Queen of the Tiles
Author: Hanna Alkaf
Pages: 320
Genre: Young Adult, Realistic Fiction, Mystery
Hook:
When Najwa Bakri walks into her first Scrabble competition since her best friend’s death, it’s with the intention to heal and move on with her life. Perhaps it wasn’t the best idea to choose the very same competition where said best friend, Trina Low, died. It might be even though Najwa’s trying to change, she’s not ready to give up Trina just yet.
But the same can’t be said for all the other competitors. With Trina, the Scrabble Queen herself, gone, the throne is empty, and her friends are eager to be the next reigning champion. All’s fair in love and Scrabble, but all bets are off when Trina’s formerly inactive Instagram starts posting again, with cryptic messages suggesting that maybe Trina’s death wasn’t as straightforward as everyone thought. And maybe someone at the competition had something to do with it.
As secrets are revealed and the true colors of her friends are shown, it’s up to Najwa to find out who’s behind these mysterious posts—not just to save Trina’s memory, but to save herself.
Rating: 5.4/10
I would not particularly recommend this book
Review: You know, this book wasn’t great in my opinion. It wasn’t super bad, and the general plot idea was actually very interesting to me. I like the original idea of a scrabble competition mixed with a mystery, but I didn’t love the way it was executed. I was really hopeful for an original mystery with an exciting ending, but to be honest, I found the ending to be generally underwhelming. However, I did enjoy learning more about scrabble and the wordplay included in this book. I think Najwa is an in-depth character, but I don’t feel particularly close to her personally, but maybe that’s my own problem and not the book’s? There were a lot of themes and topics that just didn’t resonate with me, but again, that probably means I’m just not the ideal reader. Anyways, this was not my personal favorite.
Buy on Amazon:
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“Hanna has lived in Malaysia her entire life except for the six years she spent studying and working in and near Chicago. She currently lives near Kuala Lumpur with her husband and two children, and attempts to write books while juggling her never-ending to-do list (this works on some days better than others).”
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