Check & Mate by Ali Hazelwood – A Book Review

Spoiler-Free Overview

Mallory just graduated from high school. Instead of going off to college or exploring the world, she turns it all down to take care of her ailing mother and younger sisters. The pressure from taking on so much, especially at a young age, plays a major part in Mallory’s character throughout the book.

To add to her trauma, when she was younger, Mallory loved chess, but she quit after her father abandoned her family. Then when her best friend convinces her to participate in a charity tournament, she reluctantly agrees. Her first match is against Nolan, the number one chess player in the world and current world champion. And she beats him. She gains the attention of the chess world, including a paid fellowship. 

Mallory isn’t keen on the idea of returning to the world of chess but needs to accept the fellowship when she gets fired from her auto-mechanic job. And the bills are piling up. 

As she travels to tournaments, Mallory continues to run into Nolan, who’s been following her career and is excited to play her again. Their young rivalry sparks a connection Mallory can’t deny.

Liz’s Thoughts and Feelings

Let’s get this out of the way. I don’t normally like YA books, especially romance. I’m in my mid-thirties, and I have a hard time connecting with the character because I’m past that point in my life. I’m not looking to rekindle some of those youthful feelings anymore.

That being said, I picked up Check & Mate because reviews I’ve seen online claim this book is more about chess than romance. And so I was back on board. Now that I’ve read the book, it doesn’t give YA that much, anyways. The characters are eighteen and twenty at the start, and Mallory, our main character, acts pretty grown up. 

I think how the author was trying to make it YA is through the amount of pop culture references. I know it annoyed some reviewers, but this made me happy. I’m sure it will seriously date the book in five to ten years. But it’s an enjoyable thing for me. After all, she did talk about Dragon Age a lot. And as a true Dragon Age connoisseur, it hit me right in the heart. 

We spend the book in Mallory’s point-of-view, no dual POV here. She has that typical Ali Hazelwood sass that I’ve come to expect from her characters. Because of the weight on her shoulders as the oldest daughter in a single-parent home, she’s also pretty closed off. Couple that with being hard-headed like most teenagers, and you’ve got a recipe for conflict.

The amount of adulting that Mallory has to do is staggering. And it does hit pretty close to home for somebody who’s an oldest daughter, especially of a poor family. If that’s you, welcome to the oldest daughter support group. We have crippling guilt and hero complexes. 

Now, this book does touch on sex, which I know some people don’t like in YA. Yet, the characters are at the prime age to be experimenting with sex and learning, hopefully, how to explore it in a healthy way. So, it makes perfect sense that it would be a part of a romance novel. 

I like that Mallory isn’t a virgin, especially as a standoffish person. I find that trope to be overused. Virgin is okay, but give me another reason – like Hazelwood does with Nolan. He’s a virgin because he’s so focused on chess that other social interactions are often overlooked.  Mallory, on the other hand, has a very good relationship with sex, and she even has a variety of relationships or hookups – though they’re mostly just referenced on the page. No worries about getting invested in romantic interests that aren’t Nolan.

It takes us about halfway through the book for the romance to kick in, and even then, it’s more of a secondary plot than the main one. But, I wasn’t upset about it. The relationship that Mallory has with chess, something she refuses to let herself love again because of the trauma with her dad, is way more interesting. Add in Mallory’s home life, and we have the plot and character growth we need. 

I wasn’t prepared for the complex discussion about women in chess, but I should have been. This is an Ali Hazelwood book, after all. Of course, it’s amazing, and I loved every second of it. The book approached the discussion around sexism in a way that fit the story and never felt forced. It also gives a reason to why Mallory is such an ‘anomaly’ in the chess world. Is she a great chess player? Yes. But is she so much better than all other women and that’s why she’s in this male dominated sport? Not necessarily. Other women are being pushed out and feel safer in women only spaces. Mallory has been away from chess long enough that she doesn’t have the years of abuse built up like others.

I leave this book with a rating of four-and-a-half stars. In retrospect, I can’t remember what dropped it from five stars for me, but four-and-a-half feels just fine.