Carrie Soto Is Back: A Novel

Even if you have never loved or even followed tennis, this book will grab you. And honestly, Carrie Soto is not the stand out star, which she eventually realizes. This is a love story between a father and daughter. It is their shared lives created as this single father raised his daughter all while coaching tennis players. Her father’s gift enable Carrie to shine until she feels she no longer needs him to coach her.However, super stars often have super egos and needs. And unfortunately, although Carrie’s nearing 40, has been out of the game for longer than anyone would ever have expected her to launch a comeback, Carrie announces she is returning to defend her tennis record and/or set some new records.And although she has had some injuries, specifically her knees, she feels compelled to try, especially when her father has agreed to be her coach once again. And that sharing, coaching, and loving is perhaps what is and remains Carrie’s greatest victory.

This is the last of Taylor Jenkins Reid’s novels. It was phenomenal. I love how she drops a bit of past novel characters into each newer novel. I have enjoyed every single one. I did not read them in order. I started with Daisy Jones after seeing the mini series. Every one of the books has been great. I can not recommend each of them enough. When is the next novel???!!! I’m stressing out already! READ. EVERY. ONE.

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

If you’ve loved TJR past works you will love this as well. I am not into sports at all and I devoured this in one day. One of my all time favorites!

I really enjoyed this novel and probably would have enjoyed it twice as maid I was a tennis player. Ms. Reid knows how to write entertaining and enjoyable novels. Carrie Soto did not disappoint.

This author always draws me in until I am engrossed with her characters and their milieu, even one I’m not that keen on, such as professional tennis. I inhaled this book, with its prickly, only somewhat likable main character, Carrie Soto, tennis wunderkind, learning to find joy in her strengths and talents rather than worshipping the win to the exclusion of everything else. Brisk pace, even with the details of tennis matches and passages in Spanish (not a language I speak) that could have derailed me.

The author's detail re. the character in this book is so detailed and real that it is hard to keep in mind that the character is fictional. It is all so engrossing.

Finished in 48hrs and loved every second! Wow!

obrigada por esse livro taylor obrigada, a edição ta incrível

Carrie n'est pas le personnage le plus facile à aimer et pourtant, au fil des pages, de son passé, se sa relation avec son père, j'ai réussi à la comprendre et à ressentir beaucoup d'empathie pour elle. Moi qui n'aime pas spécialement le tennis, je n'arrivais pas à poser ma lecture... J'étais prise dans le jeu, prise dans les enjeux...Encore une pépite signée TJR.

Chegou em muito mau estado, com várias marcas, folhas dobradas, tal como demonstra a foto.

disappointed cause the cover was torn from the corner

Taylor Jenkins Reid’s writing, forte is creating page- turners about the rich, and famous, she convinces you that her characters are real life celebrities and not just fictional ones. In this case it’s tennis star Carrie Soto the best player the world has ever seen. TJR draws us in immediately with an engaging premise: recently retired Carrie Soto watches newcomer Nicki Chan take her twenty Grand Slams record away. Soto refuses to allow her legacy to be snatched away from her grasp, and embarks on a journey to win back her title.I wasn’t sure if I was going to enjoy this book as I hate tennis with a passion! Even if you’re not a tennis fan, TJR captures all the sweat, rivalry and glamour of tennis. The descriptions of championship matches on some of the most famous tennis courts in the world will keep you furiously turning those pages. I exactly ended up loving this book, I may even be tempted to watch Wimbledon this year!Carrie is a strong character, she’s arrogant and not very likeable, but you know what? Carrie's love for tennis shines on every page, and she gradually won me over with her persistence and dedication it also helped that under that tough exterior, a more vulnerable side to her personality emerges. I actually ended up liking her so much I desperately wanted her to succeed against the odds. Her close, but sometimes volatile, relationship with her father, Javier Soto, is such a central part of the book.Taylor Jenkins Reid paints a harsh picture of the realities of being on the professional tennis circuit. The endless grind of training and fitness, strategising and planning, and the solitary existence that comes with such harsh training sounds far from glamorous. This book is so much more than a book about tennis, it’s about the importance of family, love and accepting yourself and who you are. Carrie Soto Is Back made for an extremely quick and enjoyable read, which had me hooked from start to finish. After all who doesn’t love a story about a strong woman? Carrie is most definitely a force to be reckoned with!