I’ve never been much of a tennis fan, although I took the obligatory tennis lessons at Wesley Park several summers through community ed and then married into a tennis crazed family of jocks. Despite my lack of athleticism, Carrie Soto is Back was engrossing from start to finish. Author Taylor Jenkins Reid delivers another ace.

When Carrie Soto retires from tennis, she is the best player the world has ever seen. She has shattered every record and claimed twenty Grand Slam titles. But six years later, she sits in the stands of the 1994 US Open as Nicki Chan ties her record. At thirty-seven years old, Carrie comes out of retirement for one final, epic year to prove she is still the Greatest of All Time. Carrie Soto is back, and I rooted hard for her.

Carrie Soto, aka “the Battle-Axe” isn’t very likeable, but this book sure is! 5 stars.

Genre: Historical fiction
Favorite Quote: “We live in a world where exceptional women have to sit around waiting for mediocre men.”

Bill Durham is one of my favorite movies; it is such a fun concept: a washed-up sports pro taking one more swing at glory. Carrie Soto is back is following in those footsteps, but then again, Carrie, a retired tennis pro, has received all the accolades, wins, and prize money, and she never let herself go after retirement. No, she was always on top of the world and could be resting on her laurels. But that is her problem. Carrie Soto is back is a novel about a woman struggling with perfectionism and how to deal with perfectionism when you have the ability to be flawless. Most of us will never achieve that level of excellence, so perfectionism might be a crux that blocks us from doing the work. But what if you could be the very best? What does it do to you when you are still not satisfied and done after arriving on top?
The tricky thing about such a protagonist is that she is not very relatable. Still, Taylor Jenkins Reid is the kind of writer that pulls you into a protagonist like that and shows you the inner world of somebody the world sees as cold, calculated, and impenetrable.
She is not. But she was always so busy getting somewhere that her emotional development was stunted.
The story starts when Carrie Soto decides to make a comeback, spurred on by the inability to let go of her precious record of Grand Slam wins. When the then-champion is about to break hers, Carrie vows to start training again and show everyone that she is and always will be the best.
So, no, this is not Bill Durham, where a talented player never was able to achieve what his talent deserved. This is the story of a winner who wants to win even more. The journalists and sports commentators in the book serve to voice some of our own opinions on a person like that, and I loved that Carrie Soto is back explores a role that, for women, is seen as an unsympathetic one.
Reading the commentators dismiss Carrie and call her names is a neat trick to get us on Carrie's side, and her wonderful relationship with her father/trainer further warms our hearts.
The novel follows her training, with lots of ups and downs, and each Grand Slam, with exquisite descriptions of pure tennis. It even throws in a romance with another player, a closer fit to a Bill Durham character, a tennis pro who never risen to Carrie's highs and now has to accept his age and failing body. Like Carrie, he's still attempting to hold on to his tennis career.
Carrie Soto is back is such a compulsive read; the plot is relatively straightforward and entirely suits Carrie's personality. That is the aspect I loved the most, how the style and the emotions fit the determined, intelligent and capable character so well. If you don't play or watch tennis, this might be too specific for you, but if you do, Carrie Soto is back is a treat.

This was a miss for me. I've loved everything else from this author, but I didn't care about this book at all. There was a lot of tennis, A LOT, and, while it may have been important for the story, I just couldn't weed through it.

I received an advance copy. All thoughts are my own.

Taylor Jenkins Reid is a treasure. Every book she writes so cleverly encapsulates complicated characters without diminishing them. They are wild, and interesting, and messy. An author I will continually return to and be impressed by!

