Book Review: Carrie Soto Is Back by Taylor Jenkins Reid

5/5! ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

WOW!!! AMAZING BOOK

2023 has been the year of Taylor Jenkins Reid for me, and I think I officially have a new favorite author.

I loved everything about this book. The father-daughter relationship was so beautiful and so well-written. I can't tell you how many times I said "Aww!" throughout this book because of Carrie and Javier. Also, I'm not a tennis person, but I found myself bouncing my leg in anticipation and yelling "Come on Carrie!" during so many of her matches. Her passion and drive to succeed are so relatable, and like Evelyn Hugo, I love that Carrie is sometimes hard to like. She's not a perfect character —she's believable and relatable.

Keep reading for my more detailed review!

Carrie is a great main character because, similar to Evelyn Hugo and how much readers loved her character, Carrie is flawed and sometimes hard to like. But underneath her harshness and coldness that are hard to love, there's a passion and a drive that's very easy to love. Not only that, I (and I think many others) can relate to it. And like the few people who are close to her point out, she really isn't as uncaring as she pretends to be. Speaking of relatable, as someone who's suffered from an athletic injury, I LOVED the excerpt on page 98. It is so frustrating when your body no longer performs the way you're used to it performing, which is something I think everyone can relate to, injury or not. For Carrie, her frustration is from simply aging, not an injury. But the way TJR describes Carrie's frustration was spot on to how I often feel post-injury.

This leads to my next point: I found this book highly relatable. The op-ed in the book "Why I'm Thankful for Carrie Soto" reminded me so much of my own experience when I was one day told I couldn't go off with my brothers, dad, uncle, and grandpa to the deer lease anymore because I was growing up and it "wasn't appropriate." No shade to my family lol, I get it, but still, I think almost every woman had that point in their childhood and it breaks your heart a little when it happens. It was cool to see that experience acknowledged in writing.

My absolute favorite part of Carrie Soto Is Back though has to be the father-daughter relationship. It tugged on my heartstrings in the best way and was written so beautifully. This passage alone made me tear up:

My father smiles but says nothing. His smile grows bigger as he turns and guides me toward the locker room, and soon he's laughing.

"What?" I ask him, "What are you thinking right now?"

"Nothing," he says. "It's just that...this is the part I missed the most. Me and you, in the tunnel."

MY HEART 😭 If you love a good father-daughter dynamic, you have to read this book.

I was also surprised and impressed by how enthralled I was with the tennis matches. I'm not a tennis person, but I found myself bouncing my leg in anticipation and yelling "Come on Carrie!" during so many of her matches.

I thought the love story was really good too, there was one scene in particular that made me swoon because it was so surprisingly sweet and touching!

I have no notes for Carrie Soto Is Back, I thought it was a perfect book. 👏🏼