Can this book be classified as a romance, even? 
 I got this book for free on iBooks during a sale, but I had heard about it from a few people. 
 I tend to love the 'enemies to lovers' trope, but this one was just... not my thing. Usually in these kinds of stories there's a lot of underlying care for each other and they gradually begin to realize that the other is not as bad as they originally thought. 
 In this book, they just hate each other. A lot. Viola says it like every chapter. 
 Also Travis was a grade A asshole. He was controlling, possessive, and a massive hypocrite for getting all hyped up whenever Viola showed any level of interest in other men, when he was literally still sleeping with other women after he and Viola had started... whatever they were doing. 
 Viola was a doormat, constantly thinking about how much she hated Travis in one moment and then tripping over herself for him in the next. (view spoiler)[The first time they did anything, it was after Travis had just been with another woman (and Viola knew this) and she was still putty in his hands. (hide spoiler)] 
 Also Travis ALWAYS had the upper hand, which felt slimy to me. Another thing I like about the enemies-to-lovers trope is that the characters usually balance each other out or are constantly one-upping each other. There usually isn't just one being a constant asshole to the other while the other just sits there and lets it happen. 
 I've also seen it pointed out that this book was full of double standards when it came to Travis vs Viola. Viola wasn't a virgin heroine, but she might as well have been, the one time she goes on a date, there's a huge fuss made about how he's not attractive. Like literally every guy she kind of sees is described as unattractive because god forbid she have any sort of sexual action with someone else while Travis is going from girl to girl. 
 We got almost excruciating detail of Travis's day-to-day life at work, but nothing about how Viola spends her time and her days, which made her come off as really bland. 
 The inciting incident for her all-consuming hatred of Travis was very lame and would have been easily cleared up if she had just confronted him at some point. 
 It got really tedious and a little disgusting having to read about all of Travis's sexcapades with women who weren't the heroine. Which continue even after he and Viola begin doing things. Would have been much appreciated if these were more of a fade-to-black thing. 
 Which brings me to the writing. It was overly simplistic and the dialogue wasn't clever in the slightest. The name being Checkmate, I was expecting witty banter and intelligent characters, but the characters were childish and petty and the dialogue was just... meh. There were quite a few times where the writing made me cringe. 
 My favorite sentence being: 
 "I enter the building, taking the stairs two at a time because I want to feel my body being pushed to the edge." 
 This was just hilarious to me, it makes Travis sound like an 8 year old. 
 This book isn't a standalone and it ended on a not very surprising cliffhanger (view spoiler)[one that implies cheating on Travis's part so that's great (hide spoiler)]