Taylor Jenkins Reid has written a flawless book about an extremely flawed character and I couldn’t have loved it more! Carrie Soto may have started out to be one of the most flawed protagonist characters that I have ever read about and yet she was so easy to root for in her tennis career, her relationships and her life experiences.
Although the storyline revolves around Carrie’s tennis career there is no need to be an avid tennis fan to love this book. I will admit that I love the game of tennis, so this book was extra enjoyable for me by bringing my love of reading and tennis together. But this was more about Carrie’s life experiences and relationships off the court than her wins and losses on the court.
Carrie’s relationship with her dad, Javier truly is the driving force behind this emotional book. Their bond is amazing and unbreakable, even though Carrie tries to break it more than once. The story being told in dual timelines is the only way I could imagine Carrie’s story being told, it flowed easily from one timeline to the other. It truly immerses the reader into the story and develops the relationships between the characters.
I cannot give enough praise for this emotional book. I laughed, cried, excited and got even mad at Carrie a few times. I highly recommend this amazing book about Carrie Soto’s journey as a daughter and tennis player. I am extremely grateful to Ballentine Books and Netgalley for the opportunity to read a digital copy of this book in exchange for a honest review.

Book Rating: 4/5
Audiobook Rating: 5/5

I have never met a Taylor Jenkins Reid novel that I have not liked, and of course, Carrie Soto Is Back is no exception. For being so heavy on tennis and all the ins and outs of it, you would think I would have gotten bored but that was not the case! I actually loved learning more about the sport, especially having it come from a fictional story and a character I both loved and loathed in equal measure. I loved Carrie's determination and how she wanted to be the best she could be, but at the same time she was more than a little extreme and the cost of the things she did was outside of anything I would want to experience. I did love the father/daughter relationship that is heavily explored throughout the book, and in true TJR fashion I ended up ugly crying at one point. Helpful when you are cleaning the bathroom!

The audiobook for Carrie Soto Is Back is a total masterpiece and much like Daisy Jones & The Six, includes a full cast of narrators. There are too many to list here, but I will throw out the name Julia Whelan and you can tell me you don’t want to listen to it now. So well done, and every single narrator was perfectly chosen for their parts. I believe Stacy Gonzalez was the narrator for Carrie and I have to say she was exceptional. There is quite a bit of Spanish spoken throughout the book and she nailed it all. This brings me to one of the things that bugged me, the unexplained language used. I don’t LOVE having to Google translate things while I am reading, and Jenkins Reid didn’t try to explain any of the Spanish in this book. I wish I were bilingual but I’m not so that was an unfortunate piece for me, but I’m sure there will be plenty of people this will not be an issue for, and it is an entirely personal preference. Overall, this wasn’t my favorite by TJR, but I really enjoyed it and would definitely listen to it again.

A book about tennis that isn’t about tennis. I don’t watch sports, but love sports adjacent books. Enjoyed her story arc and growth throughout the book.

As a tennis fan who loves the players' backstories, this was the book for me. And the timing couldn't have been better. Carrie Soto was going for her big comeback at the same time Serena was back on center court making her U.S. Open run. Unfortunately, Carrie was not a likable protagonist. Of course I wanted to root for her, but she didn't make it easy. Carrie's love interest, an affable fellow player also looking for a comeback, and her father/coach offset her prickly personality. I enjoyed how the author built up the suspense leading up to the big tournaments, and she hit a good balance of detailing/summarizing the games, sets, and matches. Thank you NetGalley for the Advanced Readers' Copy.

A beautiful story about a woman fighting for her passion while discovering herself, I absolutely loved this one! Taylor Jenkins Reid does it again, her writing has a way with the readers. I got so engrossed when I reading that the story lives in my head rent free. Carrie Soto as a character showed me a strong female sport person who is fighting for her rights in a way. The different challenges that she faces were something I could connect to and draw from real life events. In all, this was a book that I absolutely loved!

Taylor Jenkins Reid has a penchant for stories that jump across timelines, creating intrigue and interest in the storyline. In Carrie Soto is Back, we are drawn into the life of Carrie Soto, learning how she became a ruthless champion tennis player while also following along as she considers leaving retirement when her stunning record is threatened.

At its heart, the book wrestles with themes of what is truly important -- do we find significance in our achievements? Or do we credit a successful life to have other indicators?

This is a breezy read that was hard to put down, another enjoyable edition.

