A review by sarah2438
The Queen's Gambit by Walter Tevis

dark tense slow-paced

2.5

This is a book about chess, more than anything else, which is why I struggled with it. Of course I knew that would be a major piece, but I expected (and spend the whole book hoping) that we could focus on some of the other themes that were in the background. Beth being pretty clearly not neurotypical, her processing the deaths of her parents, the nitty gritty of her addiction. But just like Beth herself, this book just... didn't really care about any of that. I kept waiting for some real introspection on Beth's part, or a contemplation of her life beyond chess, but it just never happened. I respect the amount of research the author put into creating this book, but there is just so much time spent using technical jargon of chess that is never actually explained to the reader. It got to the point where I was skimming through the paragraph  and paragraphs of actual gameplay. I think this book is fine but you really need to be a chess fan to enjoy it, and unfortunately that's just not me.
Expand filter menu Content Warnings