Going into this book, I didn’t have high expectations. Malibu Rising wasn’t my favorite, so I went in with mediocre hopes.

Boy was I blown away! I loved, loved, loved this book. Carrie Soto felt like a real person. I loved her story, her self-awareness, her fierceness, her relationships, all of it. Taylor Jenkins Reid has a way with bringing her characters uniquely to life.

Love tennis? Read this. Hate tennis? Read this. Don’t know about tennis? Read this. Just want to read a good book? Read this!

I am a huge TJR fan but Carrie Soto has quickly become my favorite TJR novel. This novel of greatness and the comeback of all time captivated me from the start. The relationship that Carrie has with her father as complicated as it may really made this such a powerful story and their dynamic played a huge part in the book. Watching Carrie grow and then continue to follow her dreams as she prepares to make the ultimate comeback in her tennis career. This book had me engaged from the start and I felt every emotion possible as I both read and listened. I loved the format and the way the chapters were named.

This is a very sports-heavy, character-driven book and I loved it. Carrie was complex with relatable flaws - she is competitive and cutthroat when it comes to tennis and not well-liked as a result. I can see why some people would hate her but I think she definitely matured over the coarse of the novel and as someone who loves sports (although not really tennis) it was a lot of fun following her decades-long career with its ups and downs as well as her relationship with her dad/trainer. The romance with Bowe was great, too. This was a solid 5 star book and the first one I've read by TJR but I will definitely read more. I don't think it's necessary to read Malibu Rising before this one, even though Carrie is a minor character in that one. This is just a very well-written novel that fleshes out the character of Carrie brilliantly. I loved it.

Loved this book so much, definitely my favorite by this author so far. Fast paced story about a tennis phenomenon and her father who is also her coach. Carrie lost her mother at a young age and never really made many friends, but what she did have was her love of tennis. With her father who is already a successful coach and a determination that is unrivaled, Carrie carves a path through the tennis world so that everyone knows her name. But as she ages and sustains injuries it’s not as easy to keep her titles. Fast paced, exciting novel that is impossible to put down.

LOVEEEED! I think this has kicked Daisy Jones out of my #2 favorite TJR novel spot (Evelyn Hugo will always be #1 in my heart). I just really related to the drama and pressure of high expectations and being so hard on yourself. I also think that the depictions of grief were insanely beautiful and heart breaking. A summer must read.

After getting a glimpse of Carrie Soto in Malibu Rising - it was so fun to explore a different character (that's not Mick Riva) in the TJR universe.

Carrie Soto is in fact back & better than ever. I really enjoyed getting to read about Carrie who is unapologetically herself and a spitfire. Her relationship with her father Javier was such a joy to watch unfold and I loved everything about their relationship.

The relationship that truly surprised me though was the one between Carrie & Nikki Chan. I loved their banter, their mutual respect for each other, & their cutthroat ways. It made for such an interesting & enjoyable dynamic. Truly loved watching their friendship blossom.

Even for me a sports fan (who isn't really a fan of the game of tennis) there was A LOT of tennis talk. I didn't mind it and TJR did a good job in the beginning of the book trying to explain the basic rules but I definitely don't know if everyone would be able to fight through the tennis talk. Because I work in sports it was interesting to have the perspective of the sportscasters and radio hosts talking about Carrie and how they talked about female athletes.

Overall I really enjoyed this book but it didn't captivate me the way other TJR books do. I'm very curious to see what character we get next in the TJR universe.
Is it Bowe? Is it Nikki Chan? Is it Javier? We will have to wait to find out.

Thank you to NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review this arc. Carrie Soto is back hits the shelf on August 30th!

GET IT, READ IT, LOVE IT!

Right NOW! Go! Run!!

TJR has seriously outdone herself with Carrie Soto is Back! As soon as I turned the last page, I just wanted to pick the book back up and read it again, just so I could experience the emotions all over again. The depth and emotion that went with not only Carrie’s character are just beyond words. Jenkins Reid is truly a master when it comes to developing complex characters that are real, flawed, and will still tug on your heartstring’s even during their unlikeable moments.

I was so fortunate to have also read this with Kaley. We had so much to discuss about the characters, what we thought would happen, and all those moments we were tearing up and grabbing a box of Kleenex.

This is a story that will stay with you for life, and I cannot recommend it enough. Just an absolutely stunning and moving story. ALL THE STARS!

Thank you, Ballantine Books, for this gifted copy in exchange for my honest review.

I haven't loved TJR's previous works. With Evelyn Hugo and Daisy Jones, I just didn't want to read about fake people and they were predictable and lame. However, I somehow really enjoyed this book about fake tennis star Carrie Soto. (I have never been passionate about sports, so that helped I think.)

