The action takes place at a teen scrabble tournament in Malaysia, a year after "Queen of the Tiles" Trina Low died on the table during finals. The story is told by Trina's best friend, Najwa. Other character's include Trina's boyfriend, her childhood bestie, and other Scrabble players who loved, hated, and/or admired Trina. It's Najwa's first time back, and her grief about Trina is still acute. 

You might think all Scrabble players are word geeks, but most of them don't care about word definitions like Najwa does. The words and definitions serve as nerdy-wonderful metaphors for how the story unfolds.