Clio Campbell was a feisty Scottish singer in the 90's who has recently taken her own life. Scabby Queen skips between the present day and reacts to the news and Clio's upbringing and her life at the height of her fame. I found this read like quite a good rock memoir but it kind of lost its way towards the end and lost my interest a bit.

This is the tale of Clio Campbell, a one hit wonder, told from the perspective of the people who knew her. Clio has just committed suicide and those who knew her try to come to terms with why. It's an interesting story and the scottish music scene is well portrayed. I didn't like any of the characters much especially Clio, but I suspect that's the point.

This is the story of Clio Campbell, a singer, political activist, tracing her life from birth through a chart topping hit when she was still a teenager, throughout the rest of her life until she commits suicide, shortly before she turns 51. What would make such a firebrand woman choose to take her own life?

The story is broken up into different points of view, moving amongst different people who were friends, family, lovers or acquaintances of Clio throughout her life, detailing her life and the impact, good or bad, that she had on others. I thought the structure of the book was fantastic and very impactful, much more so than would have the case with a more straightforward narrative. But by bit, Clio is revealed through her relationships, detailing her search for something to believe in, trying to make a difference against the backdrop of the political climate of the time.

I thought this book was spectacular- it definitely lives up to the hype!

I received this book from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

This is an absolute firecracker of a book! From the first few pages I knew it was going to be brilliant, Innes has the ability to immediately put you in the space and time of these characters, I wanted to thunder through the entire book but I forced myself to read it slowly and to savour every morsel, and it was worth it. Every character you encounter is deeply complex, they will make you furious one minute and then break your heart the next. The triumph of the book though is it’s main protagonist, Clio Campbell, you hate to love her but, god, you can’t help it.

3.999 but not *quite* 4! Really enjoyed this though - it’s a grittier, scabbier, more political Daisy Jones. Reading Scottish dialect has always been one of my fave things, so that’s a nice added bonus 🙃

Who was Clio Campbell? One hit wonder, political activist, working class feminist, idol to some, pain to others, gone too soon after taking her own life in her friend's spare room. Spanning decades and many a political backdrop, it's a layered look at a woman who couldn't be confined neatly in one box. Some loved her, hated her, the press pitted her older self against her starlet youth, people mourned, people laughed, people raged, people spoke about her at book festivals to middle class audiences - they all had something to say.

Clio (and Scabby Queen) is a patchwork portrait, a collage for readers to piece together. A sharp, fiery, determined, force of a collage.

A good book needs a great hero or heroine and this one has just that. Clio was intriguing, beguiling, sometimes annoying but above all engaging and I felt that this book immersed me in her story, whilst still leaving a few stones on their edges, if not unturned. The ending of the book gave a little insight whilst still allowing for some imagination. Clio overshadowed all of the other characters in the book, who were really just the supporting cast. I did actually find the title a little off-putting but totally got it as the book went on and it was explained. Don't expect light hearted chick lit here - this isn't your usual poolside read - it is gritty and painful at times. The further I went into the book, the harder I found to put it down. Definitely recommended and I'd read more by this author.

This is easily in my Top Ten this year, and unlike the heroine's pop career, I feel like it will stay like that until the end of 2020.
Scabby Queen is the story of Clio Campbell - object of obsession for journalist Neil, older-woman lover to young rapper Hamza and mentor to singer Shiv West (who, awkwardly, doesn't really need her - not as a young woman, and certainly not as an older one).
To her mother, she's just the bad girl who brought shame on the family, but still never quite forfeits her mother's love.
I spent ages wondering who Clio might be based on - there are so many beautiful, complicated women in music, and she has hints of Kirsty McColl, Dolores Riordan, Shirley Manson (who Shiv West also resembles to me) and Sinead O'Connor.
The scope of the novel is intense, ranging from a yoga retreat in Greece to a squat in Brixton.
There are notes of Alan Warner, 90s Irvine Welsh, Ian Rankin and bits of high-concept literary romances from recent years such as One Day, Miss You and The Versions of Us.
Told slightly out of sync, events described later in the book give more weight and heft to earlier ones, for example when Clio meets her estranged father, bombs a gig at a protest, finally sleeps with Neil and elects not to attend her father's funeral, the fact that these stories are not told quite chronologically gives them more power and sheds light on Clio's motivations, which are never entirely clear.
Like all the characters in the book, I never quite figured out who Clio was, but I already miss her voice.