The major theme here is toxic perfectionism, which is something I relate to deeply. Carrie wants to be the best, she wants to crush everyone, and she can't let go when her record is broken and she is no longer "the best." She is known as "The Bitch" and no one in tennis will even practice with her when she decides to stage her comeback. Her doting, devoted coach/father dedicates his existence to her and yet is scared he will say the wrong thing and Carrie will never talk to him again.

I was cheering for Carrie and raced through to the predictable, tidy, yet heartwarming ending.

I had this crazy feeling that I would love this book by TJR. She does amazing work, we meet Carrie Soto a tennis player recently retired, finds out that a young woman by the name of Nicki Chan is about to beat her record of all time and this woman was NOT HAVING IT! And the story begins, I can say this though, Carrie is a hard woman to like, and even though there is not a lot of struggles that we Hispanic women have gone through in those times depicted in this book, you see that Carrie had to work twice as hard to get to the top and her father was quick to push her there.

Aside from the topics coming up on social media about TJR and using Latina MC’s in her book, I can say I love how she makes them all strong, and gorgeous, resilient, and ball busters. They are “take no nonsense” type of women, with Carrie I feel it was a little too much. I started to love Carrie at the end of the book when we get a very sweet surprise in her change of course. I loved the tennis in this book, not a fan of the sport but loved how TJR did her thing in describing it to us. And her relationship with her dad made me love the book even more, her dad was the best! (Loved the crossing of characters with the main characters from Malibu Rising) Thanks Netgalley and the publishers for giving me the opportunity to read this book.

I always trust that I'm going to enjoy TJR's stories. Carrie Soto was a hard character to like, but the way she represented a strong, driven woman against the backdrop of 80s-90s misogyny.
As I finished the book I became aware of a conversation about TJR using a Latina main character. I have to say that I didnt find the characterization problematic or offensive (I am Peruvian-Ecuadorian-American myself).

I enjoyed the sports writing, even though I am not a tennis fan, and I enjoyed the transcripts from the sports talk shows. In real life I often dissect sport commentary for my husband to point out the racism and sexism that exists within it, and TJR really captures that.

I received this novel as an advanced reader copy from NetGalley. I love Taylor Jenkins Reid and her latest did not disappoint. Carrie is such a likable character despite her flaws and her complex relationship with her father and the people around her and the sport of tennis kept me eagerly reading. Highly recommend.

Holy Tennis Balls! This was so good. I also received an advanced listening copy and the audiobook was perfection. I can't wait for friends and family to read this... and now I want to watch tennis.

NO WORDS. There are NO ADEQUATE WORDS. How does one review this book!? I cannot. I would read the telephone book if Taylor wrote it. I'm such a fan. Forever. I love that this story rounded out the quartet. Chef's freakin' kiss!

I wanted more of The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo or Daisy Jones. This one just did not wofk for me. I am not a fan of sports, so maybe it is just me. But thank you for the opportunity to read this one!

Carrie Soto is Back by Taylor Jenkins Reid
As always Taylor Jenkins Reid delivers another power house for the summer!
Carrie Soto is bitchy, cocky, and unapologetically abrasive so much so that at the start of her tennis career they called her the battle axe! She’s the greatest tennis player in the world.
Now 6 years later she just watched Nicki “The Beast” Chan tie her record and her come back is born.
Will she at 37 be able to reclaim HER record? You”ll have to read to find out!

I’m calling it now: I just read the best book of 2022.

Taylor Jenkins Reid has a knack for writing historical fiction in a way that makes you feel like it’s a true story. I grew up in the 90s watching amazing tennis players like Martina Navratolova, Venus & Serena Williams, Pete Sampras, Andre Agassi. From the opening of Carrie Soto is Back, I was there, watching the match. I could hear the racquets smack the ball, feel the tension of the crowd, see the full picture. And I stayed there all the way through the book. The characters may have been fictional, but the story felt very real. I haven’t been this absorbed in a book in a long time. This one was absolutely unputdownable.

Let me continue my praise: Carrie Soto is 100% the best character TJR has written. She is tough, tenacious, brazen, dominant, legendary. And undeniably admirable. I was absorbed in this story from the very first page. I loved seeing Carrie’s career progress, from learning the “beautiful fundamentals” with her dad, through early matches, going pro, retirement, and the ultimate comeback. There is so much packed into this book, but nothing feels rushed. The details are there. Carrie’s relationship with her dad is all the feelings. Heartbreakingly beautiful. It’s wonderfully written. Carrie’s relationship with Bowe is also absolutely beautiful. The unlikely friendship with Nikki. Wow.

