Constantine's Reviews > Check & Mate

Rating: ⭐⭐ ½
Genre: Romance + Young Adult

After deciding that she is completely done playing chess, Mallory agrees to play in a one-off charity tournament where she unexpectedly defeats the arrogant, world-famous chess champion, Nolan Sawyer, who is also known as Kingkiller.

This win encourages the girl to reenter the world she has abandoned. Nolan asks for a rematch with her. Through the course of the story, their attraction for each other increases just as their rivalry intensifies.

This is the kind of story that can be described as rivals turning into lovers. This is the first time I have ever read anything written by this author, and I was very excited about it. I am aware that in recent years, she has made a name for herself as a well-known and cherished author among readers who are interested in romance and among young adults. I picked up this book for two reasons: first, because the theme appealed to me, and second, because it won the best novel in the young adult fiction category.

Despite its appealing theme, unfortunately, this was a major letdown. I might be among the minority here who did not enjoy this one. The writing style didn’t click with me. It felt very choppy. I’m not sure if it is the author’s technique in writing this story or if this is her writing style in general. This resulted in the characters becoming just too shallow for my taste.

The humor is another thing that didn’t click with me. It felt quite cringy most of the time. I totally didn’t mind the predictable plot, but I expected better writing and more fleshed-out characters. The story is overloaded with pop culture references, which makes it tedious. This is one of those books that will not age well. I don’t want to be too overcritical about it, but I genuinely feel that in a few years, it will have the same fate as the early 2010s YA novels and how readers look at them today.