Goodreads Project, part 10: YA fiction
I’m still working on my project to read a book from each of the 15 categories Goodreads uses in its Best Book of the Year contest. The winners are listed here. Category 10 is YA fiction. In this category, I’d already read The Brothers Hawthorne by Jennifer Lynn Barnes. The rules I set myself meant I needed to pick a new book. I chose Check & Mate by Ali Hazelwood.
The Brothers Hawthorne
The Brothers Hawthorne is the fourth book in a series. In the first book, The Inheritance Games, Avery was left a fortune by someone she’d never heard of, on the condition that she live in Hawthorne house for a year. The house currently holds the four teen grandsons of the man who left her the money they expected to inherit. The old man left them all a series of puzzles to unravel, and that’s the fun of the first book, as the reader tries to figure them out too.
Through the subsequent books, they work on more puzzles, including why the old man left his fortune to Avery. By the time we get to this fourth book, the series has worn down a bit. I liked the characters, and I enjoy puzzles, but I’m ready to move on to something different.
Check & Mate
Embarrassingly enough, I chose Check & Mate because I already had it on my kindle. I accidentally downloaded it when I read Love, Theoretically (reviewed in the romance category). So, I chose it accidentally but fortuitously because it won in this category.
I enjoyed this book. The central character is 18-year-old Mallory, who’s decided not to go to college because she’s working to support her ailing mother and two younger sisters. Until five years ago, Mallory was a competitive chess player, natural since her now deceased father had been an internationally ranked Grand Master. In this book, she’s drawn back into the chess world. We see her training (which I didn’t know you did in chess) and playing in various tournaments. She’s so talented that the reigning World Champion wants to play her, and a romance develops between them.
It’s interesting that Hazelwood’s books can cross the line between adult and YA books. I haven’t done a study, but I think many YA characters are older than they used to be. Sex is treated more frankly, too. Generally, YA books are the equivalent of PG13 movies. Characters can have sex, but it’s of the fade-to-black variety. This book is sex-positive, with Mallory having casual but responsible sex.
Next
The next category is Best Debut Novel. Onward!
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The Trickster
A pickpocket girl and a smuggler’s son stumble on treason and can stop it only by betraying their families. A less intense Game of Thrones meets Pirates of the Caribbean.
Bookshop (alliance of independent bookstores)
Inspired Quill (UK small press that makes more money when you order from their site)
