Queenie book review
An exploration of mental health
Quick announcement: My I.G.G.T.T.E. Sci-Comedy episode is postponed until next weekend due to an insane week I’ve had in general. But it will be back, and I have started drafting it!
It was a bonus surprise to me to see that this book has been turned into a show on Hulu that came out this summer, so you can check that out too:
The story
In short, this is the tale of a girl named Queenie, born and raised in the U.K. with family from Jamaica, as she struggles with trying to be “normal” despite a horrific breakup, family trauma, and ongoing daily racism aimed at trying to keep her silent and unseen.
Overall, I felt it was gut-wrenchingly real.
*Trigger warnings for scenes of physical and emotional abuse as well as anxiety attacks.
I loved the humor
People who don’t understand it miss that it’s a coping mechanism to deal with how shitty life can be. No, it’s not trying to pretend everything’s fine when it’s not, but a way to release the tension and make it more bearable.
Because she’s named Queenie, and the late Queen of the U.K. had all of these corgi dogs as pets, our protagonist Queenie names her best friends “The Corgis” in their group chat, which I love.
pg. 189:
These light-hearted moments are important pauses to have in between the heavy scenes that occupy most of the book.
Moments that hit me hard
A lot of Queenie’s conflicts are around self-loathing, particularly when it comes to sex and romance. Because she has such a negative self-image, which she absorbed through ongoing abuse when she was young, she doesn’t feel worthy of loving sexual interactions with other men after her bad breakup. Instead, she seeks the opposite because the nights of toxic sex are the only things she thinks she can get, and in her depression, she’ll settle for anything to help numb her pain just so that she doesn’t have to be alone with it.
In all of her sexual flings, she describes them like out-of-body experiences because they kind of are. They aren’t even for enjoyment. They were just ways to cope.
For example:
pg.142
On the way home, I texted Guy. He came round that night, had sex with my body twice and left. We didn't use protection again. I need to take this seriously and not self-sabotage. The last thing I needed adding to my unclear relationship situation was an STI. What was wrong with me? I wished at this point I cared about myself enough to try and answer the question.
Then there were the everyday racial assumptions:
Here’s what happens on pg. 367 when this white guy she hooked up with at work continues to stalk her even AFTER:
He filed a complaint with HR that SHE was stalking him.
He hid from her that he’s married with a pregnant wife.
She has gone out of her way to avoid him at work.
“I guess I deserve that,” Ted said, running his hands through his hair, his trademark move. “I should have told you about the bab - “
“For the hundredth time, you should have just left me alone!' I screamed.
I was sure everyone in the square looked over.
“I hate you!' I screamed again, shaking. “You trying to kill yourself has nothing to do with me, everyone has problems, Ted, and it doesn't excuse what you've done. Leave me alone!'
“You're a prick,' Kyazike ran into my eyeline and swung her Longchamp handbag into Ted's face.
When did she get here?
“Get the fuck away from her now,” she barked, swinging the bag again and catching him on the shoulder. He put his hands up to protect himself, his cigarette still lit.
“Guys like you make me fucking sick. You're married, bruv, you've got a baby on the way, go home to your fucking wife. From when I was walking over, I could hear Queenie telling you to back off,” Kyazike stood firm and pulled her arm back, ready to strike again. “What's wrong with you, bro?”
A guy that looked liked Ted came running over to protect his fellow man. “Are you all right, mate? Do you need me to call the police?” he asked, making sure he kept well clear of a handbagging.
“Nah, bruv, the only police I'm calling is on this dickhead here. He's harassing my friend,' Kyazike shouted. From over there I could hear her asking to be left alone and nobody wanted to help, but you want to come running when the man is being troubled? You've got it all wrong.”
'Okay, fine, sorry. The man backed away, his hands in the air. 'As you were.'
I was honestly thrilled when her friend Kyazike came and started hitting him with her handbag because Queenie has been having anxiety attacks over losing her job because of this asshole, and still, a passerby ASSUMES that the “white guy needs protecting from an angry black woman” without even stopping to ask:
“Hmmm…I wonder WHY she’s angry?”
It was also painful to read what happens to Queenie when she goes to a public swimming pool for the first time and is made fun of by a white child who starts pulling at her long braids.
pg. 303:
T'm a sea monster!' Tabitha yelled, reaching over and pulling my hair. 'And so are you!'
'Are you just going to let your child behave like this?' I raised my voice to hide its trembling.
“I think we'd better go, Stella, I'm not going to be attacked at my local pool!'
“Don't worry, I'll go! I said, standing up. “I don't fit here, anyway.”
I stood up to go and locked eyes with another family who were all looking at me. I looked around the pool and into the eyes of strangers who were staring. They all hated me. I could tell. None of them wanted me to be there. I felt dread rise from my feet and into my stomach, where it started to lurch painfully.
'So aggressive!' I heard Tanya whisper as I stumbled out of the turnstiles.
Everyone's voices grew louder, so loud that I had to cover my ears with my hands. I half-collapsed, half-sat on a patch of grass, intrusive thoughts in my head growing as loud as the sounds around me. I couldn't bat them away. I put my head between my knees and stayed that way, the sun beating down on my back. I don't know how long I sat there, but eventually I found my phone and called Janet.
Hello?' she answered.
'1 didn't fit, I'll never fit,' I said. 'Roy didn't want me in his house - nobody wants me at the fucking lido - Tom didn't want me, my own mum... she didn't - ' The words forced their way out, the sentence broken by my jagged breaths.
'Queenie? Where are you?'
