Gah. I swear TJR can do know wrong. She is a master at the craft of storytelling. She has a way is making you believe you’re right there in the story with her characters and this one was no different. I felt like I was right next to Carrie feeling every single thing she felt throughout this book.

Well done. Again.

Game - Set - Match. This was the best book I've read in a long time! I devoured it. Carrie Soto has my heart. This book is ALL tennis and yet I couldn't get enough. I cried; I smiled. I really loved this book.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for an advanced copy.

Carrie Soto inicialmente apareceu no Taylorverso em Malibu Renasce como amante do marido da Nina Riva. Agora é a sua vez de ter sua própria história. (Chega de representatividade corna, agora é a vez das amantes).

Carrie Soto fez carreira no tênis e após uma lesão no joelho, decidiu se aposentar. Porém, ao ver seu recorde de premiações ser ameaçado pela nova estrela do esporte Nicki Chan, aos trinta e sete anos ela decide voltar às quadras para defendê-lo.

Sendo sincera, eu achei bem aleatória esse protagonismo da Carrie. Talvez a Taylor queira dar uma redenção a ela por se envolver com homem casado e também ser trocada? Não sei... só sei que TJR entregou uma boa história (e sem aparições do Mick Riva ou chifres, devo ressaltar).

Carrie é uma protagonista que você demora a gostar. Ela é boa no que faz, ela sabe disso e faz questão de sempre ressaltar. E por conta disso ela não é bem vista pela mídia e nem muito popular entre os esportistas. Sabemos que a sociedade nunca aceita de bom grado mulheres que não tem cerimônia em não se diminuir ao ser muito boa no que faz e Carrie Soto é um exemplo disso durante toda a história.

Pela história se passar demais no ambiente do tênis, temos muitos termos técnicos e descrições da partidas. A autora até que explica brevemente como funciona o sistema de pontuação e tudo mais, mas é nas descrições das partidas que ela te ganha porque é impossível você não torcer por Carrie. Pela narração ser em primeira pessoa, vivenciamos suas emoções, seja dentro ou fora da quadra.

Temos bastante foco na relação de Carrie e seu pai, principalmente como o fato dele ter sido seu treinador influenciou na relação pai e filha. Temos também o relacionamento entre Carrie e Bowe, um antigo caso seu. Eu gostei demais do companheirismo que nasceu entre os dois, já que Bowe voltou na vida de Carrie para ajuda-la a voltar a forma para os campeonatos. Os dois se ajudam mutualmente, mas principalmente Bowe ajuda a tenista a ver situações por outros ângulos. Eu só queria um pouco mais de destaque dele, mas tudo bem.

I never imagined I'd be into a book about tennis players, though this is really so much more. It's the story of one woman's career, her body, her perseverance, and her stubbornness. Carrie Soto is a character that is tough to root for, I kept hoping she'd be less of a jerk! But she's also a character that is relatable.

I loved the setting in the 1990's. Having been a teen at the time, I found the references accurate and comforting, and I really enjoyed spending some time in that decade.

Besides tennis, this is also a book about family and grief, about accepting yourself as you are and allowing others to love you.

This novel had me feeling all sorts of things. TJR's storytelling and character development are always great but they are definitely top notch here. I highly recommend this one.

TJR has done it again.

How does she write so many realistic flawed and emotionally complex female characters who are all utterly unique?

Carrie Soto is not a traditionally likeable character. However, TJR writes about Carrie's motivations and experiences in a way that still had me fully rooting for her less than 15% into the story. I'm also not at all interested in tennis (or sports, in general), but I wasn't bored by all of the sports talk, which shows how magical her writing is.

I loved the relationships. Carrie and her father, Carrie and Bowe, Carrie and Nikki, etc. And I love TJR's books because they are genuinely emotional. I never feel like she's trying to elicit tears on purpose for a cash grab, like some other popular authors; it's the power of her words and characters.

Read this if you liked Malibu Rising or Her Last Flight.

