Addiction

The novel pits addiction against talent to illuminate the destructive nature of addiction. There is a fine line between obsession and addiction, and Beth walks that line throughout the story. She is given tranquilizers at eight years old, before she knows what they are and how they will affect her body. She is not given a choice. Instead, the orphanage gives them to her and requires her to take them along with her vitamins. Because Beth has recently experienced the trauma of losing her mother and moving into an orphanage, the tranquilizers calm her like nothing else in the world is able to. She begins to crave the feeling she gets from taking them. Her whole world starts to revolve around them until she discovers chess: “Something in her life was solved: she knew about the chess pieces and how they moved and captured, and she...