This book came recommended as it is set in south-east London – the area I moved into a year ago now. When asked where we live I reply saying ‘where Stormzy went to school’.

I bought the book in a charity shop and wondered whether the cover design reflected the ‘exoticising’ white publishing houses administer to pre-warn their readers about non-white characters or topics. I am unable to comment on that as I did not pick the book for its cover. I would have bought it regardless.

I did not particularly appreciate the main character being called Queenie, knowing full well how superficial and shallow that is. This prejudice did not prevent me from immediately falling in love with her and her colourful (for want of a better word) and disparate friends. We watch Queenie fall, spiral and come apart continuously realising that she had not hit the rock-bottom yet. Whenever I thought that that must be it she slipped a little lower. I wanted to intervene, I wanted to catch her and tell her to breathe that it will all pass. It was easy to identify with her as a break-up of a relationship is something almost everyone has experienced. Everyone has lost the solid ground beneath their feet at some point in their lives. I could feel what Queenie felt. I might have reacted differently in my own life but the emotions, pain and questions were the same. I lost myself in the book, read it in three days not wanting to put it down. It enveloped me like air, I felt submerged in its world like in the sea and it stung like grazing your knee on bitumen.

I may not have understood her choices or actions but she felt like a friend to me, a friend you see fall apart, you watch them damage themselves, you hold your breath as you know what they are doing is going to cause more harm and yet you hold your tongue and your breath because you know they have to do it their way and all you can do is wait and be there and make sure they know you will never leave them.

I was suspended by the onion-like peeling off of the story. We got a bit of information here and another bit a few pages later. Shifting between present and the past worked magic on my appetite and also made me feel like I was getting to know Queenie as you get to know a new friend, gradually, little by little as you meet and chat, as you experience different situations together, encounter their friends, family members and colleagues.

The racism and microaggressions come as an everyday, by-the-way kind of occurrence and are biting.  I cringed and shook my head a few times. It beggars belief how insensitive and sometimes downright stupid we can be. The realisation of how deep into the subconscious the white privilege seeps makes me shudder and also makes me very wary of my own self.

This was a book I did not want to end. I wanted Queenie and her friends and family to stay in my life - awkward, frustrating and unbelievable as they all were.