queenie's seemingly inexplicable decisions for the first two-thirds of the book. I do think Queenie's turnaround should have started happening a bit earlier, because what she goes through is quite difficult to read about! But that's not to invalidate those experiences at all - none of them are surprising if you're aware of the imbalance of power when it comes to interracial relationships today, especially the difficulties of navigating the dating scene as a black woman whose image is fetishised by men of other backgrounds. I did enjoy this novel a lot, and could definitely empathise with some of the parts about being the only brown face in any given situation and having friends who, well-meaning as they are, could never understand what it's truly like to be in an ethnic minority in 21st century Britain. I look forward to reading more from the author, and I hope she inspires other women of colour to publish stories in this vein - they are a much needed breath of fresh air!