Taylor Jenkins Reid has an incredible way of making you believe the characters in her novels are real—she did it with Daisy Jones & The Six, and she did it again just now with Carrie Soto Is Back.

Carrie Soto is a legendary tennis player who holds twenty Grand Slam titles by the time she retires. Only six years into her retirement, Carrie watches her record being taken from her by a fearless tennis player, Nikki Chan. Carrie ultimately decides to come out of retirement at age thirty-seven and defend her title as the world’s best tennis player and reclaim her record. She does this with the help of her dad, Javier, and his unique training techniques. Like Carrie, Javier is also a retired champion and has some tricks up his sleeve. Carrie has an admirable relationship with her father on and off the courts.

I don’t really know anything about tennis and I really didn’t need to go enjoy this novel. It may be a little easier to follow if I had, but TJR does a great job at nailing down the basics and keeping the reader engaged. This book was fast paced and riviting—I felt like I was on the sidelines watching Carrie Soto play at the French Open, Wimbledon and US Open. I loved witnessing Carrie evolve on the courts and in her relationships as she discover herself and her purpose.

You’ll want to grab yourself a copy of this when it releases on August 30, 2022.

Many thanks to Taylor Jenkins Reid, Ballantine Books, and NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

What I Liked: I’ll be the first to admit that when I found out TJR’s next book was going to be about Carrie Soto, the woman we briefly met in her previous book Malibu Rising, I was not excited. My first thought was, “her?” Of all the fabulous women TJR she has introduced the world to, Carrie is not the one I would have picked to learn more about. Camilla from Daisy Jones and the Six? YES PLEASE. Tarine from Malibu Rising? SIGN ME UP. Literally any character from The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo? I WOULD READ THIS BOOK IN A HEARTBEAT. But Carrie? Well, I should know by now to never doubt TJR (even when she has slight misses like Malibu) because this book was a wonderful surprise and Carrie has joined the ranks alongside Evelyn and Daisy as an incredible female character created by one of today’s most consistent and enjoyable authors.

What I liked most about Carrie is that she is not likable and doesn’t pretend to be something she isn’t for the sake of others. When she beats an opponent because she is the better athlete, she says so. It was refreshing to read a female character, especially one in the sports world, who wasn’t afraid to speak her mind and say what she’s thinking. This isn’t always a good thing (as Carrie and the reader learn later in the book) but she never stops being true to herself and I loved it. TJR managed to find the perfect balance of describing the tennis matches just enough to understand the importance of them without letting the minutiae bog down the momentum of the story. I am not a tennis fan but she made me enjoy learning about the game and the ins and outs of what makes a great player! Even if you don’t know a thing about the game, you won’t be lost.

What I Didn’t Like: With the exception of one thing, I was able to predict most of what happened in this book. This didn’t take away my enjoyment of the story but TJR can usually surprise me once or twice a book.

Who Should Read It: I have a feeling fans of TJR will love this book, even ones that were disappointed in Malibu Rising. First-timers to the world of TJR will also enjoy this one.

Review Wrap Up: Despite my reservations about this one, I will read anything TJR writes so I was happily surprised by how much I loved this book. I devour her novels and this one was no different. Carrie is a hard character to like but an easy one to love and I was left wanting more time with her in the end. Her story, and by extension the story of all female athletes who struggle to feel good enough, to be the best, to be taken seriously, is a timely one and needs to be told. I loved this book.

Favorite Quotes:
“My heart hurts when you hurt because you are my heart.”
“And then he says, ‘Eres perfecta, incluso en tu imperfección.”
“We live in a world where exceptional women have to sit around waiting for mediocre men.”

4.5 stars!!!

i cannot believe i liked a book about a sport, but this is all tjr’s doing.

went in blind, so when i first saw it was about tennis i was not thrilled, and for the first 15%, still not thrilled but as the book went on i caught myself saying “carrie you better f*cking win this” and oh boy... staying up and reading at 2 am…

carrie is the definition of girl boss ✨ her determination to not only win, but destroy every opponent was admirable, truly.

i laughed, i cried, i felt EVERYTHING in this book. it was so well rounded.

but seriously, tjr’s writing will never fail to amaze me. read this book!!!!! asap!!!

