“I Want You”

Check & Mate by Ali Hazelwood

Mallory Greenleaf is struggling to handle her home life with her ill mom and her two younger sisters. She’s feeling the pressure to maintain stability while struggling to earn enough for her family. Mallory has given up on chess but her best friend, Easton, convinces her to enter a chess tournament to play against some top chess player. Easton enters her in the top category. Unexpectedly, Mallory is up against the King Killer, Nolan Sawyer. He’s undefeated and a top contender in this tournament. Somehow she wins. She’s now been recruited to join a chess club that will pay her to practice and play. How is she going to hide this from her family? Also why can’t Nolan stop staring at her?!

I was not the target audience for this book so I wasn’t a huge fan. The romance was cute. But the writing? I guess I don’t really like it when authors make too many pop culture references.

2.5 ⭐
Review on Fable

Overall I liked the concept of Check and Mate. This chess romance is the first young adult novel by Ali Hazelwood. While I enjoyed the book, there were some really cringey dialogue. I also wasn’t really into the pop culture references (i.e. Riverdale, Zendaya, BTS, Michelle Obama, etc). I understand that I’m not the target audience since this is Young Adult, while I am very much an Adult Adult. SPOILER: Also the ending just ends and I needed more context.

First rule of chess club, never Google yourself.

But the BIGGEST question is: did I have fun? Yes. Could it be better? Sure. I liked the relationships especially the banter from the secondary characters. We have some childhood trauma that I think is well-written. Overall I wouldn’t recommend this book unless you want a fun, awkward romance book with a kind of annoying FMC. Let me know if you’d read it and what your thoughts were!

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Character Summary

Are you currently reading this book and confused about who is who? For a list of characters without any spoilers, continue reading:

Mallory Greenleaf – (Mal) FMC, ex-chess player
Nolan Sawyer – Aka King Killer, chess player
Darcy Greenleaf – Mallory’s younger sister
Sabrina Greenleaf – Mallory’s younger sister
Defne – Chess strategist
Koch – Chess player, misogynistic
Easton – Mal’s best friend

There are other several secondary characters who are worth mentioning but again I don’t want to spoil anything.