ŷ������

an incomplete list of all the pop culture referances in Check & Mate

zendaya, harry styles, billie eilish, BTS, youtube, latenight shows, james corden/jimmy kimmel, tiktok, chess.com, riverdale (what feels like thousands of times), lara jean, all the boys ive loved before, fanfiction, AO3, tumblr, percy jackson, jungkook, taylor swift, ari aster, hobbits, meghan markle, and many more i am sure i did not notice.

while i dont hugely mind pop culture referance it definitely dates your book, when all these things are no longer relevent people most likely will not read this book because of that fact, therefore it is always wise to leave out pop culture referances so it will be timeless.

the relationship itself was cute, but it also felt so rushed imo, i dont know if that because i read it quite fast or not but to me I felt that the characters could have been fleshed out a little bit more before they started to have their wee romance.

I did like both characters, Sawyer was adorbale and the he falls first & harder trope is always good and I love where the character at the top of his field gets challenged by someone. However I feel like i didn't reallyknow them, but got illuded to trauma both had.

sadly, i wish i enjoyed this more, the more i think about it the more i dislike it so im going to stop here. i'll keep my happy memories. ali ill be back for the next one 🫡






previous review
anyways here is my message to Ali Hazelwood on book ideas she could use while still staying in the relm of science.

number one: two reaserches that are best friends (shocker right they are not eniemes that have a missunderstanding) are reaserching nuclear fusion lets say (because we just had a big advancement in that how exciting 😍) okay and get this the two friends both have feelings for each other but hide it to protect there friendship and through there reaserch they are around each other more and so it becomes harder to repress there feelings and suddenly one of them lets slip and they get together, all slowburn so no need for misscommuniaction or anything, you have smut, science, AND slowburn. throw that alliteration in too and your english teacher will be as happy as a clam.

numer two: instead of enemies lets have academic rivals, the begruding respect but wanting to be better the tension😍 oh its so perfect, and lets say they are in collage/university (whatever you call it) and lets have them be in a really hard degree like mathematics or enginering or biochemistry. And they both have academic validation so they NEED to get top scores and be at the top of the class and its one or the other one week is him then its her ugh iconic. THEN they get paired up together for an assessment that is like half there grade and its SUPER important and so they have to work together on a engineering project/mathmatical problem/ biochemistry reaserch paper. and slowly they get to know eachother more than just this person i need to beat and they fall in love, and while in that relationship they still have that respectful rivaly and banter we all love

number three: something like the love on the brain where they are in a company building setting where a bunch of different academics are creating something amazing and groubdbreaking in science, the two main characters are two completly different people, one a biologist that looks at the evolution of animals and why creatures adapted due to enviromental changes. and a mechanical engineer, the biologist (lets make him a man because hey! lets break these gender norms) and hes there to help with something idk yet this is an idea not a story dont judge me im a humble reviewer, and the womans the mechanical engineer thats there to bring the entire thing to life. they are opposites in everyway, hes all nature and the evolution of life and shes the numbers, but it works somehow they get close and together. i dont know not my best idea but i like the number three so we are running with it.

why not add in more than science? sprinkle some computor coders, they deserve a love story because coding is hard, add some teachnology, people discovering ai, mathematics is always fun (said no one but me ever) that would always be so fun to look at.

and while your at it add in some queer rep made two women in stem fall in love, now that would be iconic. 💅

oh and in all of them please no galexy leggins, unicorn socks or cat hoodies please our main character is meant to be smart and sophisticated not a crazy millenial cat lady she has more important things to be doing like discovering so many new things. 💪💪

as a women in science i love what you are doing, but honestly, i think you have the ability, skill and popularity to go above and beyond with your message.