Disclaimer
This is a spoiler free review.
The BookTok girlies need to stop overhyping every book that popular authors publish.
Rating
⭐️.5/⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Check & Mate is marketed as a rivals-to-lovers book, however the Mallory and Nolan are not rivals, his real rival is another character in the book. Also, this was definitely not a romance book, it was actually a contemporary, which is fine but they should've marketed it that way. All they did was flirt, well mostly Nolan.
The main plot point of the book is the MCs are chess players, however I think it was way to in depth with the terminology. As someone who has never played chess and knows nothing about it, I felt confused for most of the book because I didn't understand chess terminology and the game plays. Eighty percent of the book was just chess tournaments, which I didn't really care about.
There was not point in having a MMC because Nolan was barely in the book. At one point it's mentioned that Mal and Nolan don't see each other for two months! He's barely ever on page, he's mostly only mentioned by other characters. The thing that he blames himself for is kind of dumb to be honest. Nolan had personality, I really couldn't tell you anything about him besides his physical description ( what is Ali Hazelwood's obsession with making all her MMCs extremely tall with humongous hands)? He appeared so little in the book, that he's just unmemorable. He was flirty with Mal and that's about it. Nolan shouldn't even be on the cover cause that's overselling his presence throughout the book.
Mallory was quite insufferable. All she does is whine about how every bad thing that has happened to her is her dad's fault.Yet again, another FMC in romance book with daddy issues, I'm literally so tired of it. How hard is it just let the FMC have a happy backstory, why do they always have to have daddy issues and be poor? Do all these authors have daddy issues or something? Anyways, she had no backbone until the very end of the book and even then she backtracked on standing up for herself. Mal came across as a pick-me because she is the only female working at the mechanic shop and she's the only female chess player in Zuwag. She did finally get called out her victim mentality. " but if you unzip your asshole and pry your head out of it, you might realize that there's more to life than feeling sorry for yourself."
I usually don't discuss side characters in reviews, but one of her sisters was so annoying and bratty. Sabrina was such a brat for no reason and she was extremely ungrateful towards Mal. An example of this is when Mal tries to tell Sabrina that she can't afford to pay the derby fees and before Mal can say anything, Sabrina says, "Mal, can you please not screw this one thing up for me?" Like it's Mal's fault that they're financially struggling. She gave up going to college for her sisters and has been working since she was like fourteen to make money for the family. She did everything for them, that's how Sabrina treats her. I really enjoyed the scene when Mal finally puts Sabrina in her place and calls her "an ungrateful bitch" and tells her that she will stop driving her around ,working her ass off to pay for her derby fees and groceries and stop cooking.
I just didn't enjoy Check & Mate as much as I thought I would. It's my least favourite Ali Hazelwood book along with Love on the Brain. If you want to read her books, read Love Theoretically and The Love Hypothesis. Also, if you know nothing about chess, then definitely don't read this book.
Some funny lines
"Rival swamp hags"
"I'm going to flush both of you down the toilet."
"Are you going to pass eye water?"
"Should we run him over? Does blood stain wood?"
"I bet Mallory's good at it, she sure practices a lot." (In reference to Mal's sex life).
"I'll probably end up in juvie if you swear just once more" "Fuck"
No comments:
Post a Comment