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A review by kamharellano
Queen of the Tiles by Hanna Alkaf
adventurous
emotional
mysterious
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
ICONIC UNPARALLELED PEERLESS SUPERLATIVE INIMITABLE MASTERPIECE SENSATION
I may be wrong. I mean, it’s not like I’ve read or even heard of every book in the world out there. But Queen of the Tiles is definitely the first book I’ve read that involves Scrabble. (Turns out that the parlor game I used to pull out as a kid whenever there was a typhoon and we had no electricity so there was nothing else to do is a lot more cutthroat than I thought. 🤭)
Najwa is a winner at Scrabble, but admits she pales in comparison to her best friend Trina, the titular Queen of the Tiles. A year after Trina dies at a Scrabble tournament, Najwa returns to the scene of the crime not only to try and win her best friend’s former title, but also solve a mystery. Someone has hacked into Trina’s Instagram account and is using it to drop clues that Trina’s death was no accident, and that the murderer is amongst that year’s players.
Queen of the Tiles definitely lives up to its comparison to The Queen’s Gambit and YA murder mysteries like They Wish They Were Us and One of Us Is Lying. But the thing that I loved the most about the choice of a game like Scrabble as the focal point of the book is the aura of nerdiness it lends to the whole thing. I’m honestly tired of the setting of such mystery thrillers being elite schools. A Scrabble tournament is a refreshing change!
Not to mention, having all those kids around waxing poetic about the beauty of words definitely served to expand my own vocabulary. We love a book that helps you learn!
Hanna Alkaf’s nuanced, sensitive, compassionate portrayal of mental health issues shines once more in Queen of the Tiles. Having just witnessed her best friend’s death, Najwa is of course suffering the after-effects, including anxiety attacks and memory loss. This book also deals with grief in such a multidimensional way, clearly showing us that dealing with grief is not one size fits all. Most of us have heard, in one way or another, the lesson that healing from grief is not linear. It’s not a steady progression from pain to feeling better that can follow a timeline. It has its ups and downs. And Queen of the Tiles shows us that in how Najwa and her friends handle and react to Trina’s death.
A book with a murder mystery plot inevitably ends with the discovery of a killer. Even YA thrillers, where the characters are in high school, have to follow this formula. But sometimes, there are books where the investigation takes a sudden, unexpected turn that elevates the whole story to a new level. Queen of the Tiles is one of those books.
Although the discovery of who exactly had hacked into Trina’s Instagram account was not a surprise (especially if you’ve been paying attention), the reveal of the truth behind Trina’s death was an absolute revelation – one that I can one hundred percent say I did not expect. The reality behind Trina’s death, as well as the involvement of the hacker slash blackmailer leaving cryptic online clues, only serves to make the whole thing more tragic. It’s a masterful subversion of the genre, while still remaining faithful to it.
I may be wrong. I mean, it’s not like I’ve read or even heard of every book in the world out there. But Queen of the Tiles is definitely the first book I’ve read that involves Scrabble. (Turns out that the parlor game I used to pull out as a kid whenever there was a typhoon and we had no electricity so there was nothing else to do is a lot more cutthroat than I thought. 🤭)
Najwa is a winner at Scrabble, but admits she pales in comparison to her best friend Trina, the titular Queen of the Tiles. A year after Trina dies at a Scrabble tournament, Najwa returns to the scene of the crime not only to try and win her best friend’s former title, but also solve a mystery. Someone has hacked into Trina’s Instagram account and is using it to drop clues that Trina’s death was no accident, and that the murderer is amongst that year’s players.
Queen of the Tiles definitely lives up to its comparison to The Queen’s Gambit and YA murder mysteries like They Wish They Were Us and One of Us Is Lying. But the thing that I loved the most about the choice of a game like Scrabble as the focal point of the book is the aura of nerdiness it lends to the whole thing. I’m honestly tired of the setting of such mystery thrillers being elite schools. A Scrabble tournament is a refreshing change!
Not to mention, having all those kids around waxing poetic about the beauty of words definitely served to expand my own vocabulary. We love a book that helps you learn!
Hanna Alkaf’s nuanced, sensitive, compassionate portrayal of mental health issues shines once more in Queen of the Tiles. Having just witnessed her best friend’s death, Najwa is of course suffering the after-effects, including anxiety attacks and memory loss. This book also deals with grief in such a multidimensional way, clearly showing us that dealing with grief is not one size fits all. Most of us have heard, in one way or another, the lesson that healing from grief is not linear. It’s not a steady progression from pain to feeling better that can follow a timeline. It has its ups and downs. And Queen of the Tiles shows us that in how Najwa and her friends handle and react to Trina’s death.
A book with a murder mystery plot inevitably ends with the discovery of a killer. Even YA thrillers, where the characters are in high school, have to follow this formula. But sometimes, there are books where the investigation takes a sudden, unexpected turn that elevates the whole story to a new level. Queen of the Tiles is one of those books.
Although the discovery of who exactly had hacked into Trina’s Instagram account was not a surprise (especially if you’ve been paying attention), the reveal of the truth behind Trina’s death was an absolute revelation – one that I can one hundred percent say I did not expect. The reality behind Trina’s death, as well as the involvement of the hacker slash blackmailer leaving cryptic online clues, only serves to make the whole thing more tragic. It’s a masterful subversion of the genre, while still remaining faithful to it.