Image taken from:
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/60683957-check-mate
Plot Summary
Mallory is an 18 year-old FORMER chess prodigy. She doesn’t play anymore due to the darkness of her past. She is promiscuous and has no real relationships due to what her father did to her mother. She promises herself she won’t touch a chess board ever again. She knows about the current chess champion- a person named Nolan Sawyer who is 2 years older than her and is dark, beautiful, and has the reputation of being trouble-maker. However, her best friend in the world is leaving for college and leaving her while she tries her best to work and take care of her family after her father’s death and her mother’s illness leaves her as responsible for their wellbeing. Her friend convinces her to join their chess club match just one more time and during that match she is placed with none other than Nolan Sawyer. And she beats him.
She is given an opportunity to join a fellowship to help her learn and grow to become a pro chess player which she turns down at first, until she sees the pay and gets fired from her job. She decides to take the opportunity despite her hate for chess (spoiler alert she loves chess more than anything) and while she goes down the path of becoming a pro, Nolan quickly becomes a fixture in her life against all of her wishes. She falls hard for him and begins the first real relationship of her life, but at the first real roadblock she runs from him.
It all comes to head as they both fight for the championship title and their hearts connect once again.
Author Ali Hazelwood
Ali Hazelwood is an accomplished author with many YA books under her belt! Most are contemporary romance novels, but she has also written two supernatural romance books. She was a former neuroscience professor before she became a full-time writer.
Here is an interview she has done about one of her other books, Love on the Brain:
What do I like about this audiobook?
The audiobook is around 10 hours and the reader did a really nice job with the narration of the main character. I do very much enjoy listening to audiobooks, but the audiobooks I tend to listen to are incredibly long so this for me was short so I felt it was over quickly. I am really picky about the narrator so if I do not like them I will give up quickly so I will say I liked the narrator enough to listen to the entire book.
I think the storyline was very romantic and it did give me the warm and fuzzies so I expect for teens this would be a really cute book to read. I fell into the world quickly and had no problem believing the character and her difficulties and hardships with her family and all that she has had to go through. The romance is a little bit of a slow burn which I very much enjoyed and was excited about. I enjoyed learning about chess and hearing about the tournaments it was overall very entertaining.
Critical Evaluation For the Book:
The thing I have a very difficult time believing is she could take 4 years away from chess and jump back into it and beat the grand master. From my understanding, games like chess and Go are so incredibly difficult and taking such a lengthy period of time off from playing seems so incredibly unbelievable to me. I understand she was a child prodigy, but for me as an adult the suspension of disbelief was difficult. However…it’s also so much fun to believe it so I get it. I enjoy both Go and chess and both of these games (especially Go) take a ton of brain power and consistent playing in order to be any good at it. Wish I was a child prodigy! A girl can dream!
Creative Uses for A Library Program
After reading for book club, let’s learn how to play chess! Use the time to teach the game, eat some snacks, and have fun!
Speed Round Book Talk
Mallory is a child chess prodigy with a dark past who ends up by chance beating the current chess champion of the world. They fall head over heels in love with each other all while having to compete for the title of chess champion while she navigates the darkness in her heart and the challenge of providing for her family.
Potential Challenge Issues and Defense Preparation
The most challenging issues that are brought up in this book is that Mallory is promiscuous and bisexual. She has hook-ups and no relationships until she meets Nolan, of course. She eventually at the end has sex with Nolan who is a virgin and it is somewhat descriptive, but tastefully done so that this book remains in the YA genre and does not cross the line. There is talk of condoms and learning about how to have a sexual relationship, but otherwise it is fairly tame in my opinion. I think this will still be a problem for some parents.
Teens are allowed to check-out and read whatever they please as this is such a minimal and brief part of the book. It is a very sweet and realistic portrayal of what sex is like for two people who are discovering what sex feels like they are in love.
Reason for Inclusion:
To be fair, I was looking at lists of new audiobooks in the teen section and this came across the list. I read the synopsis and thought it sounded fun so I listened! I’m a sucker for sad pasts, family drama, and smart people so I thought this would be perfect for me to try out.
This is not an award winning novel, or anything mind-blowing but it’s a fun trope, well-written, descriptive, and it gets wrapped up at the end neatly enough. I prefer books that are a series as I get very involved in characters and their lives so by the end of it I was feeling slightly deflated that it was over and there was to be no more of Nolan and Mallory. I would have liked to see more of their rivalry and love!
Title: Check & Mate (November 7, 2023)
Author: Ali Hazelwood
References:
Youtube. Ali Hazelwood on romance tropes.
Maggy’s Mini YA Library! 