Clio Campbell is a force to be reckoned with. Her curly red hair makes a visual impact on her audience and her lilting voice, while beautiful in a song, carries indignant vitriol when campaigning for the causes she cares about. And then, days before her 51st birthday, it all stops. Scabby Queen unpacks the story of Clio’s life, flipping between the years and the perspectives of people who knew her, getting to the root of her decision to end her life.
I’ll be blunt, I had a really hard time getting into the story. I’m not sure if it was confusion over keeping track of the various narrators or just the topic itself, but I spent the whole book waiting to be caught up in the story and never was. It wouldn’t be fair, however, to overlook the writing. If there was one thing I thought was mastered in the novel, it would be the dialogue. Innes does an incredible job of conveying personalities through dialogue and capturing various UK backgrounds through specific speaking patterns and verbal tendencies. I never felt the dialogue dragged or was too forced, which is definitely a credit to the author.
There were good story elements with intriguing events getting teased out along the way, but I think there was too much going on: too many characters to follow and too many stories spread out through the pages to really get hooked on the overarching narrative. As Clio is socially-minded, the book deals a lot with class issues, impacts of Thatcherism, and the Independence Referendum in Scotland. While a lot of it didn’t resonate with me personally, readers who grew up experiencing that reality might have a different take.
Even though I found some of the side stories interesting, I really struggled to make it through the book. I did enjoy the way Innes wrote overall and will be sure to look out for some of her other work.
2% Rating: 6/10
Recommend? Probably not
Re-Read? No
Time: 1:25