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norebax's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.75
Moderate: Body shaming, Emotional abuse, Infidelity, Sexism, Death of parent, and Gaslighting
kelly_e's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.75
Author: Taylor Jenkins Reid
Genre: Fiction
Rating: 4.75
Pub Date: August 30, 2022
T H R E E • W O R D S
Addictive • Riveting • Immersive
📖 S Y N O P S I S
Carrie Soto is fierce, and her determination to win at any cost has not made her popular.
By the time Carrie retires from tennis, she is the best player the world has ever seen. She has shattered every record and claimed twenty Slam titles. And if you ask her, she is entitled to every one. She sacrificed nearly everything to become the best, with her father as her coach.
But six years after her retirement, Carrie finds herself sitting in the stands of the 1994 US Open, watching her record be taken from her by a brutal, stunning, British player named Nicki Chan. At thirty-seven years old, Carrie makes the monumental decision to come out of retirement and be coached by her father for one last year in an attempt to reclaim her record. Even if the sports media says that they never liked the 'Battle-Axe' anyway. Even if her body doesn't move as fast as it did. And even if it means swallowing her pride to train with a man she once almost opened her heart to: Bowe Huntley. Like her, he has something to prove before he gives up the game forever.
In spite of it all: Carrie Soto is back, for one epic final season.
💭 T H O U G H T S
Taylor Jenkins Reid's Carrie Soto Is Back was one of my most anticipated releases of 2022, and it did not disappoint. TJR has quickly become an auto-buy author for me simply because of her unique ability in writing nuanced and vivid characters. As someone who considers themselves to be a huge sports fan, I was equally intrigued knowing it would involve tennis.
Firstly, I could not put this book down! From the very first page I was fully invested and wanted to keep reading to see how everything would pan out. The characters are complex with multiple layers to each. While Carrie's character comes across as arrogant and entitled, as the story progresses details are reveled that allowed me to get to know and understand her better. The author's writing made me feel like I was sitting in the stands watching every move of the matches, and rooting for Carrie in her comeback. One of the little extras I love about her books, is how she'll gives little hints or snippets of characters from her other books (or maybe future books?), yet she keeps it minimal, so you can easily read the books independently of one another.
Secondly, I absolutely loved the father/daughter relationship portrayed in this book. It was messy and complicated, yet never once did I doubt the father's love for his daughter. I am so used to the mother/daughter relationship trope, that this one was a breathe of fresh air. In fact, the romance development was also very well written.
Thirdly, while the world of tennis takes up much of the narrative, in my opinion, you don't need to be knowledgeable about the game in order to appreciate the narrative, yet if you are a tennis player and/or fan of the sport you'll likely have an even greater appreciation for this story. I know I came away with a greater appreciation for game, and female athletes in general.
And lastly, the audiobook featuring a full cast was fantastic! There are little extras, including parts of it felt like a real live broadcast of the matches. And it allowed for a completely immersive reading experience, and I would highly recommend going that route.
Carrie Soto Is Back is completely different from any of her other books, yet it I loved it just as much. I wouldn't be surprised to see it turned into a movie or mini series at some point in the future. TJR manages to combine plot driven and character driven stories unlike anyone else. Her latest certainly solidifies her place on my author read-it all list, and I cannot wait to read whatever she publishes next.
📚 R E C O M M E N D • T O
• mixed media fans
• TJR devotees
• Tennis enthusiasts
🔖 F A V O U R I T E • Q U O T E S
"Grief is like a deep, dark hole. It calls like a siren: Come to me, lose yourself here. And you fight it and you fight it and you fight it, but when you finally succumb and jump down into it, you can't quite believe how deep it is. It feels as if this how you will live for the rest of your life, falling. Terrified and devastated, until you yourself die."
"What a gift it is, to be able to guide someone to a point and then let them finish it themselves. To give someone all the knowledge you have and then pray they use it right."
"I am no longer the greatest tennis player in the world. For the first time in my life, I can be...something else."
Graphic: Death, Misogyny, Sexism, Grief, Death of parent, and Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Body shaming, Cursing, Racism, and Medical content
Minor: Addiction, Cancer, Homophobia, Infidelity, Sexual content, Car accident, Lesbophobia, and Alcohol
nora_knight's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.75
Graphic: Cursing, Death, Grief, and Death of parent
Moderate: Alcoholism, Sexual content, Medical content, Alcohol, and Injury/Injury detail
Minor: Body shaming, Fatphobia, Homophobia, and Lesbophobia
serena_hien's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25
Graphic: Alcohol
Moderate: Body shaming
Minor: Lesbophobia
m4rtt4'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
Graphic: Death, Medical content, Grief, Death of parent, and Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Alcoholism, Body shaming, Misogyny, Sexism, and Alcohol
jaimc's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Graphic: Death of parent
Moderate: Cursing
Minor: Addiction, Body shaming, and Injury/Injury detail
soobooksalot's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
But as with her previous books, Taylor Jenkins Reid takes characters in their areas of fame and makes you care about their experiences. About their world and everyone around them, like we are in the know.
Much like Evelyn Hugo, Daisy Jones and Nina Riva; Carrie Soto is a formidable and unforgettable main character.
I adored Carrie Soto Is Back. I adore how TJR rewards her loyal readers with associations to her other books. I adore being in the world of her books, the uniquely vibrant places they are, and references of the time.
Absolutely recommended!
Moderate: Body shaming, Cancer, Death of parent, and Alcohol
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
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
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, they’re not all white women. The people that influence me, who I’m 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 women’s tennis, of course, one name looms above the rest. Reid inhaled Serena Williams’s books, her father Richard Williams’s book (Black and White: The Way I See It), and Serena’s MasterClass. “I watched that thing three times. It’s 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 it—and her attitude about excellence. [Carrie Soto Is Back] doesn’t exist without that MasterClass.”"
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