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A review by lizzuplans
Check & Mate by Ali Hazelwood
5.0
Well that was an absolutely delightful read!!!
My first Ali Hazelwood book did not disappoint (and I am sorry to confess that I feared that it would…). And excuse me but I enjoyed a book about chess?!
Mallory and Nolan had in my opinion really nice relationship going on of mutual respect and rivalry, and it was great to see things develop over time.
I am not too sure if I saw them as 100% romantically compatible, but I did like them together.
The epilogue was a tiny bit disappointing for me because it left me hanging when the story was at its crescendo, but at the same time it was a really fun way to summarise and end the story.
Mallory could do with a good reality check at times, as the way she martyred herself for her family in this whole “woe is me”-spiel began to get really annoying, but to be fair, she is young (SO YOUNG) and very honestly it did get me thinking about how I approach things myself. (So yes a YA book by a Reylo fanfic author made me reflect on my own life, insert cry laugh emoji. Which can be taken as a snarky and easy joke you frequently get on tiktok, but I survived fanfiction.net in the probably still nineties but for sure early noughties so I am allowed.)
Yes both story and characters were a bit flat and easy at times, but that just happened to be what I needed. I flew through this book and easily read it in less than eight hours.
Very sad that I could not give an extra star to Oz, my favourite character. His oneliners, tough love, and are-they-or-aren’t-they relationship was fun and had me cackling at times.
Thank you, Sarah, for letting me borrow your book so I could read Check & Mate!
My first Ali Hazelwood book did not disappoint (and I am sorry to confess that I feared that it would…). And excuse me but I enjoyed a book about chess?!
Mallory and Nolan had in my opinion really nice relationship going on of mutual respect and rivalry, and it was great to see things develop over time.
I am not too sure if I saw them as 100% romantically compatible, but I did like them together.
The epilogue was a tiny bit disappointing for me because it left me hanging when the story was at its crescendo, but at the same time it was a really fun way to summarise and end the story.
Mallory could do with a good reality check at times, as the way she martyred herself for her family in this whole “woe is me”-spiel began to get really annoying, but to be fair, she is young (SO YOUNG) and very honestly it did get me thinking about how I approach things myself. (So yes a YA book by a Reylo fanfic author made me reflect on my own life, insert cry laugh emoji. Which can be taken as a snarky and easy joke you frequently get on tiktok, but I survived fanfiction.net in the probably still nineties but for sure early noughties so I am allowed.)
Yes both story and characters were a bit flat and easy at times, but that just happened to be what I needed. I flew through this book and easily read it in less than eight hours.
Very sad that I could not give an extra star to Oz, my favourite character. His oneliners, tough love, and are-they-or-aren’t-they relationship was fun and had me cackling at times.
Thank you, Sarah, for letting me borrow your book so I could read Check & Mate!