Book Review: Strength Check by Katherine McIntyre

Hey all, Sam here.

I am so tired. I ended up having to stay at work an hour or so later than normal, and then, despite being really tired, I struggled to get to sleep, and then I struggled to stay asleep. That means that today I really feel worn out. It also means that I just didn’t get around to typing up the review I had planned for today…mostly because I didn’t actually finish the book yet. I’m hoping to finish it up in the next couple of hours, before I go to work.

I’m really hoping that my shifts today and tomorrow go by quickly. I really need my days off. I’d love to just relax and read…maybe play some video games.

Anyway, today’s review is for a book I read earlier this week, a book that I absolutely flew through and then immediately started downloading the rest of the series.

Let’s get started.

Roxie Esposito just opened a board game café in San Francisco and should be basking in success. Instead, she’s picking out shards from her last relationship and handling her perpetually drunk mother, both of which strain her finances and fuel the need for a roommate.

Melody Roberts finally got the promotion she’d been aiming for—across the country in San Francisco. The perfect escape from her stagnant life and the toxic relationship with her now ex-boyfriend.

The moment Mel answers Roxie’s ad for a roommate, the connection between them is explosive, warm, and real—everything they’ve both been longing for. Between horror movie marathons, board game nights, and deep talks, Mel and Roxie are falling for each other hard. Except the only problem with romance is they both seem to fail every single time, and when the grenade of exes, family drama, and their own insecurities drop, neither will escape unscathed.

My Thoughts

Rating: 4 stars

I’ll just start by immediately saying that I want more geeky romances in my life. And I’m talking about books where being a geek is a main aspect of the character, not where they say they’re a geek and we never get scenes of them indulging their geeky side. Give me board games. Give me TTRPGs. Give me video games. Give me convention trips. Let the characters gush about the things they love. I don’t know, I just love it, because it is so relatable to me.

And there was certainly some of that with this book. But the summary also mentions lots of horror movie nights and deep talks…and I feel like those were mostly glossed over. I was expecting a lot of movie talk leading to deeper talk, and it just didn’t deliver that.

What it did deliver was almost immediate attraction and obvious chemistry between our two main characters. Both Roxie and Mel pined for the other, but both assumed the other wasn’t interested FOR A GOOD CHUNK OF THE BOOK. Like, I’m talking 60% or so before one of them finally made a move. It kept me gripped, anticipating when they would finally get together. And then I just didn’t want to put the book down.

There is a hurt/comfort relationship to this story. So many of the characters have had to deal with various past traumas and anxieties and toxic relationships. I appreciated that, at least to me, the characters felt real, and they resonated with me as feeling developed and complex and deep. I will say that there were small scenes of homophobia, and of toxic/controlling relationships…so if that might be a trigger for you, be aware of that.

I really did like many of the characters in this, so I’m glad that the other books in the series will see several of them take center stage and get their own stories and hopefully happy endings. I want to spend more time in the Tabletop Tavern. It seems like a place I would love to hang out in. I love a good geeky found family.

---

All right, well that is all from me for today. Thank you so much for stopping by, and I’ll be back soon with more geeky content.