Clio Campbell kills herself in the opening chapter of this infuriating and brilliant novel. Clio is unwanted and unloved as a child so she spends her 51 years on Earth trying to fill that hole. Clio is the most magnetic and infuriating of protagonists. She is a selfish and egotistical wrecker of lives. All the causes she follows are vehicles for her big mouth and why the world will always let her down. Clio messes up at being a pop star, at being married. Worst of all, she cannot be anyone's friend. To stay she is larger than life is a massive understatement. Clio is the only person in any room she's ever in. There is such rich storytelling throughout. It's a real treat of a read.

This is a very clever and very well written dive into the life of Clio - a singer, an activist, a friend. But it isn’t straightforward and linear. It is written after Clio commits suicide and involves various people who knew her - and many who didn’t - telling their stories of who she was. The clever part is the way Clio is all the different people described, at different times and in different places. It is heartbreaking, it is funny, it is annoying and it is definitely worth a read.

I loved the politics of Scotland fitting in around the narrative as people described Clio’s big hit (about the Poll Tax Riots) and how it affected them and then the feelings around IndyRef when Scotland chose to stay in the union. Clio is a sad and beautiful figure throughout. Hard as nails and yet also soft as silk, depending on who she is with and the mood she is in. I enjoyed the Scots vernacular - it’s a while since I heard someone saying they were “black affronted”.

Clio is no hero in the epic sense but Ms Innes has somehow captured an essence of heroism among the debris of someone trying to live their life and give it meaning.

Recommended if you are looking for something a bit different.

I was given a copy of this book by Netgalley in return for an honest review.

My thanks to 4th Estate for an eARC via NetGalley of ‘Scabby Queen’ by Kirstin Innes in exchange for an honest review.

Scottish singer Clio Campbell was a one-hit-wonder in 1990 with a song that became an anthem for the anti-poll tax movement. Since then she has been a passionate political activist, a feminist, and a woman living life on her own terms. Then days before her fifty-first birthday she kills herself in her friend Ruth’s spare bedroom.

The story then moves back and forth in time, as the voices of family, friends, acquaintances and journalists recount memories of Clio over the five decades of her life.

The format of this novel reminded me some of ‘Daisy Jones and the Six’ as well as its focus upon the exploitative nature of the music scene, especially for young women. Added to this are politics and activism from the anti-Iraq war and G8 protests, Scottish Independence, and Brexit.

Kirstin Innes has created an extraordinary cast of characters and skilfully builds up a picture of the complex Clio Campbell through their eyes. Are any of these the real Clio? This is highlighted in a confrontation between Neil, a journalist, and Nancy, a woman Clio worked with in Glasgow. Neil responds to her accusation that what he had written didn’t reflect the Clio that she knew: “Human beings are such multifaceted things, aren’t we–two people can have completely different pictures of the same woman very easily.“

I found this a fascinating novel, a very compelling read. However, I will note that its nonlinear narrative and shifting perspectives does demand a close reading.

I felt that ‘Scabby Queen’ was an ambitious work of literary fiction and I am keen the check out her first novel, ‘Fishbait’, that won The Guardian’s Not the Booker Prize in 2015.

Scabby Queen is one hell of a book. I took so long to read it that I actually ended up listening to it on audio on Scribd which is my preferred medium.

Told from multiple perspectives, from POV narratives to magazine articles, we follow the life of Clio Campbell who has died by suicide at 51. Clio, we learn, was a political activist and one hit wonder in the early 90s. Clio is not a particularly ‘likeable’ character, but an interesting one no doubt. One that I was eager to know better. One that I could only know through the lens of other people.

