Queenie
Queenie Jenkins is twenty-five, Jamaican-British, working a newspaper job where her pitches about Black Lives Matter get politely ignored, and freshly on a break from a long-term relationship that she is quietly sure will turn into a reunion. It does not. As the break hardens into a breakup, Queenie spirals through a series of men who treat her body as an experiment, a best-friend group chat that is louder than her own judgment, and a therapist she keeps almost telling the truth. Candice Carty-Williams's 2019 debut is sharp on the particular exhaustion of being the only Black woman in the room, on the way grief uses sex as a muffler, and on how a messy protagonist can still be taken seriously by the novel around her.
Where Queenie keeps showing up
Two of our editors' lists feature this novel.
What you might want to know about Queenie
The questions readers send us most often, answered without spoilers.
After a break with her white long-term boyfriend, Queenie Jenkins spirals through bad decisions, worse men, and a job that won't take her seriously, while her loud Jamaican family and best friends drag her back.
Yes. Hulu and Channel 4 released an eight-episode adaptation of Queenie in 2024, with Candice Carty-Williams as showrunner. The show preserves the novel's voice and London setting.
Queenie has been described as a Black British answer to Bridget Jones's Diary, but is much more specific to its protagonist's experience as a Jamaican British woman in London. The tone is sharper and the themes heavier than Bridget Jones.
Queenie was written by Candice Carty-Williams, published in 2019 by Blumenbar.
Queenie is 392 pages in standard print editions, though page counts vary slightly between hardcover, paperback, and large-print formats.
At an average reading pace of about 250 words per minute, Queenie takes most readers 6 to 8 hours to finish.
Queenie is a standalone novel by Candice Carty-Williams, not part of a series.
Queenie is available in hardcover, paperback, ebook, and audiobook formats from Amazon, Bookshop.org, ThriftBooks, and most major bookstores.
