Spoilers Ahead: 

This book very much gives off Emily Henry vibes, and honestly? I’m here for it. First book of Ali Hazelwood’s that I’ve read, after hearing her name being raved about for ages on TikTok, and I can safely say that I’m glad I did. I was a bit hesitant to read it at first, but I’m glad I put my qualms aside. 

We follow Mallory Greenleaf as she tries to hold the fort at her house. Her father has sadly passed, her mother has rheumatoid arthritis that makes working difficult, and Mallory has two very demanding sisters, and lots of bills to pay. She gave up school and started working with her uncle as a mechanic in a garage, working hard to pay the bills. 

One day, her best friend Easton invites her to a chess tournament. She hasn’t played chess for four years due to an estrangement with her father, who wanted for her to play chess so badly. But Easton is down one player, and is moving off to college soon, so Mallory uses it to spend time with her, unaware that she’ll be so good. She wins every match, and has to go against the No. 1 chess player in the world, Nolan Sawyer, who is not only the best and apparently a sore loser, but he’s also incredibly attractive. Somehow, Mallory beats him, but runs off before anything else can happen. 

A woman called Defne travels to her house and invites her to do a chess program with her. For one year, she’d be paid to study chess. She saw how Mallory beat Nolan, and wanted her talent. Mallory, wanting to help her family and not wanting to play chess ever again, declines. However, when her uncle left the garage and left a man called bob in charge, she didn’t realise that he would fire her, leaving her jobless and with no money. Easton leaves for college, and Mallory takes the job. 

It’s a long commute, but the money is good. She has an annoying office-mate who is extremely controlling, and doesn’t like noise, but she gets on with it. She’s earning enough money to pay the mortgage on their house, and she’s being paid to study chess - living the life! And when she’s put into a few competitions, despite having a low ranking, she quickly becomes popular, and everyone knows how talented she is. The only problem is one of her younger sisters, Darcy, knows that she is doing chess (she’s lied to her family about where she works, so no one knows she works playing chess). 

Mallory gets put on a team with Emil, Tenu and the dreaded Nolan, and sparks start to fly. To be honest, it’s pretty obvious that he is head over heels for her, and she finds him really attractive, but is scared of getting into relationships because she has her family to look after. She loses a match to a known sexist chess player (Koch) but then when they find footage of him cheating she is pulled back into the running. Nolan asked Mallory to be his second, but when she replaced Koch, as he was disqualified, they had to stop training each other. 

As he releases videos, being his usual asshole-self, Mallory finds out that Nolan paid Defne to hire her. Mallory feels deceived, and calls him unlovable, and they don’t talk for a while. 

Mallory runs away - as she does a lot in this book - and then quits. Oz, her office-mate and, coincidentally, Defne’s partner, goes to her house to shout at her, telling her that she’s selfish for quitting without notice. Mallory then has a breakdown when she hears her mum and her sisters, Sabrina and Darcy, talking about her. She swears at them, and then sobs. They all apologise to each other, and it turns out Darcy had already told her mum about Mallory, so she knew all along. They all apologised, and they made Mallory go back for the World Championships. 

In an interview, Nolan backed her up but completely ignored her otherwise. She woke up in the hotel a few days before the Championship, and she walked outside, and that’s where she saw him. She apologised to Nolan, and said she wanted him, and then he said that he wanted her, and the rest is history! They go on playing chess - which is what Mallory wants to do with her life - and they have a happy life together, in their private relationship. 

First thing I love about this book is the romance. God, it is so hard to please me with romance these days; all relationships are either toxic, all about sex, or too fast, or too forced, and they’re just not right! But Mallory and Nolan are my exception - I love them. I wasn’t expecting them to have such a good romance, tbh. I think that, too, there was a lack of intimate detail on their sex, and I actually thought it made their relationship stronger. Because you can tell they really care for each other, and it’s not just about sex for them, and I love that. When he delivered her the chicken soup and snickers? Too cute. Too goddamn cute! The only thing I would say is that it isn’t really enemies-to-lovers, but honestly, I thought they had a relatively healthy relationship, and that was a much better read for me. 

I love how Mallory stood up for herself. I got chills, I really did. Because all of them that were taking her for granted were starting to really piss me off. Sabrina was hating on her for literally putting a roof over her head, Darcy was being mean for literally no reason - she’s a child, she should not be acting that way - and I know her mum has an illness, but she didn’t give a lot of gratitude to her, in my opinion, considering that without Mal, they would literally have nowhere to go and nothing to own. Her mistreatment pissed me off so much. And when she apologised for calling them bitches, I was raging, because I was so angry on her behalf. I think she’s a character that I love, and I actually found her rotten really realistic and she had good qualities and great flaws, and I’m her biggest defender. Sometimes she said stuff that was a bit childish, but overall, I thought she was a really level-headed person, and I really like her. I think her character growth in this book is immense. 

I also like Nolan as well. He doesn’t seem to be narcissistic, like most ‘BookTok boyfriends’ are, and he genuinely seems lovely. I absolutely adore the trope ‘I only see her’, and he has that written all over him. I also love the fact that he is a virgin, and his first time is described as awkward, as it should be! I hate books when they say their first time and they ‘were so good’, it’s like just not realistic. I love the awkwardness, I love the honesty, and I love him. 

I hate Sabrina. I don’t like using the word hate, but she was such a rotten character. She was giving off mean girl vibes, and I didn’t even like her after her half-assed apology. I wasn’t that fond of her mum either, but I need to cut her some slack, I guess. 

You notice how Easton is only mentioned once? It’s because she never messaged Mallory back, and she somehow got Mallory to apologise for giving up on their friendship!! Mallory is a better person than me because I would not bother talking to that witch again. 

I love the way it was written, also, and the tone it was written in. It was so comedic, my sense of humour down to a T. The only thing I found hard to follow along with was all the chess jargon, but you get the gist most of the time. I really enjoyed it, and it made it an even better read, along with the likeable characters. I’m looking forward to reading more of Hazelwood’s books in the future!