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A review by alexiconic
The Queen's Gambit by Walter Tevis
challenging
emotional
inspiring
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.5
To read, understand, enjoy this book, it really helps if you understand chess better than I do. Not necessarily the game, but how a tournament works, what the rules are in competitive chess. The strongest elements of this book are those tournaments, which manage to make a chess game more interesting and action-packed than I ever imagined it could be. Unfortunately, I sometimes felt I did not have enough love for chess or enough understanding to give it the love it deserves. It is clear that a lot of the book is about chess and that makes sense, I wish I knew it better to assess if that was good. Without that knowledge, I have no idea why the Sicilian is better than the Queens Gambit or what the (enter any chess strategy) entails.
What let’s the book down for me, is pretty much everything around the chess. Relationships with other characters were told, not necessarily shown. We realize Beth likes people because that’s what we read, we do not experience with her what she enjoys in these relationships because most of the side characters do not get as much roundness as Beth does. She does not have much character growth, which makes it hard to understand how the plot is progressing: suddenly she’s not 8 years old but 13, not 15 but 19. Not sure if this is due to the audio version missing some contextual clues or due to the writing, though. I also wish we’d see Beth lose or learn more. At the end of the book, we get some hints to this as she studies with Benny (until she outgrows him) and receives help through a phone call in her final game, but it isn’t given a chance to develop. This is a real shame. So is the fact that her substance abuse is… kind of underdeveloped and understated. Besides a few weeks in a bad spiral, it receives little attention: Beth can just “decide” she will no longer use. Of course, that’s fine, but it is introduced as though this is a great flaw that was meant to take center stage and have quite an impact. It really barely did.
Finally, there were several quite problematic instances in the book. And a few moments where it was clear this was a book with a female main character that was written by a man who just didn’t quite get it, which always bothers me in books.
What let’s the book down for me, is pretty much everything around the chess. Relationships with other characters were told, not necessarily shown. We realize Beth likes people because that’s what we read, we do not experience with her what she enjoys in these relationships because most of the side characters do not get as much roundness as Beth does. She does not have much character growth, which makes it hard to understand how the plot is progressing: suddenly she’s not 8 years old but 13, not 15 but 19. Not sure if this is due to the audio version missing some contextual clues or due to the writing, though.
Finally, there were several quite problematic instances in the book. And a few moments where it was clear this was a book with a female main character that was written by a man who just didn’t quite get it, which always bothers me in books.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Sexual assault, Drug abuse, Sexism, Alcohol, Alcoholism, Addiction, and Death of parent