Carrie Soto Is Back: A Novel

5 ⭐️ 🎶 I Was Here - Beyoncé “I did not pick up a racket to grow tense and weary and afraid of failing. I picked it up to feel the joy of smashing a ball as hard as I can. I picked it up to spend time with my dad.” TJR and Ballantine win the award for best release date of a 2022 book for the timing coinciding with this year’s US Open. Getting to read this incredible story with Serena Williams and Rafa Nadal playing on the court at the same time has been so fun. The story Taylor wrote about Carrie, Javier, and Bowe felt so real. There is a lot of sports commentary and very, very detailed tennis talk in this novel. If you aren’t a fan, then this might not be for you! However I do think she did a good job outlining the basics of the sport, point system, and tournament styles! Each side character and opponent was so well-developed. This book has Taylor’s classic immersive writing style, complicated main characters, and really special relationships. The story of Javier and Carrie was so complex and raw and beautiful. It’ll make you want to hug your dad. Bowe was so patient, and I loved how he treated Carrie. While this was a story of an incredible comeback, a dedicated athlete, and a father daughter duo withstanding the pressures of pro athlete and coach relationships, it was also really just a story of a woman finding herself in our chaotic world. Carrie is unashamed and brass on the outside, but really quite vulnerable on the inside. I loved her. I loved the book. And I already am sad that this is the last of the little fictional world TJR has given us with Evelyn, Daisy, Nina, and Carrie. It’s been a really fun ride, and I’m so excited to see what she comes up with next. Read this if you enjoy: 🎾 Sports commentary 🏆 Grand Slam tennis ❤️ Father/Daughter relationships 🕰 Historical Fiction 👭 Female friendships 💪 Strong female MCs 🥇 Comeback stories

The only other TJR novel I’ve read was one that thoroughly stunned me—DAISY JONES AND THE SIX. Reid captured the time period, the rock scene, and the characters with so much heart and authenticity that I was open and ready to read another of her works. But tennis? It wasn’t until I scanned some reviews that specifically stated that you don’t need to understand tennis to enjoy this book that I decided to go for it. And they were right! CARRIE SOTO is a smashing character in a champion story. In CARRIE SOTO, tennis is primary, but also the volley for TJR’s themes about the human condition. And Carrie Soto is so vivid, intense, and fully dimensional—known in the tennis world as the Battle Axe-- that she lived in my home and in my heart on every page. In fact, I even dreamt about her, she was that pressed into my literary soul. Carrie is single-minded, merciless when it comes to the court. Her unyielding nature, however, has its pitfalls; her personal life is the love you only get in tennis. It's 1994, and Carrie is 37, retired for six years. Still single, she trusts nobody enough to get close to but her agent, Gwen, and her father, Javier, who raised her himself (her mother died when she was very young). In his home country of Argentina, Javier made quite a splash in tennis until he was injured. He turned to coaching his daughter. He started teaching her the game when she turned two. Carrie is tightly coiled and at arm’s length from the rest of the human race. Her solitary life leaves little room for laughter. Soto was a ten-time Wimbledon champ and winner of more Slams than any other woman in history—until the new It-girl Nicki Chan surpasses Carrie’s Slam record in ‘94. Carrie decides to go back into the game to defend her record and show that she’s still the world’s best tennis player. The novel gradually fills in the background time gaps so that the reader pieces together what makes Carrie tick. A tennis phenom, she was also a walking time bomb—I kept waiting for the inevitable explosion. I did learn intriguing tennis facts that I ate up despite my indifference to the sport itself. Reid has an exciting way of revealing the game without boring the reader. And the sport is also a metaphor for Carrie’s drive, her spirit, her priorities, and her sense of self and self-esteem. As the competitive drive consumes Carrie, it absorbed me, too. Her obsessive nature was in her DNA. “I’m back at war, after years of not knowing how to live during peacetime. This is the only place where I make sense to myself.” Tennis was all that Carrie lived for. Reid created a stark character that the reader, by turns, dares to understand and occasionally wants to tromp. Soto’s fanaticism is also what defines her, and binds her and inevitably can blind her. She guards her emotions and steers her life away from others. Training and competing means meeting the world at large—but on whose terms? Do expect some untranslated Spanish—but these days we have google translate to make it easier, and it doesn’t distract, but rather adds to the novel. TJR is a genius in welcoming readers like me, who know squat about tennis but is captivated by the story of what it means to be human—flawed, expectant, hopeful, scared, and served with a beating heart. 4.5

This book was truly outstanding. It took me back to the days of competing in sports and being a sports parent. I loved that the writer brought the real life ideals and dynamics of women’s sports to this book. It’s so important to see the way we view women’s sports through different perspectives. Also, to be able to separate the woman behind the athlete from the competitor. This was a well written book that kept me intrigued until the very end.

Adoro Taylor Jenkins Reid e avendo già letto diversi suoi libri ho deciso di continuare con Carrie Soto, soprattutto dopo aver letto Malibu Rising. Il libro è scorrevole, è piacevole da leggere per chi segue il tennis, ma anche per chi non è appassionato. A me è piaciuto molto e consiglio per chi ha amato anche gli altri libri dell'autrice.

I just loved this. "Carrie Soto is Back" is a great father-daughter relationship story. Carrie, however, is one of the best fictional case studies of a dismissive-avoidant person. There's so much about this book which I loved.

Otra gran historia de esta autora. Muy recomendable.

This book had me hooked. I loved the intensity, loved the emotions, loved the drive. It makes you want to get up and head onto the courts yourself. It’s a beautiful book!

Ok