Poor Alma :( such an interesting character, full of sadness and acted beautifully... something about her eyes just tugged at my heartstrings with every piano performance or Gibson poured.

The only thing I would say is a little "missing" from this is that the adversaries in the chess world are so numerous and somewhat bland, that it doesn't feel like there's much of a "challenge" to overcome for the protagonist; it feels very much like they were an afterthought, and they rushed together a few long glances between each other for a bit of romantic intrigue instead. The only one I've remembered so far is the Russian kid who wants to go to a drive-in :laugh:

When she was in the orphanage I kept expecting something horrible to happen to her there, that she'd be abused or some thing, that's a terrible thing to think but it's clearly because that's almost what you expect to hear from places like, that's a bad state of affairs

I found it hard to believe that all her male opponents were such gracious losers and so nice to her, I think in real life back then she would have faced much more sexism and struggles in trying to enter such a male dominated world