Name of the book : Queen of the Tiles
Author : Hanna Alkaf
Publisher : Salaam Reads
Year of Publication : 2022
Number of pages : 320
” Here, we carry around reams of paper crammed so full of words it looks like they’re teeming with ants; we recite anagrams with such rapid speed that each syllable hits you with the force of a bullet…”
Welcome to WORLD WARRIOR WEEKEND ~ the Scrabble Tournament for all the word nerds out there! There is tough competition, a weekend away from family in a hotel at Johor Bahru ( Malaysia) , raging teen hormones , friendship, jealousies, broken hearts and a sudden death.
Trina Low, the reigning Queen of the game of scrabble, has everyone enthralled by her moves both on the board and off it. She turns heads whenever she walks into a room. She takes up spaces and whatever she wants, she thinks she deserves those. Chaos descend and people fall apart when Trina slumps over while a game is on session and succumbs to her untimely death.
Queen of the Tiles is a Young Adult thriller written by the widely acclaimed Malaysian author, Hanna Alkaf . It takes place over a weekend, with flashbacks from earlier times, as the young competitors gather for another annual Scrabble tournament, a year after Trina Low’s tragic death.
Told from the perspective of Najwa Bakri, Trina’s best friend, who is currently suffering from dissociative amnesia as a result of the shock of Trina’s demise — we meet Mark, a former swimmer and Trina’s boyfriend ; Puteri, Mark’s ex girlfriend ; Yasmin, Trina’s ex best friend ; Emily, who was at the heart of a cheating scandal ; Josh Tan, Trina’s last competitor before she died and many others in the tournament circuit — most of whom are vying for the top position, now that the Queen is out of the game.
The novel quickly takes a darker turn when Trina’s inactive Instagram account suddenly starts posting stories and sending DMs to Najwa almost a year after the Queen’s death in the middle of the tournament — pointing towards a possible foul play in the death of the young star!
I love how the novel constantly kept me on edge, leaving me guessing till the penultimate moment. Alkaf continues to create diverse characters for her novel . This is her third book. The protagonist Najwa is a hijabi Muslim like the author. In a world where white supremacists spews Islamophobia at the drop of the hat , we need more protagonists like Najwa, who is comfortable in her own skin, culture and religion. She effortlessly listens to K-pop , indie rock , Taylor Swift and a Sheikh’s recitation of Quranic verses to calm herself down. We meet Shuba , a non binary character. There are several mixed races kids too , who play important roles in the book.
Scrabble is all encompassing in this book. Each cell of the chapter is immersed in this game. The way Alkaf has made Scrabble almost a character in this novel is applauding. “Don’t Panic! Forty is only 11 in Scrabble” reads the text on a person’s t-shirt in the book. Each chapter begins with a difficult Scrabble word and we observe how the word manages to portray the events that are to unfold in the chapter.
Grief is handled with dexterity in this YA fiction, as each of the characters process grief in different ways. One must mention, in this context, the author’s content warning at the beginning of the novel : “The truth is that there is no linear progression to grief. If it is a game, it is one that twists and turns and darts back and forth through many layers; one day it’s easy, one day it isn’t and one day it attacks you out of nowhere just when you think you’ve moved on….I trust you to know if you can handle that (grief) today. And if you can’t , there’s always tomorrow. “
MY RATING : 4.25/5 ⭐
Disappearing into books 