I was pleasantly surprised by this book, mostly because so
many fellow readers had convinced me I would hate it.

I get the main challenges people have with Queenie—for starters, there are no real “breakthroughs” with this character until the final 20% of the story. By this point, it felt a bit too rushed for me, and it probably felt way too late to the readers more skilled at #adulting. However, as a fellow twenty-something, I thought Queenie’s trainwreck tale was relatable, and was genuinely proud for the steps she’d made by the end.

I would have liked to see the ensemble cast introduced a teeny bit earlier, because Queenie’s family and group of girlfriends are hilarious and a joy to see interact with each other on the page. We spend a bunch of time with a host of no-good dudes, much to the chagrin and impatience of many readers. I felt thankful that Candice Carty-Williams didn’t try to overexplain Queenie’s “white man fetish” or whatnot: so many of the recent books written by and about young black women are obsessed with the topic of interracial dating, and so I appreciated this being a mostly uninterrogated factor here. Queenie’s internal monologues were already (enjoyingly?) insufferable enough!

Overall, I found a lot to laugh about in this novel. I would hope that the pacing is a bit more even in Carty-Williams’ future stories, but regardless, I will definitely look forward to reading more of her work!