'There's no place for me, Janet,' I said.
The pain of that cuts so deep. And what gets me is that, coming from a multicultural family, people don’t understand how offensive they are being until you flip the behavior around on them.
For example, is there ever a situation in which a white woman would be happy with a child yanking on her hair and calling her a “sea monster?” How can anyone consider that to be appropriate behavior?
And what’s worse is that Queenie is trying to fit in here. She’s the one trying NOT to rock the boat. And yet everyone assumes she will.
Technique: Mental health stages of relationship recovery
The book as I see it is divided into 4 parts:
Tom breaking up with her
Her waiting for him to come back and coping (badly)
The final confrontation where she sees he’s never coming back, which leads to her total nervous breakdown
Her slow recovery until she’s finally strong enough to delete his number
Why is her relationship with Tom so important?
Well, he represents a LOT of things here.
Tom is a white guy, but a “nice one” who treated her more like a normal person, so she was comfortable with him. He did, on occasion, make efforts to be somewhat accepting of who she is. But…there were a lot of problems.
Firstly, she had a miscarriage while carrying his baby, though she doesn’t find out until after it happens and doctors explain it was more than a bad period. This all happened because she had an IUD implanted, so yes, she chose not to have kids, but she HAD discussed having kids with Tom, so the event is depressing.
This all happened after a horrible fight at his mother’s birthday party. During that occasion, his dad humiliated Queenie with a racial slur in front of everyone, and Tom said NOT ONE WORD to back her up. When Queenie left because she was too angry to stay there, she accidentally knocked over the big birthday cake they were bringing in, so the family blames Queenie for ruining the birthday and “over-reacting” even though she was terribly insulted.
Here’s what he said about it afterward:
pg. 45 – 46:
'Sorry I got angry before.'
I kept my mouth shut.
“But you can't keep doing this, Queenie.” His tone was disappointed. “I know that in your family everyone is loud and you solve problems by shouting about them, but my family is different!'
He looked at me as if searching for an apology, before continuing.
“This keeps happening, and I don't know what to do. I can't protect you when it's my family you think you need protecting from.'
Tom ran his hands through his hair dramatically and I rolled my eyes. “You know what my uncle is like, he's from a generation where they said the n-word quite a lot.'
I looked at him and blinked slowly. By now he knew that this meant, If you think I'll agree with you, you're wrong.'
“Not that I'm excusing it,' he said quickly, “but come on, you can't ruin my mum's birthday because of it.' There was a silence. “Here you go,' he conceded eventually, handing me my coat and rucksack. 'All your stuff is in there?'
Thanks.' I felt myself soften at this act of kindness. Plus, easy to forgive someone who is bringing you a coat when you're freezing cold. “You didn't need to do that,” I said quietly, reaching out for ny things. I put my coat on and moved into Tom.
“No,” he said, stepping back.
“What's wrong? Let's forget it. I needed a bit of space, but I've calmed down now. I should apologise to your mum. I feel so bad, that cake was so nice, and the sentimental valu -”
“You should go home,” Tom said firmly, cutting me off mid-ramble. “You ruined my mum's birthday, Queenie. Shes been wiping bits of cream off the walls since you slammed out. I don't want any more drama.”
I felt the anger that had dissipated in the bus shelter rise again.
“Me? Drama? Me?' I spluttered.
“You can get the bus from here to the station, the next train is in an hour,” Tom said, looking over my head. “I'm going to stay with my family for a few more days.'
'So I'm just meant to go back to the flat alone? You know I can't sleep anywhere by myself!'
'It's constant, with you. It's too much.' Tom said, his voice deepening. You're too much, Queenie.'
I opened my mouth to speak but closed it again.
“Hope you get home okay,' he said, turning to walk away.
'Do you know what?' I shouted behind him.
He stopped walking.
“I hope your next girlfriend is white, Tom. That way she won't be too fucking much for you.'
That was the beginning of the end for the couple, when he chose his family over her.
Later there is a brief moment during the breakup where they almost talk about it:
pg. 26:
“But Queenie, this whole relationship, you've refused to talk to me.'
My breath caught in my throat. I didn't know he'd felt like this, and I certainly hadn't expected him to vocalise it.
“You never tell me what's wrong,' he continued. Ever! And you'd close off, you'd cry and you'd lock yourself in the bathroom while I sat on the floor outside telling you I was there if you wanted to talk, but you never did. You've pushed me away for so much of this relationship.'
'It's my stuff!'
“We've all got stuff, Queenie!' Tom shouted. 'And I've tried with yours, I really have.'
'Tom,' I said, quietly. “However shit I've been, you've always forgiven me?'
“Yeah, I have.' He looked at his feet. “But I don't know if I can do it anymore.'
And that’s essentially what kills it. He refuses to stand up against the racism that his family treats so casually to support her, and she refuses to open up and share things with him…mostly because she’s been suppressing feelings for her whole life and never dealt with the abuse she received before, so she doesn’t know how to communicate the things that upset her the most.
I think it’s beautifully done, the way that the story moves around how she copes and then loses it because of the breakup, because it’s also a breaking up of her trying to fit in with someone who didn’t really fully accept her.
By the end of the book, instead of her trying to fit in so badly, she’s standing up to a racist date and finally speaking her mind instead of brushing it off like before and always pretending it was fine when it never was.
She gradually moves from her identity with Tom to an identity that embraces who she is and the family who really love her for who she is, and that makes it an exceptional read.
Thanks for reading!
If you read this, let me know what you thought.