Check and Mate (Review)

Information:

• Author: Ali Hazelwood
• Genre: Contemporary, Romance
• Page Count: 347
• Year Published: 2023

Read This if You Like:

• BookTok reads
• YA debuts by Adult-specializing authors
• Older YA protagonists
• Chess
• A good mix of plot and romance
• Slow Burn
• Lots of Pop Culture references
• Commentary on women in competitive events
• Pink covers

Spoiler-Free Summary:

When Mallory Greenleaf reluctantly volunteers to participate in just one charity-benefiting chess tournament with her best friend, she knows it’s a bad idea. After all, chess destroyed her family four years ago, and Mal knows not to get too attached to the sport: she’ll just participate in this one tournament and then abandon chess forever. Simple. But somehow, she is forced to compete with Nolan Sawyer- the “Kingkiller” and the current #1 chess player in the world. And Mal somehow beats him. Soon, Mal’s plan to quit proves to be impossible- she’s shocked the entire chess world, and she now has the chance to earn cash prizes that will guarantee her family’s stability. And as Mal ranks up and competes in tougher and more elite tournaments, she rediscovers the burning passion she had for chess years ago, even if it requires lying to her family and being put under a huge spotlight. Oh, and Nolan Sawyer? Turns out, his goal is to compete with Mal one more time- and Mal tries to ignore him, but it may be impossible if she’s falling for him.

Review/Opinions:

Typically when it comes to any highly popular book, especially BookTok reads, I’ll find that it’s more underwhelming than the hype made it seem, with the exception of maybe one or two books. I got this book through a “Blind Date with a Book”, and while previously I thought it looked interesting enough, I ultimately had no real desire to read it because of its hype. But since I owned the book now, I decided that I should just give it a try instead of letting it gather dust on my bookshelf. So I read it- and I was surprised. It still had a few issues, but overall I liked it more than I would’ve expected.

The main selling point of this book is Nolan and Mallory’s relationship, which ended up being really sweet. I’m going to start by saying this book has my least favorite romance trope of all time- a 3rd act breakup caused only by terrible communication that was dragged out for way too long and not resolved until the last full chapter. But going in depth about that will just turn this review into a rant, so I’ll just talk about everything before that. Mallory was a really developed protagonist, with clear motivations related to her devotion to her family and how it led to her decision to abandon chess- and later rejoin it. Nolan was less developed since we only got Mal’s POV, but he still had a clear personality and affection for Mallory. Their romance is one that’ll satisfy slow-burn fans: they start with a good amount of tension due to Mallory beating Nolan in the tournament, but over time, romance begins to blossom. In my opinion, it wasn’t the most chemistry-filled romance, but it still had some cute little moments to satisfy romance readers.

But the best part of this is that the book wasn’t entirely focused on romance. In fact, I would say the book was maybe 40% romance and 60% real plot, which is rare for a book like this. We get plenty of on-page time of the actual chess-playing and Mallory competing in tournaments, and it’s clear that Ali Hazelwood did her research- there’s a lot of talk of the analytical parts of chess and focus on why characters do certain moves in the games. There’s also a bunch of talk on woman’s roles and equality in the sport, which ends up in major development for Mal’s character. Plus, chess is such a niche sport especially in books, so it’s amazing to be spotlighted, especially with so much more focus on it then a romance would normally allow.

The dialogue in this was… honestly, cringy. There’s two parts of the dialogue I want to discuss, and the first part is the constant pop culture references. In the prologue alone, Bill Nye fanfiction (…what?) Zendaya, Harry Styles, Billie Eilish, BTS, YouTube, and TikTok are all mentioned. And the references continue throughout the entire book, with maybe at least 3 per chapter… and serve no purpose most of the time except to emphasize this book is about and made for Gen Z people. About 99% of the references could be cut and the book would not be impacted in any major way. And there’s also a lot of casual talk about… adult stuff. Add that to the fact that both Mal and Nolan are a bit older than most YA characters, which means even though this book is closed-door, this is definitely for the more mature audience for the YA market (which I understand, because the author, Ali Hazelwood, started with Adult romances that some teens were probably reading anyway.) Sure, some of the dialogue was funny, but most of it was cringy enough that it didn’t really need to be included in the book.

I was scrolling through some other reviews of this when I finished it, and I saw many people saying the ending was rushed because it cuts off into the epilogue at this huge climatic moment. And yeah, I would’ve also wanted to see that scene happen, and I feel like it would allow a little more on-page time for the romance due to the super long 3rd act breakup. But I also feel like it ended at a good point, too. The final chapter is only a paragraph long, and while it does end right before the huge moment that happens off page, the short length and semi-cliffhanger adds a lot more suspense than writing a whole new scene. This big moment is revealed in the epilogue, and it still has a huge impact despite not appearing on the page because of how the final chapter is written. I also liked how the epilogue was presented as a news article about Mal, Nolan, and the chess tournament, because it gave us an outsider perspective. I feel like the plot ended at the right point, and what I really wanted from the epilogue or final chapter was one final scene with Mal and Nolan as a couple to make up for the long slog of a third act breakup.

So from the perspective of a critic, was this book perfect? No. As someone who enjoys just a good romance and plot for fun, was this worth the BookTok hype and something I would recommend for romance readers? Yes. Was it good enough for me that it made me want Ali Hazelwood to write another YA novel or for me to read one of her Adult romances one day? Maybe.