The Queen's Gambit

Before anything else, I have to point out that I have not seen the show and I honestly am not very interested in it. I prefer this cover over the old ones, though, so I picked this one.

My grandfather used to play chess. Not professionally, just local little tournaments. I never learnt. He could also do things like count cards, so it's safe to assume he was the smart one in this family. He also didn't care about vanity and was extremely... clean, I suppose. Never drank, never even thought of using drugs, he just lived simply and was extremely introverted.
Our main character, Beth is also introverted, though she doesn't skip on a good drink or pills to help her nerves. Damn, girl. She is also a chess prodigy and an orphan. Once she gets adopted in her early teens, she starts her professional chess career that leads her to international fame and even playing against the Russians.

So what was the thing about this book? Beth is extremely successful at chess, but a failure at adjusting to normal life. She doesn't care about anything else, has no other interests. She doesn't care about people who can't challenge her at it and loses interest in people once she is better than them. This includes her lovers; the moment they aren't just at least her equals at chess (either because she is better or they care about other things), she gets disappointed and leaves.
Now some of you will say that's the point. It still made me bored with her. I already knew the end of every interaction and relationship right at the beginning. There was no excitement about seeing her meet a new person, because you knew how it was going to end.

Her only real skill doesn't make that easier. You just know she is going to win. Some few times she gets a bit of hardship, but never more than a few pages and it's all half-hearted. So you know she will be better than anyone. We are told she studies games and replays them and such, but it never feels like she actually struggles. Oh, she does get annoyed when someone twice her age is better than her for a brief time before she beats them, but that's all.
I never felt any real pressure.

The prose played into that. I am not a professor of literature. I don't have a degree, I just read a lot. So bear with me when I have no idea what this style of writing is called. Everything is described with random details, but with some sort of emotional detachment and making everything feel like the bored analysis of the surroundings by a person who notices the weird and unnecessary details. Do I care Beth ate boiled eggs with salt? Do I care about the colour of hand soap? It just makes the book have even less excitement.
Now I didn't expect traditionally defined action. This isn't a book about war, but chess. But still, it made Beth sound so boring.

The other people around her are all defined by how much use they were to her. Her adoptive mother, her fellow competitor Benny Watts, friend Jolene. They are all nothing more than stepping stones so Beth can play more and better chess.

I liked certain things, though. When I first heard this is about a female chess player, I assumed it was going to be yet another tired story about “but like, everyone was so mean to her, because woman and like, life is horrible as a woman” while also telling you women are the greatest thing. On that note, I love the contradiction of those stories; being a woman is the greatest thing, but also let us tell you how being a woman is worse than anything ever and is pure torture.
Here it was handled well. Woman players are rare. But Beth did it and at that point she stopped caring what people said. As long as she wasn't outright banned (which she wasn't) she just did her thing and let that speak for her. And surprise surprise, people were fine after all.

I still can't say it is worth a read other than if you really really want to and have plenty of time. I never questioned Beth being the best. I never thought it could end badly for her.
Hell, even her substance abuse was treated weightlessly; sure, sometimes she got a bit sick, but she bounced right back with no issue and there were no real repercussions. Everything she did just happened without influencing anything else.
It's short, though. So there is that. Short read, which can come in handy by the end of the year, when you are having trouble finishing your challenge, if you care about such things.