(I received a digital ARC from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for my honest review.)

This is going to be my last attempted with TJR. It was a DNF for me. I recognize she's doing things that people will love and I'm sorry to bring the rating down on this. She just isn't for me.

I will always read books by Taylor Jenkins Reid! This one is not my favorite of hers but I did enjoy the read. The ending was definitely the better part of the book. I learned a lot about tennis that I never knew. I was both interested in learning about tennis and got bored with it throughout the story (sometimes at the same time). I understand the need for the details of tennis in order to understand a lot of Carrie's thoughts and motives, but sometimes I was thinking "okay, enough tennis." Overall, this book will not keep me from reading her next one, but I have no plans on re-reading it.

Thank you NetGalley for the ARC.

A continuation of the Jenkins Reid literary universe, Carrie Soto was once the greatest tennis player that ever was but now she is retired and watching her records be shattered by the newest and youngest. And she can't have that, so she decided to come back. And she will do anything it takes to get to the top again.
I love Taylor Jenkins Reid and I love tennis so this hits a lot of nails for me. I loved reading about the hard work it takes to be that elite player like Serena Williams. I also loved Carrie's character development.

Thank you to Ballantine Books and to NetGalley for an ARC of this book.

I have ready several books prior to this one by Taylor Jenkins Reid and have liked all of them. She is such a talented writer, and I love her characters.

This new book is about a retired Tennis player Carrie Soto. I am not a fan of Tennis, so I wasn't sure how I was going to like this book. Honestly, I got swept up in the story of Carrie and her father, as well as her coming out of retirement. I was a little slow in the beginning, but picked up steam about half way though. This one was another great book by TJR, which I will be reccomending to my library patrons. This was another win for Talyor Jenkins Reid!

5 stars. This was my favorite read of 2022. Taylor Jenkins Reid does not disappoint. Carrie Soto is a strong character who isn't at likeable, yet I was cheering for her the whole way. I found myself rooting for her during each match. This is also a wonderful father daughter story as well. There is also a little romance.

I was given a copy of the book to review by the publisher. My opinions are my own.

Taylor Jenkins Reid strikes again! This book is a gorgeous tale of how, even though you may be older, you may still not have evolved to be a better person. There is always room to change, and sometimes we just need to get out of our own heads and stop holding ourselves back. It is also an exceptionally fun read as Jenkins Reid really gets the ready involved in teaching the reader about tennis in a way that isn't preachy or boring. There are some central themes that tend to show up in a lot of Jenkins Reid's books, family and internal character struggles are two major ones, and this book has both. I highly recommend this to readers of Taylor Jenkins Reid, and will recommend this to others who enjoy books with a strong female character, drama, and enjoy being drawn into the characters world.

Taylor Jenkins Reid whisks readers off to the world of competitive tennis in Carrie Soto Is Back. While this book isn't without some controversy, I don't care anything about tennis, and I found myself rooting for Carrie Soto.

TJR has a knack for creating complex female characters, and Carrie is no different. I also enjoyed the push-and-pull of her relationship with her father/coach (or coach/father some days). And, there is of course, also a love story.

Many thanks to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for sharing this book with me. All thoughts are my own.

Another amazing book by TJR! This was fun to read, and really enjoyable. However, the other TJR books like 7 Husbands and Daisy Jones were a lot more my speed. Overall, though, this was a great book.

First TJR book and impressed by the way she weaves a sport like tennis into an interesting plot and makes the technicalities of tennis approachable for all readers. The story of Carrie Soto is nostalgic for any 80s fans but Jenkins-Reid brings it front and center to today's world with an insurmountable comeback from a storied athlete. The weight and focus of family, friends, and fame all while trying to conquer a sport was intriguing. Looking forward to reading more from this author.

Special thanks to Random House - Ballantine and NetGalley for the ARC.

I really enjoyed the last two Taylor Jenkins Reid novels, especially Malibu Rising, which even has some of the same characters, but I just couldn't get into this one. Too much detail to the tennis, maybe.