While the cover for Check and Mate is completely adorable, that’s about the only thing it had going for it. I ended up DNFing this book around the 70% mark, and I tried, I really did. This book follows the story of Mallory, a chess prodigy who for some reason decides to never participate in chess again but is pulled back into the world for money reasons. Of course, she meets another chess prodigy, Nolan, who is the brilliant, cute loner dude, and insta-love ensues.
I really don’t understand what the author was going for with this one. There seemed to be no originality whatsoever and no real conflict. I constantly found myself bored. This book is marketed at YA, so the author just constantly added current references to make the book feel young and trendy and it was really annoying. Also, the romance was basically nonexistent and when it was there it was so blah. I was very disinterested and could not make it through.
I really don’t understand what the author was going for with this one. There seemed to be no originality whatsoever and no real conflict. I constantly found myself bored. This book is marketed at YA, so the author just constantly added current references to make the book feel young and trendy and it was really annoying. Also, the romance was basically nonexistent and when it was there it was so blah. I was very disinterested and could not make it through.