I have to admit that I have not read a lot of Jenkins Reid's work as of yet. I have only ready Dasiy Jones which I enjoyed but found a little big over hyped and not as good as I was expecting. I have a few of her books to read, including Malibu Rising (crossover or prequel), but have been focused on other books for now. So, I was not sure really what to expect with Carrie Soto. The book started a bit slow for me, simply because I was skeptical post Daisy Jones. Friends told me that Jenkins Reid really shone in other books, and it was by reading this one that I learned they were right. The action, the pacing, and the development of the characters was well done. I loved Carrie Soto, warts and all! This book was enjoyable for me, even though I only have a passing interest or knowledge of tennis. I didn't feel like you had to know tennis to be able to read this, and that Carrie could easily have been an athlete in any other sport and made the story as good. The fact that tennis is a solo sport (aside from doubles of course) was of course important to the come back and to who Carrie was a competitor, but for anyone thinking this is a tennis book, I want to say that it is not, because it's truly a book about a woman fighting for her place in the sport history books. Yes, the book touches on the lack of equality between men and women, but again, not the only focus. The characters are so interesting and by the end, I was rooting for every one. I did find that as things rolled towards the last quarter of the book, I was pretty sure I knew some of the surprises, but the book did still pull a few "oh" moments out of me.

If you like Jenkins Reid, pretty sure that this will be a great one for you. And if you have never read her or thought "so what" with the hype around her previous books, then maybe this one will convince you that she's worth the hype.

Let me start off by saying I absolutely LOVE all of TJRs other books. Some of my absolute favorites ever. But Carrie Soto is Back is not one of them. I ended up DNFing at 56%. It’s just SO MUCH tennis and I didn’t feel a connection to any of the characters, which is generally what I look for.

I simply think that this book is just not for me and I think a ton of people will love it! I will still continue to read TJRs future work!

Carrie Soto is Back has officially skyrocketed to my second-place favorite among Taylor Jenkins Reid's books (just after Daisy Jones & the Six, a tad ahead of Malibu Rising) and to me this is Jenkins Reid in her sweetest sweet spot. There's the complex heroine, who is equal parts self-assured, confident, talented, badass and insecure, fearful, aging icon. There are discussions of grief, a smattering of romance, and a complicated father-daughter relationship that goes one-step up from the ruminations on the subject Jenkins Reid started in Malibu Rising. I have seen some reviews that say the tennis scenes go on too long, take up too much of the text, that there is no plot but tennis. And to that I wholeheartedly disagree. I LOVED the tennis scenes. I gobbled this book up in one night, staying up way too late to finish, precisely because the tennis scenes in this book are so propulsively written. If you aren't a sports fan at all this might not be your cup of tea, but the peek into the mind of a supreme tennis player who is just. that. good. was so much fun and watching her come up against both outside criticism (often sexist and agist, which is unsurprising) and her own mental and physical limitations was just so entertaining. I do wish the first part of the book where we just get a recap of Carrie's career before her comeback were either fleshed out a bit more or just smattered throughout the text itself because it felt a bit rushed and it was very much tell rather than show. I also felt that the Spanish used throughout could have been better fleshed out in places. It felt at times a bit inauthentic, like Jenkins Reid just kept recycling the same few phrases throughout so she wouldn't have to do too much Spanish translation work. Overall, though, another smash from Jenkins Reid, and one of her best books to date, in my opinion.

I have been a fan of Taylor Jenkins Reid since reading The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, so getting Carrie Soto is Back as an Advance Reader Copy was a thrill. The book revolves around the tennis world which we were immersed in for years and I was distracted early on trying to determine who the players and coaches were patterned after. I was soon drawn in and finished the last third of the book when I should have been sleeping (always the sign of a good read in my opinion). Carrie Soto is Back appears to be about a fading tennis superstar who is attempting a comeback, but in reality it is a love story. The way Jenkins Reid writes about Soto's relationship with her father is so tender that it made me long for my own father (and cry a few tears). My main advice to readers is to endure the copious detail about tennis matches to get to the third portion of the book where the relationships are built. It is worth the effort.

