Queenie

Candice Carty-Williams

From Shelf: The 2020 Women's Prize for Fiction Longlist

A darkly comic and unflinchingly raw depiction of a young woman trying to navigate her way in the world, QUEENIE is about identity, independence and carving your own path. For fans of Dolly Alderton, Sally Rooney, Kiley Reid, and Fleabag.

THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLERBOOK OF THE YEAR AT THE BRITISH BOOK AWARDSSHORTLISTED FOR THE COSTA FIRST NOVEL AWARDLONGLISTED FOR THE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION'A deliciously funny, characterful, topical and thrilling novel for our times' Bernardine Evaristo, winner of the Booker Prize'Brilliant, timely, funny, heartbreaking' Jojo Moyes'A must-read novel about sex, selfhood, and the best friendships that get us through it all' Candace Bushnell, author of Sex and the CityQueenie is a twenty-five-year-old Black woman living in south London, straddling Jamaican and British culture whilst slotting neatly into neither. She works at a national newspaper where she's constantly forced to compare herself to her white, middle-class peers, and beg to write about Black Lives Matter. After a messy break up from her long-term white boyfriend, Queenie finds herself seeking comfort in all the wrong places.As Queenie veers from one regrettable decision to another, she finds herself wondering, What are you doing? Why are you doing it? Who do you want to be? - the questions that every woman today must face in a world that keeps trying to provide the answers for them.A darkly comic and bitingly subversive take on life, love, race and family, Queenie will have you nodding in recognition, crying in solidarity and rooting for this unforgettable character every step of the way. A disarmingly honest, boldly political and truly inclusive tale that will speak to anyone who has gone looking for love and acceptance and found something very different in its place.