Book Review 🎾✨

Carrie Soto Is Back by Taylor Jenkins Reid

Summary: Carrie is back from retirement to play again as a professional tennis player. She knows what she wants which doesn't always make her everyone's favorite. Follow along in her journey between now and the past to see how it ends.

Wow, I absolutely loved Carrie. 🤍 Dare I say that I loved her more than Evelyn 🤯
Carrie's authenticity was contagious. I loved the 90's background which made it so nostalgic. Carrie's love her for dad and how she comes to find love in the end had me speed reading to see how it ended. You do not need to be a sports fanatic to love this story. TJR did an amazing job of exploring women in sports and the pressures we feel such as how we behave at all times that males do not have to think about.

So, that being said please RUN to get this book now.

Seriously, go!!! 🏃‍♀️💨🛍️📚

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Thank you to NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group for the opportunity to read this book 🤍

#netgalley #bookrecs #fivestars #tbr #readmore #womensfiction #booksta #bookstagrammer #fictionlover

I loved this book! Extremely well written and fast paced story that kept me on the edge of my seat… and I don’t even like tennis. I started this book yesterday and couldn’t put it down until it was finished. Excited to read more of TJR’s books.

Thank you to Netgalley, Ballatine Books, and Taylor Jenkins Reid for an advance copy of Carrie Soto is back in exchange for an honest review. First off, I am a big TJR fan because of her great ability to tell an excellent story. This is another example of her great storytelling. I enjoyed reading this one but did get a little lost in all the tennis talk, With that being said, if you know anything about tennis (which I dont) or love tennis, this is the book for you. I look forward to reading more from this author in the future.

Thank you to Netgalley for providing an eARC in exchange for my honest review.

3.5 rounded up.

I found this book interesting at the start, lost interest for about two months, then found the ability to pick it back up again later when it was picked for my book club. Maybe I relate too closely with the competitiveness of Carrie Soto, maybe I just found it to be lacking in my expectations for a TJR.

I recommend this one for TJR fans but not many others. I wasn't as invested and didn't enjoy nearly as much as I had hoped.

This is my favorite book of the year. I couldn't put it down from page one. Carrie Soto is such a well drawn character whose development throughout the book is so compelling. The tennis scenes are dramatic and have just the right amount of detail, not bogging you down with needless back and forths. Taylor Jenkins Reid ladies and gentleman. Great novel.

I would argue that the better title for this book would have been “Carrie Soto is Dead,” and you’ll know why when you read the book.

It is quite difficult to say how frustrated I was with reading this book. The story follows Carrie Soto, an aggressive tennis player with a gargantuan ego. It isn’t without the capacity of support; however, it does get into your nerves how much her pride eats her up and turns into such a toxic personality.

The beauty of the story lies within its illumination of the effect of environment on who people becomes when they grow up. Javier Soto was a proud father, but what his confidence gave him was a personality he wasn’t expecting.

A fascinating show, it was intriguing to see the father and daughter relationship crumble as Mr. Soto soon realize that his daughter is becoming overly consumed by her complexity with winning. She became more than what he wanted — a winner and a brassy woman.

The journey towards the end of the story is quite predictable. Despite that, I did not lose my footing. My interest in finishing the story was ever so strong. Perhaps part of it was the placement of the tennis tournament — it was such a huge part of the story and an effective way to keep the readers engaged.

I am in love with how the story slowly transforms Carrie — showing a person’s capacity to change and allowing us light on the kindness in ones heart. It is difficult to see something in a bird’s eye view when your first instinctive reaction is to judge someone, but if you give room for breath and allow yourself to get to know people better, you’d see that there is more to someone than what you see.

I just don’t vibe with TJRs newest books unfortunately. I wanted to like this one. But like with Malibu rising I was just bored out of my mind at times

Thank you NetGalley for eARC in exchange for an honest review

Wow. I absolutely loved this book. There are SO many things i loved about it.

Carrie is such an interesting character. You see so much growth throughout the story and the ending is absolutely perfect for her character. As an athlete myself, i was able to relate to many of the feelings she has. The strength she has throughout her life, physically and mentally is unmatched. She might just be one of my favorite TJR characters.

Another favorite of mine is her relationship with her father. It is so special and realistic. Her father is her coach, so we add an interesting dynamic there too.

There are also other relationships in this story that i love that I dont want to mention as they might be spoilers. But this book had my heart racing the entire story!!! I did not want to put this book down.

I started to read this and I couldn’t put it down!! Finished the book the next day. The characters, the plot, the writing are all top notch. I could not recommend this book enough. Amazing amazing read!!

This is hard for me to write because I love Taylor Jenkins Reid. I've read everything she's written (including her novella). The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo kept me up until 2am, bawling my eyes out. Daisy Jones & the Six had me listening to the music of Laurel Canyon, wishing the band was real and reading everything I could about Fleetwood Mac. I struggled with "Malibu Rising" when it came out, getting lost in the party scenes. So my expectations were middling with this one. On one hand, I loved the character of Carrie Soto and her father - I was rooting for her. But I also struggled with the tennis aspects. I do not understand the game and was lost during the scenes of the tennis matches. I understand that its my problem, not the authors or about the writing. I also just lacked some of the emotional connection with the character of Carrie that I had with previous TJR books. Would I recommend this one? Yes, though I would suggest learning something about tennis before diving into this work.

