Book Review: Carrie Soto Is Back
TJR is the creator of epic, unforgettable heroines and the queen of fascinating historical fiction, helping us time travel and experience the vivid images, daily lives, and true cultures of different time zones where we want to spend more time and never return back to reality!
“Carrie Soto is back”: might be one of her most exciting, engaging, adrenaline-pumping, entertaining, heart-throbbing novels she’s ever written!
TJR’s heroines are flawed, but brave enough to rise from the ashes, learning from their mistakes by taking risks and challenges. Sometimes you really hate them or resent them, but they always find a smart and unique way to get under your skin and charm you with their power, endurance, resilience, and bravery.
Just like Carrie Soto did in this book, and just like Daisy Jones, Evelyn Hugo, and Nina Riva had done to us! Both of these amazing heroines changed our worlds! We chanted for them! We screamed at them! We wished for their happiness, and we witnessed their self-growth and their search for the meaning of life!
Now let’s focus on who Carrie Soto is!
Carrie Soto is a total bitch! She’s born to be a tennis star! Her eyes are always on the ball! The only thing she wants is to be the best, the one, becoming invincible, crushing her opponents, at the expense of winning more enemies and people’s hate! She’s crude! She’s a husband-stealer! But under that ice queen facade, she’s lonely, she’s sensitive, she’s insecure. She secretly thinks people will abandon her as soon as they notice that sensitive part of her, just like the men she’s had one-night stands with and never heard back.
Her father Javi was a great tennis player called “Jaguar” who immigrated to the USA from Argentina, finding the love of his life. Since she was a little girl, Carrie keeps visiting her father at the tennis courts where he coaches people for tournaments until she becomes one of his most important students, to be trained to be a beast who destroys her opponents!
Carrie becomes callous, relentless, an ice queen, a battle-axe, focusing on winning. She even fires her own father to become the winner, working with another coach who helps her dreams come true!
And in 1994, she’s 37, she’s single, her only friends and confidantes are her father Javi and her agent Gwen. Her records are about to be taken away by a brutal, competitive, 31-year-old brilliant tennis player Nicki Chan. Carrie cannot let that happen! Without being the best tennis player, who can she be? Nobody! She doesn’t have any love interest, and any aim in life makes her excited. She has to return back! She has to get back what belongs to her! She has to be the best of the best again!
This means she has to train more and work with the man she had a past with. The man’s name is Bowe Huntley, who is a struggling tennis player working so hard to get in shape after being sober, getting through divorce, and lots of game losses.
Carrie has no intention of becoming friends with him. They tend to act civil and do their jobs for becoming the best!
But at the age of 37, Carrie realizes her life, her goals can change. She slowly learns to open her heart to people by looking at a different perspective. Maybe becoming the best is subjective. Maybe she never exceeds her own expectations.
I loved most of the characters! Javi is my star, and I’m taking a bow for sweetheart Bowe, who was caring, patient, and so lovable.
I enjoyed the crossovers from “Daisy Jones and the Six” as Carrie reads the biography and dates Nina’s husband from “Malibu Raising.”
If you don’t like tennis, this book will make you a big fan by explaining the basic rules smartly. Each chapter keeps you on your toes, and you feel like you’ve been transported to the tennis matches, sitting on the benches to watch the games live with your heart in your throat! The narration couldn’t be more exciting! You jump up and down, scream, cross your fingers, and wish so hard to see Carrie win!
Overall, I love sports and anything TJR writes. Of course, I’m giving this book 5 shiny stars! I devoured it and truly enjoyed it!
Many thanks to NetGalley and Random House Publishing/Ballantine for sharing this amazing digital reviewer copy of one of the most anticipated books of 2022 in exchange for my honest opinions.
Carrie Soto Is Back
publishedDate : 2022-08-30
authors : Taylor Jenkins Reid
publishers : Random House Publishing Group
pageCount : 400
Carrie Soto Is Back by Taylor Jenkins Reid | Goodreads
22 books136k followers. Taylor Jenkins Reid is the New York Times bestselling author of Carrie Soto Is Back , Malibu Rising, Daisy Jones & The Six, and The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, as well as four other novels. She lives in Los Angeles. You can follow her on Instagram @tjenkinsreid.