I don’t feel like I have the right words for all the emotion this book provoked. Overall Carrie Soto is Back stole my heart and I never wanted it to end. This one is definitely going in my top five favorite books of all time.

Will post full review to Goodreads & Bookstagram on pub day!

#ad Thanks for the free book PRH International

Well… well, well, well, WELL! Okay, so… let’s start out by saying that no, I’m not a huge fan of tennis. I mean, I’m not a big sports fan in general, to be honest. It isn’t like I’ve never seen a tennis match, and I know my mother liked playing the game for fun. My father-in-law was the big tennis fan in the family, and he would go on and on about this player or that player; he’d watch every match that was on TV with total devotion. So, when I started reading this novel, I wasn’t sure how much I would get into the whole tennis thing. Mind you, I hate hockey, and I still loved both of Fredrik Backman’s Beartown books (and the last one is already on my Kindle), so it isn’t like I can’t appreciate a novel that deals with sports. Even so, I didn’t think I’d get so involved with this story, but boy, oh boy, did I ever get involved!

You see, even though the whole tennis thing was a big part of this book, it wasn’t really a Tennis Novel – much like the Beartown books aren’t really Hockey Novels. No, the sports in these books are more vehicles for something far more universal than playing a game. Also, it isn’t always about winning the game, either. That’s because what it takes to achieve something, or what it takes to master something, isn’t always the point. The whole point of achievement and mastery isn’t just the act, it is also becoming someone you weren’t before you started out; it is learning about yourself, through learning how to do that particular thing. This is the main reason why I’m calling this a coming-of-age story, because that is, technically, the definition of this type of tale. If there is no growth or change in the main protagonist, there is no coming-of-age. And again, as I’m said many times, some people come of age when they’re young adults, while others take many years, even several decades to reach that point in their lives.

Now, I’m going to say right here that as compelling (sorry, do I use that word too much? Maybe I should use captivating instead) as this novel is, I am forced to withhold a quarter of a star. The main reasons for that were two-fold. First, while I get that Carrie Soto is Latinx, I sadly don’t know Spanish, and I felt that I missed some things – subtle inferences or emotions – because they were expressed in Spanish, and I wasn’t able to deduct what was being said in several instances. It is probably unfair of me to say that, because I also know that if they’d been immediately translated, it would have totally ruined the flow of the narrative. The other reason is that as much as I admired Carrie, and loved her father, I was missing that extra bit of emotional connection to them which usually makes me choke up. Yes, there was one bit that made me laugh, but that was only because Reid gave a nod here to one of her previous novels. Again, I admit that it might have been my not understanding Spanish that caused that slight disconnect here.

Despite that, this novel is simply marvelous. The way that Reid builds the tension in the novel is practically a study in how to write thrillers, without even a drop of blood. Reid also knows just how to play the other characters against her main protagonist, and allow for the type of relationships (I can’t really say romance) that have no angst, but are filled with conflict. Finally, I swear I could see every jump and lunge and volley that happened during the games she described, as if I was actually watching the games on TV or sitting court side. There’s no doubt that I’m recommending this novel very warmly, with my 4.75 out of five-star rating (rounded up to 5 for the graphic). While this book doesn’t surpass Daisy Jones for me, it certainly comes in an extremely close second!

I really liked this book. The main character was an amazingly headstrong woman. A total badass, and I liked reading her story. Here's my qualm with this book and with Taylor Jenkins Reid. I like her books, I really do. I think she's an amazing writer. What I don't understand is why she keeps writing Latina MC's. They always feel very whitewashed. There was a lot of Spanish in this book, but I didn't feel any of her culture. As a hispanic woman myself, it felt like she was just trying to get diversity points but not do any actual work besides translating a couple sentences.

Wow! I loved this book. 📚❤️

Taylor Jenkins Reid really creates vivid, complex characters and this book is a brilliant example of her gift for doing that. Carrie, her father, the other players, and even Carrie’s agent were interesting and compelling people in the story.

The story was super fun, the pacing perfect, the ending satisfying. I really loved it. 🥰

I LOVED Carrie Soto is Back wayyyy more than I thought I would. I don’t know much about tennis and am not usually a big sports novel fan but dang Taylor Jenkins Reid can write. Seriously, if this was written by any other author, I cannot find myself loving this novel as much as a did. The author has such a way with writing and making you feel one with the characters. I was tense reading the tennis scenes and found myself really rooting for Carrie Soto. This book is also really heartbreaking and made me cry, but in the best way. I love when a book feels so real and just sweeps you away and this is exactly what happened with this book.