Unfortunately this writing style ultimately didn’t work for me and so a potentially brilliant book became, personally, a less than enjoyable reading experience. The highlight for me was how quintessentially Scottish it was. Even tho I didn’t love it,

I’d still recommend to lovers of biographies (fictional or otherwise), music, Q magazine (haha! hi Dad,) badass leading ladies, activism and ofc Scotland.

Will be marking as 3 stars here, however will be leaving the book unrated on goodreads as I don’t want to 3-star a book that didn’t do anything wrong just because I did not particularly enjoy it.

There are a lot of characters and an awful lot of things going on. I love a good lefty political rant but their frequency here left me skipping pages to move the story forward. I was excited by the first one third of the book but felt it lost it's way after that.

This was very good. A big, sprawling novel with different points of view, all connected by a larger than life character who remains an enigma throughout. Did I 'like' Clio? Sometimes, yes but more often no. Does that matter or change my enjoyment of this deeply intelligent novel? Not at all.

The different points of view were really handled well as you went from thinking one thing about a situation or a person to something else entirely. They really did feel grounded in each person's own perception of Clio, and also of themselves.

There was a lot going on and I think I did fail to see the importance of a few things. Like, I could tell they were carrying a deep significance but didn't understand what that was.

Would definitely read more from this talented writer.

Thanks to netgalley and the publisher for a copy in exchange for an honest review.

2.5 rounded down

Clio Campbell, one-hit-wonder, commits suicide three days before her 51st birthday. The story of her career, political activism and life is told in brief chapters and articles by people who knew her - ex-lovers, journalists, friends.

I expected to be wowed by this but ultimately found it quite forgettable. There's nothing wrong with the execution, writing or plot, and I expect many will love this, but it all fell a bit flat for me.

I read a proof copy of Scabby Queen by Kirstin Innes back in April, when it was originally due to be published, but its release date in the UK was pushed back to July due to the pandemic. It tells the story of Clio Campbell, a one-hit-wonder Scottish pop star and political activist who takes her own life just before she turns 51, some three decades after a brief period of fame as the singer of the anti-poll tax anthem ‘Rise Up’.

Clio’s suicide isn’t a spoiler as it is revealed right at the beginning of the book when her body is discovered by her friend Ruth. The story then jumps back and forth in time looking back at Clio’s life with each part retold by a selection of people who knew Clio from very different perspectives. The non-linear story is slightly confusing initially, but I really got into it by the second half as the glimpses of Clio’s life through the eyes of others gradually come together to reveal an affecting character portrait of someone who is very vulnerable in lots of ways behind the outspoken public facade. 

Much like Innes’ Not The Booker Prize-winning Fishnet, ‘Scabby Queen’ raises a lot of complex questions about a variety of social issues in an engaging format, with an ambitious political span from the rise of Thatcherism through to the Scottish independence and Brexit referendums. Clio’s passions, insecurities, hypocrisies and deep sense of justice are shaped by her childhood against a backdrop of miners strikes and a difficult relationship with her mother. The time she spent living in a Brixton squat with an undercover police officer allows Innes to examine how class, gender and race influence activism in different ways. Her bumpy career in the music business is particularly well documented in the pieces of journalism between chapters which reveal the thinly veiled sexism and ageism towards female musicians, rendering the emotional outpouring on social media following Clio’s death even more hollow.

‘Scabby Queen’ is an excellent piece of contemporary Scottish fiction and I look forward to reading more of Innes‘ work. Many thanks to 4th Estate for sending me a review copy via NetGalley.

This was definitely a well-written book, the multiple POVs was an interesting style and overall it's good but I found it very hard to like it.

