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A review by amyvl93
Carrie Soto Is Back by Taylor Jenkins Reid
inspiring
lighthearted
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
Increasingly I'm wondering if my love for Evelyn Hugo was a bit of a fluke...
Carrie Soto is Back is set in Jenkins Reid's every expanding pop culture universe, focusing on Carrie Soto, a character introduced to us in Malibu Rising as the woman who has an affair with Nina Riva's husband. Back then, she was a global sensation - smashing world records as a tennis player deadly focused on winning at all costs. Now in the 1990s, she's supposedly retired until Nicki Chan takes over her record of winning tournaments - and Soto re-enters the world of tennis to take her record back at the age of 37.
The is is a story that is very much set around and about tennis. I didn't mind this too much as I like a tennis match, but I felt the constant switch between training montage and match sequence got a little grating even for me.
Unusually for Jenkins Reid, the character development also felt a little missing here. Carrie wants to win because she just...wants to win, and comes back because she simply can't cope with losing. I kept waiting and waiting for their to be some kind of reasoning behind her inability to not let Nicki be but there just doesn't seem to be one - until the very, very end of the novel. Whilst I did still find myself rooting for Carrie, I was also quite frustrated by her entire personality being tennis. Javier, her father and coach, is far better drawn - as is Bowe Huntley, a former love interest who feels quite inspired by John McEnroe, if McEnroe wasn't actually mentioned in the book.
There's some fun references to the other novels in here, but I didn't think the use of multi-media as well here - there's transcripts and sports articles sprinkled throughout and whilst some of these worked, they started becoming quite heavy handed about women's place in sport.
Overall, one for the Jenkins Reid universe completists but I think I'll pick up the next one in paperback.
Carrie Soto is Back is set in Jenkins Reid's every expanding pop culture universe, focusing on Carrie Soto, a character introduced to us in Malibu Rising as the woman who has an affair with Nina Riva's husband. Back then, she was a global sensation - smashing world records as a tennis player deadly focused on winning at all costs. Now in the 1990s, she's supposedly retired until Nicki Chan takes over her record of winning tournaments - and Soto re-enters the world of tennis to take her record back at the age of 37.
The is is a story that is very much set around and about tennis. I didn't mind this too much as I like a tennis match, but I felt the constant switch between training montage and match sequence got a little grating even for me.
Unusually for Jenkins Reid, the character development also felt a little missing here. Carrie wants to win because she just...wants to win, and comes back because she simply can't cope with losing. I kept waiting and waiting for their to be some kind of reasoning behind her inability to not let Nicki be but there just doesn't seem to be one - until the very, very end of the novel. Whilst I did still find myself rooting for Carrie, I was also quite frustrated by her entire personality being tennis. Javier, her father and coach, is far better drawn - as is Bowe Huntley, a former love interest who feels quite inspired by John McEnroe, if McEnroe wasn't actually mentioned in the book.
There's some fun references to the other novels in here, but I didn't think the use of multi-media as well here - there's transcripts and sports articles sprinkled throughout and whilst some of these worked, they started becoming quite heavy handed about women's place in sport.
Overall, one for the Jenkins Reid universe completists but I think I'll pick up the next one in paperback.