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coffincritiques 's review for:
Check & Mate
by Ali Hazelwood
Ok, so I I thought this was super cute. Cute to be cute. And for that, I really enjoyed it. I didn't go into this thinking I was going to even finish it to be honest, a YA romance? Go look through my history and that generally would be a big yikes for me. However, I gave it the ol' college try because I was reading it with a group and wanted to be part of the conversation, even if it was to be the opposition. Turns out, you really shouldn't judge before reading because while yes, the TikTok references and sometimes too overbearing internal monologue got to be a bit, overall, I still really loved it. I think this did what it's goal was to be in that it was a sweet story about two young adult/late teen kids falling in love with a game all over again that really meant more to both of them and lost along the way. There was a lot of family growth and self growth throughout that I did find endearing. A coming of age style romance. Maybe because I don't read a lot of romance, it's just nice to read a nice book and there were so many cute parts and parts that made me genuinely giggle, it was cute! I thought Mallory was extremely likeable and relatable. The focus on her controlling nature, and misguided relationships because of it were overturned by Nolan's cool opposition and I'm a sucker for a "he falls first" trope, ok?! I thought Nolan and Mallory had a decent character depth for such young adults and Mallory embodied the idea of growing up too fast that I thought worked throughout the story. It did drag at times, hence the 4 stars and it did have some topical references that I doubt will be endearing in 10 years but at the same time, that might be something nostalgic later, who knows? It wasn't perfect, but it was a fun read and nothing made me cringe or want to stop reading it and for that I'm giving it the 4 stars.