I really liked this, especially for a YA contemporary novel! Obviously at 37 I'm nowhere near the YA target market, but I really enjoyed how much this was written for its age group. Hanna Alkaf has a gift for writing teens as they are, not as adults aged down (*coughLeighBardugocough*) and as a result I could simply enjoy the story for what it was.

I think pushing this book as "They Wish They Were Us meets The Queen’s Gambit" is a little bombastic. Yes, it's a murder mystery, but it's not a thriller. It feels more in the veins of a cozy mystery in its structure and character work. 

The best part about this is our main character Najwa. We follow her a year after the death of her best friend Trina at the same Scrabble tournament she's taking part in now. Yes, she's drawn into the mystery of how/why her friend died and trying to figure out who may have done it as someone has hacked Trina's Instagram account and is taunting everyone, but the story is really about Najwa's growth arc. 

She's obviously traumatized by the death of her best friend, and the way she deals with her grief and anxiety as she tries to step back into their old Scrabble world is lovely to read. It feels real and human and I wanted so badly for Najwa to keep working on dealing with her grief and to find a way to keep moving forward in life.

The rest of the story was pretty neat as well. We get to see the the world of the Scrabble tournament, we meet a host of various characters (all suspects at some point!), and this book is so unapologetically Malaysian! It takes place in Kuala Lumpur and Malaysian words and phrases are used with NO translation - you just have to figure it out from context and feel. I loved it.

This really was a delight to read and I hope it becomes a big hit among teens. They deserve a book like this!