I loved Hanna Alkaf’s debut novel, The Weight of Our Sky, and really liked her other novel The Girl and the Ghost, so I was definitely interested in reading more from her. Queen of the Tiles is different from her previous historical novels as it’s a contemporary YA story about grief, disguised as a murder mystery centered around competitive scrabble. Yes, scrabble.

Najwa Bakari saw her best friend, Trina Low, die after a scrabble game. Well, at least she thinks she did. Najwa has lost part of her memories from the trauma of that event and even a year later, she still doesn’t feel ready to go back to the world of competitive scrabble. But she does, as part of her efforts to move forward but when Trina’s account magically comes back to life and starts posting cryptic messages hinting that her death may actually be a murder, Najwa finds herself on a quest to find out who killed her best friend.

I think for this book, it’s important to calibrate your expectations. It’s really less of a murder mystery and more a novel about the complicated nature of grief, especially grief for a best friend who had her fair share of problems. Najwa must come to terms with the fact that not only is her best friend dead, her best friend wasn’t very well-liked in real life too and her way of dealing with it is by delving into the meaning of words. I actually really enjoyed this part of the novel, I thought Najwa’s grief was realistic and I understood why she latched on to the the idea of solving Trina’s mysterious death as an outlet. But if you’re reading this as a murder mystery, I think you might be disappointed.

As with real life, most people here have their likeable and unlikeable parts. Perhaps my favourite was Najwa because her obsession with words reminded me of Melati in Alkaf’s earlier novel, The Weight of Our Sky. Other than that, I found the interactions between the characters quite melodramatic, but they are teenagers and this is really very much like the teenagers I know. I suspect the characters will appeal more to teens of similar ages, but I’m an adult reading YA so I can’t really complain about the characters not resonating with me!

Ultimately, I think this was a good novel but one that doesn’t live up to her earlier works. It’s rather strange for me to think of an author’s debut novel being her best, but The Weight of Our Skies was really a rare gem in how it handled a sensitive time in Malaysia’s history and how it resonated with current issues. While this was still enjoyable for me, it wouldn’t be the first book I recommend when I’m talking about her Alkaf’s works.