Not liking Clio was a big part of that, although I'm not convinced we're supposed to like her, but it was also hard to engage with most of the characters because many of them were so fleeting. Neil was one who was interesting, we feel sorry for him at the beginning but as the story continued it was clear that he was something of a self-serving dick.. I liked Sammi most of all but found the way her dialogue was written really quite jarring I get what was going on but t didn't read authentically which ended up irritating me. I know Brixton well and that's really not the way people there speak.

Did we find out who Clio Campbell was? Not really but that was because, as far as I could see, that Clio Campbell didn't really know who she was. And that's fine, Many of us search for meaning and not everyone finds it.

I hate being so down on a well-written book but it felt like a real slog reading it. My review is about how it felt to me and while I'm absolutely sure others will enjoy it, it wasn't for me. 2.5 stars from me.

A whirlwind of a book that tells of the life and loves of Clio Campbell retold by friends, lovers and others after her untimely death by suicide. Kirsten Innes has produced a well written novel about one hit wonder Clio, weaving her tale around factual Scottish and UK political events of the 80's, 90's and new millennium.
Although I took a wee while to get used to the authors style in introducing the characters and their stories, once into it I thoroughly enjoyed it.
Thank you to NetGalley, the author and the publishers for an advance reading copy.

Scabby Queen is an expansive, distinctly Scottish, political novel which skilfully shifts through time, perspectives and landscapes (including the Scottish Highlands, Glasgow and London) and covers issues of race, class, sexism, mental health and recent political events including the Scottish independence referendum and Brexit. Providing narrative thread is our complex protagonist: once-famous musician and political activist Clio Campbell.

The novel’s namesake is a card game in which cards are paired off and passed around until the person left holding the Queen of Spades or the ‘Scabby Queen’ is deemed the loser. Similarly, Clio is passed around from narrator to narrator, as author Kirstin Innes builds up a picture of Clio’s life through the perspectives of some of Clio’s close and not-so-close acquaintances. We never hear from Clio herself, and the portrait we get is complicated by the fact that each narrator has a different interpretation of her. Some narrators think of Clio as strong, influential, and selfless, whilst others portray her as chaotic, mentally unstable, and manipulative. This oscillation between Clio’s strength and vulnerability, and an awareness that each narrator centres their own interests, issues and biases and may therefore be unreliable, means that the reader is never able to make a conclusive judgement about Clio. These narrative devices create an interesting reading experience.

There are intriguing subplots: Clio’s time spent living in a squat with an undercover cop (unbeknownst until years later); the breakdown of her relationship with her mother; her short-lived marriage and miscarriages. Each subplot is disclosed to us in pieces as the narration moves back and forth through time as well as perspective. This shifting approach might sound overwhelming but Innes executes it well.

Clio’s life is rooted in activism and she takes up various different causes which cause rifts in her friendships throughout the years, as her friends turn away from the activist life in order to settle down, have families or find inner peace. The tension between political activism and individual need is highly relevant. None of the characters seem to have struck the right balance and the novel raises questions about who has the privilege to opt-out of the fight.

The novel touches on some key political questions but it’s characterisation and storytelling techniques were more impactful for me than the politics. I enjoyed the complexity of the shifting perspectives and the fact that we didn’t hear from the protagonist, and the novel is impressively far-reaching.

One final thought; it was only thanks to having a Scottish partner that I knew most of the Scottish slang. If you’re not familiar with Scottish vernacular, keep Google at hand when reading Scabby Queen.

I bloody loved Kirstin's debut FISHNET, a gritty but ultimately big-hearted novel about prostitution in Glasgow. SCABBY QUEEN begins with the suicide of Clio Campbell: z-list celebrity, one-hit-wonder and political activist. Beloved by the press in her younger years as a sexy, sassy young popstar, Clio was maligned as a ranting spinster as she aged. This brazen, bold, generous-spirited novel interrogates the way our media treats women in the spotlight, and feels particularly pertinent following the suicide of Caroline Flack earlier this year. Crammed with political rage, but cheekily readable, SCABBY QUEEN is both fun and fierce.