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valerie's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25
Moderate: Death of parent
Minor: Misogyny
lauramparis's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Graphic: Death of parent
Moderate: Misogyny, Sexism, Medical content, and Grief
Minor: Body shaming, Sexual content, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism
icieri's review against another edition
4.0
Moderate: Misogyny, Sexism, and Death of parent
mnm718's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
Moderate: Misogyny and Death of parent
Minor: Addiction and Injury/Injury detail
brekker_by_brekker's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
Graphic: Grief and Death of parent
Moderate: Misogyny
genny's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25
Overly competitive people irk me to no end, so you can imagine how incredibly annoying Carrie was to me at first, even though it made sense due to her upbringing. Of course she became more likeable as she learned to acknowledge her faults and I found myself rooting for her eventually. I especially enjoyed her banter with Nicki Chan (the best character, hello?!). This was much more entertaining than Malibu Rising, though at this point I don't think anything can live up to Daisy Jones for me.
I loved the ending! What a fun last line.
Graphic: Misogyny and Sexism
Moderate: Body shaming, Death, Infidelity, Grief, and Death of parent
Minor: Alcoholism, Cancer, and Injury/Injury detail
cosmicsapphic's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Graphic: Misogyny, Sexism, and Death of parent
hollymileham's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
i really admired the portrayal of sexism in this, particularly in terms of the sports world and the hypocrisy within it. carrie is such a flawed character but youre still rooting for her the whole way through i wanted her to win so badly both in the past and the present. her relationships with her dad and with bowe were so emotional and particularly the scenes with her dad really pulled at my heartstrings.
what a perfectly imperfect ending for carrie and such a stunning finale to the tjr universe. devastated lol i know she'll write other books but something about this celebrity world really hits the spot for me. tjr will never let me down đ
Graphic: Misogyny, Sexism, Grief, and Death of parent
Moderate: Injury/Injury detail
tinybluepixel's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
1.5
This is what y'all are saying is the epitome of modern literature? Her best book yet? A literary masterpiece?
If that's true, I have no hope for modern literature.
First of all: After receiving so much (valid!) criticism for her portrayal of Latine characters and their experiences, Taylor Jenkins Reid has, instead of taking that criticism to heart and working on bettering herself, doubled down upon it.
There's an interview in the Cut I have read in preparation for this book. In this interview, TJR says this: "I am a white woman, but the people I love and engage with on a daily basis, theyâre not all white women. The people that influence me, who Iâm talking to on an intimate level, some of the closest women in my life are not white."
What? "I'm allowed to write Latine characters because I have friends of color?"
She goes on: "I am a white woman living in a society that caters to white people, and my ability to understand the life of someone who is a woman of color is very, very limited because of the way that society caters to my gaze. I lie awake nights literally unable to sleep because I do not know what the right thing to do is. I just approach it with the feeling that the women of color in my life deserve to be the center of stories. The most important thing I can do to make that happen is to recommend and uplift and support women of color. That is my main priority. Me writing a woman of color does not replace the active work I have to do, and I spend a lot of time recommending books by women of color and blurbing books by women of color."
I am losing my mind.
Yes. Women of color deserve to be the center of stories. Women of color also deserve to be published authors. And I cannot believe that TJR thinks that because she has a Spanish editor looking over her book, this enables her to write Latine characters.
A majority of CSiB consists of conversations between Carrie and her father, Javier. Javier is from Argentina, and he came to the US as a grown adult, where he married Carrie's racially ambigious mother. So yeah, it's natural that he would speak Spanish. However, it is not natural that he speaks Spanish the way a bilingual character speaks in a fanfic written by a 13-year-old who desperately wants to show that the character is actually bilingual. No one who is bilingual inserts random Spanish words into an English sentence. Carrie and Javier would, in all likelyhood, not even speak English to each other at all. TJR further states in her Cut interview: "I am very bad at languages and can read Spanish but cannot speak it. I am very fortunate in that I have a Spanish-speaking editor who took a lot of time and helped me through it, specifically through Argentine Spanish."
Taylor. No one forced you to make these characters Argentine. You did that all on your own.
I cannot believe that the author felt knowledgable enough to write about the experiences of a Latina in a sport such as tennis.
Because it's fucking tennis. Not soccer, not, idk, running, but tennis. AKA, one of the most elitist and whitest sports in all the world. So here's where things get really dicey.