It took me a while to get into this book - mostly because I found Carrie Soto absolutely insufferable during the first third of the book. When we came to the second part, where she works on her comeback, I warmed up to the story and at the end I didn't want to put it down!

Taylor Jenkins Reid does it again.

This book follows Carrie Soto, a professional tennis player who learns 6 years after retirement that her record for the most grand slam wins is about to be broken by younger star, Nicki Chan. She decides to re-train and challenge Nicki Chan in the upcoming year's grand slam tournaments.

Taylor Jenkins Reid is an expert at creating incredibly complex leading characters that you find yourself rooting for. Reading this book felt like I was with Carrie Soto every step of the way.

It was easily one of the best books that I read this year. I highly recommend it.

Thank you to Ballantine Books, Penguin Random House, and NetGalley for the advanced copy in exchange for an honest review!

Wonderful story about a father-daughter relationship. I was sucked into this right from the first page, You don’t have to enjoy Tennis or even sports for that matter, to really enjoy and appreciate book.

While the feedback was quite mixed on this book, and perhaps because it was my first TJR read, I really enjoyed the way this was written. The author was somehow able to make a multitude of tennis matches thrilling and anticipatory, while crafting a narrative that made us fall in love with our serious and hardened protagonist. (And I of course cried multiple times throughout....) This book made me excited to read more of what TJR has to offer, and how she continues to handle complex (and somewhat unlikeable) female heroes.

This book was so good and exactly what I would expect from TJR. I loved the character development and the various relationships in this book, both romantic and platonic. I really just love TJR's writing and how much emotion she can express even from her most grumpy and stoic MCs. The audiobook and its narrators are also very good. Definitely recommend this book, even if you don't like tennis. It's about so much more than the sport but will also give you a new appreciation for its athletes.

**Thank you to Net Galley for an advance copy of this book.

Taylor Jenkins Reid is a hit-or-miss author for me. I loved "The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo" so much, but I felt "Malibu Rising" was really so-so. Nevertheless, with the connection to the formerly mentioned book, I decided to give "Carrie Soto Is Back" a chance...

And I'm really glad I did! While it was a bit of a slow start, this book turned into an absolute win for me. Carrie Soto is a tough cookie, but she's got a soft interior that is really endearing once she lets it start to shine through. To see her go from a closed-off, one-track-mind type of person to digging deeper into her relationship with her Dad and the romantic relationship with another character that she eventually gives into, I really enjoyed her progression as a character.

The story is inspiring. Carrie's tenacity is unmatched. If nothing else, I hope it helps many a reader realize it's never too late to do anything—whether that's winning one last tennis tournament or opening your heart to love.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the eARC! All thoughts and opinions are my own.

I thought this was a pretty quick and enjoyable read overall. I liked that Carrie was an incredibly flawed protagonist, and I enjoyed seeing her develop through the relationships she cultivated with Bowe, her father, her competitors, and more. As someone who occasionally enjoys watching tennis, I appreciated that this was the sport Reid chose to focus on -- fitting for the character as well, since it's an individual sport rather than a team one. I do want to mention that Latine reviewers in particular have criticized the representation in this novel. Additionally, I think Reid missed out on opportunities to discuss how racism could have impacted Carrie's career, as well as the other women of color in the novel. All in all, I thought it was engaging and entertaining, and I would recommend it for the plot and character development with these criticisms in mind.

I have really enjoyed all the "Evelyn Hugo" books. However Carrie Soto just didn't work for me. I think Jenkins Reid writes wonderfully about relationships, but I just don't care to read so much about tennis. I'm certain most people really enjoyed this.

I think I really must not like Tennis. I don't like watching it on TV. But I thought since I love this author, I would learn to like Tennis while enjoying this story.

The whole read just felt totally flat for me. I didn't really enjoy the characters or the daughter/father relationship.

I know I'm probably an outsider on this opinion. That's ok.

Carrie Soto is back I really enjoy this book so much, I love how the writer gave us every detail of how Carrie trained to be one of the best tennis players in history. her training was brutal and even she was more brutal to herself to be the best.

She didn't allow any mistakes or anything outside that will mine her carrier or her success, her father was her couch the best couch she could ever have, they had their ups and downs but he was amazing, he love her so much and understood the love of the game, so he knew she was a winner no matter how much life was throwing at them.

Carrie was very determined and she didn't even like to make any friends on the court, she even had a nickname among the other players because she was never friendly, until one day she needed to retire as her body wasn't the same anymore, after injuries and pain she had to go back and train all over again to recover all the strength she lost.

One of the things that I love about this book is how much Carrie tried to be cold with others and even distance herself not to making any friends but she always had something left to give no matter what

now she is ready to play again even if her age is no longer ideal for it, even if there are many players who don't like her to win. this is the US Open and is ready to fight for her title.

Her relationship with her father and Bowe was hilarious sometimes I found myself laughing alone at the crazy things they will do and speak. she did feel in love with Bowe no matter how much she fought to deny I feel like their relationship on the tennis court was hilarious.

I cry, laugh, and even got mad many times over the course of the story, and still, I love it so much.

Thank you to NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group - Ballantine, for the advanced copy of Carrie Soto is back in exchange for an honest review.