Reviews with content warning for Sexual content - The Queen's Gambit: A Novel

she and I blocked this out of my mind I believe and read m, fingers and/or makes jo finger her in eachothers privates and it sorta cones out of nowhere

this book was made a long time ago and there are some logistics when it comes to men writing young and bipoc children so there is racism.

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pipyon's review against another edition

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challenging emotional inspiring mysterious sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

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antonia_schuro's review against another edition

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Too much sexualized stuff with no purpose. Men writing women. Cant relate to main character, seems stilted and artificial. Feels like auther didn’t know at times how to continue and made
Main character think about sex. No real connection to story.

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orshi999's review against another edition

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dark emotional informative reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

I mostly read the book the find the differences between it and the series. While Anya has my whole heart I'm more fond of book Beth. The series did a good job at showing her drive and her genius but in my opinion left out a lot of the flaws that made the character so complex in the book. Beth in the series has a dependency on the pills, in a way it looks like she needs them to function but finds out she's just fine (even better) without them. In the book Beth is aware how pills and alcohol affect her and as a result avoids them, it's forms more of a dependency on chess because chess is her drug and without it she spirals into others.
Many of the tournaments were either squished together or cut because of the limited episodes which makes sense but they add a lot of complexity, Beth loses more often in the books and when she does she gets angry and develops as a person especially as she gets older
. All in all it was a very interesting read even though I don't understand chess and sometimes to descriptions of the games made no sense the author makes up for it with visuals. Someone who understands it better might have a better opinion on that.

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beeherondale21's review against another edition

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challenging emotional reflective sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

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enidcoleslaw's review against another edition

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tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

2.5

The writing is quite stilted which could be jarring but I think adds to Beth’s character in the book. Beth as a character however is a little unbelievable as a woman, over and over clothes are mentioned of no real importance (maybe as a signifier of her switch to sobriety) but I feel it was mostly added as a cool girl staging. Beth scoffs at being regarded as a woman player yet theres not really connection between her and other women (besides briefly Jolene). It feels as though the author chose to write a woman playing chess in order to create conflict or draw to the plot, and then no conflict was created. Jolene is also portrayed quite disgustingly honestly, her being the only black character and

almost preying on Beth when they were young. At the end it felt like the point of Beth’s character as a woman was moot when Benny called her up with possible solutions to the final game with the Russian world master.

The long drawn out chess scenes would probably be more interesting to me if I actually knew how to play so I can’t find any faults in them, I think they’re written in a way that can draw tension without knowing a thing about the game. Overall I wish the author focused more on Beth’s background and maybe asked more women about how to write women. Weird conflations with chess and sexuality that are never mentioned or tied up again, leading me to believe that the author was just sexualizing a teen girl for no reason.

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ellainalisa's review against another edition

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challenging dark inspiring reflective sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

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