Carolina Soto's story is not her own. In a Vanity Fair article about TJR, it says this: "When it comes to womenâs tennis, of course, one name looms above the rest. Reid inhaled Serena Williamsâs books, her father Richard Williamsâs book (Black and White: The Way I See It), and Serenaâs MasterClass. âI watched that thing three times. Itâs watching her play: the way she describes it, the terms that she uses, what she focuses on, the way she trains, her attitude about all of itâand her attitude about excellence. [Carrie Soto Is Back] doesnât exist without that MasterClass.â"
Oh, it is clear. I read that particular article after I read the book, but holy shit, the similarities between Carrie Soto and Serena and Venus Williams are too many to be coincidential. The whole "reporters asking her to smile and her telling them off" thing is recreated almost word for word. When I read that part in the book, I actually said "no way" out loud, because no way did the editors let her get away with that? There's a fine line between inspiration and blatant copying, and I fear it has been crossed in this case.
So. Getting all of this out of the way because I'm running out of space: The book isn't even good. An estimated 70% is extremely repetitive and boring. I can only read so many accounts of tennis games and the same training session over and over. The first part, titled "The first time around" is basically just Carrie saying: I won that game, and then I won that game, and then the mean reporters were being mean to me, and then I won that game, and then the mean reporters were being mean to me AGAIN, and then I won that game ..."
The only interesting part to me was the relationship between Bowe (what kind of a name is that, btw?) and Carrie, because it actually furthered Carrie's character development. Same with her relationship with Nikki, because she actually had to think about her actions for a second instead of just pouting and stomping her foot like a toddler, saying "But I want to be the BEST, Dad! You don't understand!!!"
The ending felt rushed, the twist that was supposed the be the tearjerker of this book was so obvious it was almost ridiculous, and the characters felt flat and one-dimensional, most of all Carrie herself. What a disappointment. The writing wasn't even good! I saw someone on Tiktok basically say, "shame about the racism, because TJR's writing is exceptional and so unique!" It is not. It is the epitome of white mediocrity. The writing is not bad. But it is by far not unique. It is nothing special. I cannot believe people are raving about this the way they are.
To close this out, once again: White writers should write diverse characters, but they shouldn't write solely about characters of color. These are not our stories to tell. And ultimately, nothing would have been taken away from this story had Carrie and Javier been white. Nothing would have been different. Carrie's issues with popularity and the press are not because of her heritage. It still would've worked exactly the same had Carrie been white. And ultimately, that's not what the reality should reflect, and if Taylor Jenkins Reid really wanted to accurately and meaninfully portray the experiences of a woman of color in tennis, she failed. Plain and simple.
Interview in the Cut: https://www.thecut.com/2022/08/taylor-jenkins-reid-carrie-soto-is-back-booktok.html
Vanity Fair Article: https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2022/08/taylor-jenkins-reid-daisy-jones-evelyn-hugo-carrie-soto
Graphic: Death, Misogyny, Sexism, and Death of parent
Moderate: Body shaming and Grief
theespressoedition's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
I'm really glad that I chose to listen to the audiobook. Similar to Daisy Jones & The Six, it had a full cast of narrators that made the story even more immersive. I felt like I was living in it rather than just reading about it. I proceeded to listen to the entire story in one day, which made me have some strange tennis dreamsâŚ
Speaking of tennis, if you're a lover of the sport and you have a lot of knowledge about it, you'll really enjoy this book. When it came to my personal experience, I felt like a lot of the most intense moments were lost on me because I don't have a clue how the game works. However, despite my lack of insight, I still enjoyed the tennis-centered scenes and the emotions that came from the different characters allowed me to understand what was happening - possibly almost as much as someone who actually gets the terms.
The serious lack of romance was super surprising to me. This is something that was fundamental in almost every other TJR book I've read so far. In Carrie Soto, there was very little focus on that. It existed, but never in graphic ways and it certainly wasn't a primary plot point. Carrie's relationship with her father was defiitely the top theme for the majority of the book. That, and her rivalries.
It was interesting to see how Carrie changed throughout the book. I wouldn't necessarily say there was grand character development or growth, but she did become different people throughout each part of the story and I found a lot of what she went through to be very relatable. I enjoyed "seeing inside her mind" so to speak.
I definitely recommend this one! You don't need to read Malibu Rising to understand it, but I enjoyed the little nods to parts of that story (along with the mention of reading a Daisy Jones & The Six biography at one point). Having all four of the latest TJR books set in the same world is really fun!
Graphic: Grief and Death of parent
Moderate: Toxic relationship, Toxic friendship, and Injury/Injury detail
Minor: Infidelity and Misogyny