The Queen’s Gambit meets The Hunger Games in this harrowing young adult thriller about a teen girl whose abusive father teaches her the finer points of chess and hunting for his own sinister ends.
Didi tries her best to be a good girl, but it’s hard to keep track of her father’s rules. When she wins a chess tournament, he’s angry she didn’t win with a better move and makes her run laps around the house. When she runs laps the next day, she has to keep running until she’s faster than the day before. When she’s skilled enough to outshoot him with both a gun and bow and arrow, he grows furious when she won’t then shoot a baby rabbit who crosses their path. And Didi can’t do anything to escape being threatened with the Hurt Stick when she misbehaves.
He’s all she has, he reminds her. They have to be prepared. They have to be prepared to fight the rest of the world, when the world comes to an end. He’s grooming her, to keep her safe. He loves Didi. He does—he says so! And so Didi runs harder; annihilates her opponents in chess; takes down a deer at a dead run. He’s grooming her, after all, to be the best…he says so.
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Gr 10 Up-Being the fastest runner, a master at chess, and able to take down an animal while hunting in one shot are Didi's father's hopes for her. He claims to love her, but that doesn't appear to be the case when she fails at his expectations, and he cruelly punishes her. Growing up, Didi knows she has to be wise when dealing with her father. The older she gets, the more obvious things become. Didi's father has always taught her to be prepared, but is he prepared for how well he prepared her? Griffin has crafted a book that is part thriller and part realistic horror. Told in the third person, the book opens with a teenage Didi but then quickly switches to her at a young age, followed by several time jumps. Focusing on an abusive parent, the book's content might trigger some readers. Didi's father walks in on her while she is changing multiple times, hits her with a rifle, and denies her food and clothing. Readers will be turning the pages to figure out just how Didi's story ends. Didi has brown hair, but her and her father's race are never stated. VERDICT An intense read best given with caution.-Amanda Borgia