Chess Not Checkers by Tony Lindsay
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Chess Not Checkers by Tony Lindsay is a young adult novel that follows Thaddeus Adams, a 15-year-old mixed-race boy who fears for his life after he and his friends James and Jesus jump Earl Jacobson, their bully and a member of a local gang.
Thaddeus was likeable, but at times infuriatingly dumb, and I had to keep reminding myself he was only 15. I also liked James and Jesus; they rang authentic and reminded me of people I knew growing up in Northwest Detroit. However, most of the other characters weren’t that fleshed out, such as Thaddeus’s father and his brother Daniel. And I found his self-hating mother to be completely unlikeable and her 180 at the end of the book unbelievable and hollow.
And speaking of endings, toward the end of the book, it devolved into melodrama worthy of a soap opera and the ending was anticlimactic as hell. As for the writing itself, this book could have used tons more editing as it was full of typos and clunky, redundant sentences.
I wanted to give this book a higher score as I liked Thaddeus’s journey, but the faults I mentioned above dragged it down. I give Chess Not Checkers 3 out of 5 stars and suggest you request it from your library.
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