Tiny In Toronto

Hey! Welcome back! You guys already know that I love books and looove reading. With all this extra time that I have now, I’ve been reading a book a week! As difficult as this situation is for us, it’s nice to have little things to be grateful for and I’m definitely grateful to have time to read more books.

Last week I read “Queenie” by Candice Carty-Williams because it is this month’s book pick for one of my *four* book clubs lol. I read this book in 5 days. There was a day where I just sprawled out on my bed and read 200 pages all at once! This book was a really good read. I honestly feel like it’s been a while since I’ve loved a book enough to write a blog post about it. I’m basically writing this because I loved it so much and I want you to read it, too!

To stop myself from telling you the entire story and ruining it to the point where there’s no reason for you to go read it for yourselves, I’m just going to share with you what I loved about the novel.

What I absolutely loved most about this novel was that she was very close to my age and as a whole, I found Queenie to be a very relatable character to your typical 20-something year-old woman. The way Candice Carty-Williams wrote this book also made it very easy to read and straight to the point. I understood everything that was going on and I felt so many emotions! There were parts where I laughed out loud, where I almost cried, and parts where I just needed to close the book and step away for a little bit (I’ll get to this more in a bit). It’s also set in England which is cool. I’ve never been but it sounds perfect.

Another part that I loved most was that despite the fact that Queenie was kicked out by her boyfriend, had to move in with her uptight grandparents, nearly lost her job and was being sexually abused by multiple men, I still found this empowering for women. Queenie came out of it like a true Queen, and she did it all without any help from a man. She had her family and her girlfriends. They were all she needed to overcome her many life challenges, with a bit of therapy. And that’s something else that I loved about this book! Queenie’s grandparents were very narrow-minded and still under the influence that if you were to seek out a therapist and attend appointments, etc., it’s a sign of weakness. This novel is a great tool for women to realize that it’s okay to be weak, it’s okay to ask for help. You have to do what’s best for you and therefore, who cares what anybody else thinks? This helped Queenie in so many ways. Yes, it was all her but the therapist’s guidance was so helpful and so women shouldn’t feel ashamed for wanting help. I loved that.

What bothered me about this novel was all of Queenie’s self-destructive tendencies. But I realized at the end of the novel that you don’t know you’re being self-destructive at the time. Nothing makes sense at the time and these things tend to happen when you go through what Queenie went through. I felt very frustrated because Candice makes you feel like you’re one of Queenie’s friends and to just sit back and watch her make all these poor decisions was just so frustrating. I wanted to just give her a good shake or a slap her across the face!

Overall, I think this book was perfect. I highly recommend it. I loved the ending the most. It makes you feel good and proud. There’s more I want to say but I really encourage that you just read it for yourselves! If you have any questions, feel free to ask me in the comment section below!

Until next time!

– Tiny ❤