A decent read, but it started to become a chore to get through about midway. Everything plays out pretty much exactly as you'd expect, and I could never quite feel the chemistry between the two leads or understand what compelled them to each other. I think part of the problem was that we didn't get to know much about them in general - their families, their histories, their likes and dislikes and motivations - everything is kept surface level, and at some point it felt like we're being told things about them, rather than naturally experiencing them as readers. Because of this tendency, I had trouble investing in Soohyun and Eunsung as people and by extension had trouble investing in their relationship. It didn't help that Soohyun seems so emotionally detached that everything that happens to him glances right off without any lasting repercussions. I also felt the story dragged on longer than it needed to, and Eunsung raping Soohyun at the onset of the story was a weird choice that neither honors Eunsung as a character nor impacts the larger plot in any significant way. I don't know - I wanted to love it, and I do think the side stories are cute--where we finally get to spend time with the characters and see more of them as people and not plot devices--but overall this one fell short for me in execution.
Checkmate(TAN)