Queenie, friendship + Electric Circus
Have you ever read a book where you could not stand the protagonist but the author released a second book and you felt like you had to read it to see if your feelings changed?
While that was a very specific question, that’s how I felt with the book Queenie and now the follow-up book, Queenie is Working On it by Candice Carty-Williams.
Seven years ago, Candice introduced readers to Queenie, a twenty-something woman living in London who was trying to figure her life out. After breaking up with her boyfriend, Tom, she spiraled into a stretch of drinking, and way too many bad decisions. Reading the book, and later watching the series, I found Queenie to be exhausting. I get being in your twenties, and not having things figured out, but she was spiraling way too much for me.
However in the new book, out September 8th, the title was accurate. We are seeing Queenie ten years older, and as the title alludes, she is working on and through many things. She’s more self-aware, she takes accountability for her wrong doing in her relationships (even if it takes some time), she’s in therapy and she’s figuring out what her next chapter looks like, e.g., whether she wants kids or not and what that looks like in partnership. Dare I say, not only did I enjoy this book, I also found Queenie to be very relatable.
While reading, there are different themes that Candice explores in the book, but one of my favorite themes is friendship. We see Queenie still interacting with her same friend group, “The Corgis” and working through the shifts that happen as your friends get partners, move and start having kids. Queenie is not where her friends are currently, and has to reckon with how her previous decisions impacted her life stage and also, how some of the chaos she created impacted her friendships, specifically with her best friend Kyazike.
Friendship by the page
The theme of friendship has shown up a lot recently in books, perhaps because we all crave connection, and life milestones at times shift how our friendships look. Here are a few recent books that I enjoyed where friendship is either at the center of the book or a theme that exists within the book.
The Books
Kin by Tayari Jones
This is probably my favorite book of the year, and for so many reasons, one being the friendship and relationship that exists between Vernice and Annie. The pairing, two motherless girls, grew up as “cradle sisters” in a small Louisiana town. Throughout the book, we see them live different lives but their friendship and sisterhood are a constant.
Love by the Book by Jessica George
This is such a beautiful book about friendship, and how your friendships should be treated as intimately and cared for as your romantic relationships. The intimacy and friendship that exists between Remy and Simone was beautiful to read.
The Wilderness by Angela Flournoy
While it took me some time and multiple attempts to get through this book because of the time hopping, at the center, what I enjoyed were the friendships. In the book, we meet five girlfriends who have been friends for twenty years. Throughout this time, they experience many life events including having kids, and getting married, and they are working their way through the metaphorical wilderness and their friendships.
The Revelation of Dionne Daphne by Mara Brock Akil
While this is a heavy book, and friendship isn’t the core focus of the book, it’s one of the themes that I enjoyed the most. In this book, Dionne gets life-threatening news that she has to navigate, and one of those ways is through her friendship with her best friend Farrah. Farrah serves as one of Dionne’s safe spaces on her journey and based on interviews I’ve listened to with Mara, that relationship was one of the themes she wanted to highlight the most. She says your friends act as your surrogate parents which I think is such a beautiful concept.
Take What You Can by Naima Coster
This book, out August 4th, explores how your friendships can evolve and again shift overtime. We meet best friends, Val and Milly who met on a study abroad program, and who are now both married, pregnant and living in New York. With this book Naima maps out the complexities that come when your friendship dynamic changes, and how you can create bonds without examples.
The Music
Aside from the friendship theme, another thing I couldn’t stop thinking about while reading this book is that it served somewhat as Queenie’s redemption arc. With the book, we see Queenie have to essentially reintroduce herself to her friends, colleagues, family and technically… even us the readers. With that lens, for some reason I kept thinking of Common’s album Be.
Perhaps because I was reading this book at an appointment where Jennifer Hudson’s talk show was playing, my mind kept going to that album and how that was Common’s redemption arc or reintroduction following what many would call his flop of an album, Electric Circus. While there were many factors that made that what it was e.g., record label shifts, that album was the one that critics and fans often cite as his questionable release. The album was an experimental album that was created at a time where Common said he wasn’t in a hip-hop mood. While that album gave birth to one of his biggest singles, “Come Close,” there were no other singles from the album and as a whole, it left fans and critics feeling mixed.
When Be came around, it was a reintroduction to him and his craft and a welcome back for fans and critics who began following him based on his initial hip-hop roots. I would say that Be sits in a similar world of Queenie is Working On It because neither asks people to see where they were before the fall, instead they ask people to meet them where they are now because of that fall.