Carrie Soto is Back by Taylor Jenkins Reid

Pages: 368 

Publisher: Hutchinson Heinemann 

Released: 30th of August 2022 

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. In this riveting and unforgettable novel, Taylor Jenkins Reid tells a story about the cost of greatness and a legendary athlete attempting a comeback.

What I Have to Say 

I started reading this book and was completely absorbed within the first few sentences. I literally sat down and read almost a quarter of it without stopping, which with my dyslexia these days is a hard task. It wasn't that the plot was gripping because it had hardly started, it was the writing was just so enthralling that it dragged me in and held me there. 

Carrie Soto is an interesting character. She's not very likeable, she's honestly called a bitch throughout most of the novel, but despite this I found myself caring about her a lot. I wanted her to achieve her goals. I wanted her to find love. I wanted her to make a damn friend! She needed more in her life than winning and I wanted her to find it. 

There were some twists and turns that I didn't see coming and some I did, but I didn't know how the end would go until the very last moment. Was this a novel about winning? Was this a novel about learning to take loss? Was it both and she would learn to take loss and be rewarded at the very end by winning anyway? I literally had no idea. It made the final match thrilling because I couldn't guess the result at all. 

I know I'm late to discovering Taylor Jenkins Reid, but I'm so excited to read the other books she's written. 

(5 stars) 

My thanks go to Netgalley and Hutchinson Heinemann for providing me with this copy for review.