There can be no pacts between men and lions. I will make you pay in full for the grief you have caused me.

The cut-throat world of professional tennis comes to life in this new TJR title. Carrie Soto comes out of retirement at the age of 37 to try and unseat the new golden girl, Nicki Chan. Carrie's father, Javier Soto, is her coach. Their relationship is one of my favorite parts of this book. Due to Carrie's reputation from her playing days, it is difficult to find someone to train with her. Bowe Huntley steps up and jump starts his career as well. I am not a tennis player, but I was riveted by the match descriptions. I could see that yellow orb streaking back and forth; hear the sounds of the court from the rackets, ball, and players; envision the crowded stands. As with Daisy Jones, this feels so real! I am ready to go Google Carrie Soto. And the cover! Will Carrie once again become the "Golden" girl she once was? How will Nicki Chan respond to Carrie's return? Will Carrie's agent Gwen remain at her side during this crazy year? My Sesame Street-level Spanish was a tiny bit of a deterrent in reading this book, but could not imagine the Carrie/Javier conversations happening any other way.

A big thank you to Random House-Ballantine for a DRC in exchange for an honest review.

Daisy Jones, Evelyn Hugo, Nina Riva, and now Carrie Soto.
Taylor Jenkis Reid has once again proved that she can write the most perfectly imperfect woman lead. I love Carrie Soto and I hate her at the same time—something only a masterful author can achieve. But anyways, let’s get into it.
(➡️swipe for full synopsis)

Ana’s Favorites:
🎾 I know little to nothing about tennis, yet my heart was pounding and I was getting anxious reading about Carrie’s tennis matches
⭐️ The way TJR wrote about the sexism in the sport and the inequalities that men players vs women players face—it made me wonder if that still happens today
🤍 The little love story woven into the very fabric of this book
🎾 Carrie’s character development was spectacular
⭐️ Javier Soto stole my friggin HEART! We love a supportive dad!
🤍 The rivalries between Carrie and the other players, such as Stepanova and Nicki Chan were so tense and I felt it in my bones

Ana’s Least Favorites
🎾 I don’t know anything about tennis, so I felt a little lost sometimes at the terminology
⭐️ The first 25% of the book is super tennis heavy. I didn’t mind it, but if you don’t like tennis or sports books, you might not make it through this bit.
🤍 The sexist media (but that isn’t anything new is it?)

This book is GLORIOUS. I cannot wait for all of you to meet Carrie Soto, the newest star of the Taylor Jenkins Reid Multi-verse 🤍

Thank you to @netgalley & @penguinrandomhouse for the gifted e-ARC!

I'm not a tennis fan. I don't dislike tennis or anything, but I just don't follow it professionally or watch Wimbledon, etc. That's why although Taylor Jenkins Reid is usually an auto-buy author for me, I was a little hesitant about this novel, wondering how it would capture my attention and compare to her other novels.

I couldn't haven been more wrong about my assumptions.

In Carrie Soto is Back, Taylor Jenkins Reid delivers another tour de force with a novel about a tennis star but also about so much more.

For most of her life, Carrie has been training for tennis greatness, largely coached by her beloved father, Javier, a former tennis star himself. Her rigorous, all-consuming regiment pays off when she cements her status as the greatest tennis player of all time. Carrie feels a deep satisfaction with reaching this ultimate goal-until years later, a rising tennis star Nicki Chan threatens to beat her tennis record.

Spurred on by her competitive spirit and her desire to continue to dominate, Carrie decides to do the unthinkable: return to the sport of tennis at the age of thirty-seven to defend her title, with her father once again by her side as her coach.

Carrie must confront her shortcomings and humble herself as she begins her long ascent back to the top of her game. She also must deal with the press, who are skeptical of her return and are not necessarily rooting for "the Battle-Axe" whose past stoicism and arrogance has not endeared her to them. Carrie also must contend with a former love who returns to help her with her comeback and she must face mortality in a way she cannot begin to fathom.

