I thoroughly enjoyed this book, a very different take on looking at someone's life from other people's views and perspectives.

A whirlwind of a read Clio Campbell dead in the opening scenes .A look at the wild life she lead through the eyes of those who k ew her.A book so involving found it hard to put down a compulsive read grab this book,#netgalley#4thestate

"How did you do it? How did you use words, black on white with a finite limit, slotting into a pre-designed space on a page, to describe what a person’s life had been?"

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. Telling the story of a single life through the lens of various friends, lovers, and acquaintances, Scabby Queen is non linear storytelling done right. Clio Campbell is flawed, impossible to hate entirely but also impossible to really get behind. Her road to hell is paved with good intentions but she is selfish, manipulative, childish and parasitic. Obsessed with worthy causes, we follow Clio along with seemingly unconnected narratives that begin to merge into a collective story of one whirlwind of a life. It brilliantly illustrates the fingerprints that we leave on people every single day, the ripple effect that comes from just being alive and in the world. The author also touches on world events and pop culture, footnotes in the passage of time that occasionally even include real world figures.

It's possible this may be a divisive story because there are no good guys or bad guys, and no neat bow to tie up the final act. There's no love story or happy ending. People live, then they die and all that's left is how they are remembered by the people that touched them however briefly.

I really loved this deep dive into the life of Clio, an activist and musician, following her suicide. Pieced together with accounts of Clio from family, friends, acquaintances and press clippings, and moving backwards and forwards in them, this novel gives a multi-faceted picture of a protagonist that manages to remain unknowable despite all we come to know of her. With excellent political credentials, and some Scottish settings that I know really well (including the hospital I was born in and still attend), I highly recommend Scabby Queen. My only small criticism would be that in some of the narratives the characters would begin to reflect back on previous encounters with Clio and I would occasionally lose track of time and have to flip back (harder on a Kindle!) but that might just be my rubbish attention span. If you’re at all interested in music, politics or Scotland, read this when it’s published in April.

Scabby Queen is a novel about a complex woman and how she is seen after her death. Clio Campbell had a big hit with an anti-poll tax song in the early 90s, lived a life of political activism, and killed herself just before her fifty-first birthday. In the wake of the news, friends, lovers, and acquaintances think about the Clio they knew, and the key moments in her life, music and sex and politics. The question for everyone, and for the media coverage, is who was Clio Campbell?

This is a novel of epic scale, moving non-chronologically and across the perspectives of a wide range of characters who knew Clio to get across the complexity not only of her life, but how people view a (somewhat) famous woman and a political woman. As ever with this kind of narrative, it was confusing at first but once you start to pick up the recurring characters it gets easier to engage straightaway with new sections. The book was clever in how it presented people's views of her political action, often devalued by characters who remember more about her looks, personality, or singing. Snippets of media articles were used throughout as another way at looking at her public image, though it wasn't until the end that the importance of her media image came to the forefront.

Scabby Queen is a clever novel that is clearly making statements about how woman are viewed both in the public eye and out of it. However, it didn't quite come together and the pacing didn't always work so sometimes the reading experience dragged a bit. It is an interesting look at the complexity of trying to make a difference and different ways that people do and don't fit in which says a lot in the modern age of social media.

"Scabby Queen" spans decades and contains many big themes which Innes handles skilfully and sensitively. There's a lot of jumping between timelines and perspectives which can be a little disorientating. Clio Campbell is a feisty, feminist protagonist whose life unfolds in layers (I love that she has Sally Bowles fingernails!). The supporting cast are also well-drawn throughout. Kirstin Innes is a strong voice in Scottish fiction and has captured the post-Independence referendum mood perfectly. I also liked that she shows how incredibly frustrating, exhausting and all-consuming activism can be. The novel evoked a whole host of emotions for me and partly summed up why I've given up social media and now choose my sources of information wisely. "Scabby Queen" is a cracking read and provides plenty of food for thought. It's a massive air punch in book form. I loved it!

3.5 stars

Opening with the suicide of one hit wonder Clio Campbell,the book skips in time,over the last 50 years,and references some big events in recent uk history,showing who she was and the impact her life had on others.
At times I felt sorry for her,at others I would have quite happily slapped her had I been a character in the book.
Definitely a memorable one.