Thank you to Netgalley and Penguin Random House for the advanced copy in return for an honest review.

Carrie Soto is Back follows tennis legend Carrie Soto, previously seen in Malibu Rising, as she comes out of retirement to defend her record of most slams. I’ll be honest when this book was announced I was a little surprised by the choice to write about Carrie Soto of all characters from Taylor Jenkins Reid’s books, and personally I wasn’t sure it would be my favourite, because I’m not into tennis at all.

If you’ve read Malibu Rising then you would know a bit about the character of Carrie Soto, or at least one moment in her life. So I was very surprised to find that I grew to really like her character and found myself routing for her throughout the book. Her rise to greatness and her struggle to find balance between that and her actual life reminded me a lot of The Queen's Gambit by Walter Tevis, the story and characters have a lot of similarities and just like with The Queen's Gambit I really enjoyed this despite not having any knowledge or really any interest in the topic (chess/tennis). So I think fans of that book or the Netflix series should definitely check this out because they might really enjoy it.

The story itself started a bit slow for me, the backstory didn’t really interest me a lot, but once she started playing and going for her comeback I was really immersed. I am constantly impressed by Taylor Jenkins Reids ability to create stories and characters that feel so real, I felt like I could see the games playing out while reading. The commentary transcripts included within the story really added to the story which I really appreciated. 

I also appreciated that Taylor Jenkins Reid was not afraid to create a deeply flawed character, she was not always likeable, she was not nice and often was in the wrong but that's what made her feel so real and interesting to read about. Her story didn’t necessarily have the perfect happy ending that I thought it was going to go with, but I liked that it still ended where it needed to. I won’t spoil it but I thought what it did for the character of Carrie was really good and well done.

I really enjoyed Carrie Soto is Back, and Taylor Jenkins Reid is proving herself to be a great storyteller of interesting characters and their lives. Her books all show so much thought and effort in them, with the research needed and the ability to craft unique, interesting characters, Taylor Jenkins Reid is quickly becoming an auto-read author for me. If you liked her previous books, or enjoy stories of people who become great like The Queen's Gambit, then I think you’ll really enjoy this book.