Carrie Soto is about drive, determination, vulnerability, family, and starting over yet again. It's a love letter to the sport of tennis and to anyone making a personal comeback.

*Taylor Jenkins Reid fans will love the mention of Daisy Jones and the Rivas from Malibu Rising-and Carrie's infamous connection to them.

Carrie Soto is Back is a triumph and definitely deserves a top spot on your fall TBR.

TJR does it again! I have never cared one bit about tennis but this book had me on the edge of my seat for the whole second half of the book. Loved Carrie Soto's character. I went into the book apprehensive because she was so unlikeable in Malibu Rising but she won me over so quickly. I adored her father and even though it was clearly coming, I still was just destroyed by his death. Read in 24 hours, already bought for the library and might just get myself a personal copy as well.

✨Book Review✨
Carrie Soto is Back by Taylor Jenkins Reid
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️💫
.
This book truly surprised me. Reading the synopsis, I had no desire to read this one. Tennis and sports do not interest me at all, so I really did not have high hopes. But, it was a TJR book and I had seen great reviews from people who also said sports did not interest them. Well, they were right and I am so glad I read this one.
.
This is the story of Carrie Soto, a tennis player who comes out of retirement to reclaim her world record. It is also another chance to be coached by her father, with whom she is very close. Their relationship throughout this book is so sweet.
.
I've seen a lot of reviews talking about how Carrie is a horrible person, but I honestly liked her character. She is a strong woman who just never learned how to have friends and how to value relationships. I understood Carrie, and actually really liked her. I also love how this book is not wholly centered around a romantic relationship as so many are. I would definitely recommend this book to anyone who is a TJR fan or who just wants a read reminding them about the importance of relationships above success.

I'm a TJR superfan and have been since the early days. I would always swear that I would read anything she writes including her grocery lists.

Well. The unbelievable has happened and I didn't *love* something she wrote.

Carrie Soto is Back is basically a complilation of a ton of tennis matches and their play by plays.

It is So. Much. Tennis.

I wanted a bit more. More from the characters away from the game. Not to mention Carrie Soto came off a bit harsh, which to be fair, her mindset sort of demanded, but it still annoyed me at times.

The one very redeeming quality it had is I adored her relationship with her father.

This review is really hard to write. I need to start by saying that Evelyn Hugo is probably my favorite book of all time. Definitely my top 3. Taylor Jenkins Reid is among my favorite authors. So when I didn't connect with Carrie Soto right away, I took it hard. I help moderate a book group on Facebook (hi to the Lounge!), and I messaged the members of the group chat at the 31% mark saying help, I'm not connecting with this book and I don't know what to dooooo. Another member pointed out that I hadn't really liked Malibu Rising either and I said no, I LIKED Malibu; I just didn't wholeheartedly, unabashedly LOVE Malibu the way I did Daisy and Evelyn. Which to me makes complete sense. Anyway, I digress - it wasn't until almost the 40% mark that I finally settled into the flow of Carrie and discovered that okay, I also wasn't going to LOVE this one the way I did Daisy and Evelyn either. But I did like this one more than Malibu in the end, so that's good, yes?!

Carrie Soto is a world ranked tennis player who was on top of the world, started losing, and abruptly quit before she could make a fool of herself (or so she claimed). But a few years later, when her title as the world record holder was threatened, she comes out of retirement to play against her challenger. Does it work? Does she win? If so.....for how long?

I ended up respecting the hell out of Carrie. We see a lot of dedication, which any great athlete has, sure. But we also see a lot of genuine personal growth, which is something that I honestly didn't think we would see in the beginning. It ended up being a really good story in the end, one that I ended up really enjoying. I originally rated this 3.5 rounded down to 3, but I'm revising this to 4 stars around the board. Final verdict - 4 stars.

Taylor is by far one of my favorite authors! While I thought I might be bored with this book as I’m not into tennis boy was I wrong! It catches you from page 1 and I couldn’t put it down! It’s just that good!