Genre Fiction
![Taylor Jenkins Reid - [object Object] author](https://res.cloudinary.com/readsomnia/image/upload/authors/a_B00DX8B85M.jpg)
Carrie Soto Is Back: A Novel
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • "An epic adventure about a female athlete perhaps past her prime, brought back to the tennis court for one last grand slam" (Elle), from the author of Malibu Rising, Daisy Jones & The Six, and The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo
"A heart-filled novel about an iconic and persevering father and daughter."-Time
"Gorgeous. The kind of sharp, smart, potent book you have to set aside every few pages just to catch your breath. I'll take a piece of Carrie Soto forward with me in life and be a little better for it."-Emily Henry, author of Book Lovers and Beach Read
ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: Time, NPR, PopSugar, Glamour, Reader's Digest
Carrie Soto is fierce, and her determination to win at any cost has not made her popular. But by the time she retires from tennis, she is the best player the world has ever seen. She has shattered every record and claimed twenty Grand Slam titles. And if you ask Carrie, she is entitled to every one. She sacrificed nearly everything to become the best, with her father, Javier, as her coach. A former champion himself, Javier has trained her since the age of two.
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 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 her most vulnerable, emotional story yet.
"A heart-filled novel about an iconic and persevering father and daughter."-Time
"Gorgeous. The kind of sharp, smart, potent book you have to set aside every few pages just to catch your breath. I'll take a piece of Carrie Soto forward with me in life and be a little better for it."-Emily Henry, author of Book Lovers and Beach Read
ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: Time, NPR, PopSugar, Glamour, Reader's Digest
Carrie Soto is fierce, and her determination to win at any cost has not made her popular. But by the time she retires from tennis, she is the best player the world has ever seen. She has shattered every record and claimed twenty Grand Slam titles. And if you ask Carrie, she is entitled to every one. She sacrificed nearly everything to become the best, with her father, Javier, as her coach. A former champion himself, Javier has trained her since the age of two.
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 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 her most vulnerable, emotional story yet.
Editorial Reviews
"The books in Reid's famous women quartet stand alone. . . . But each of the books centers a vibrant protagonist managing the tensions between her glamorous life in the public eye and the pressures she feels in private . . . with Reid meticulously collecting minute yet meaningful details to help build immersive worlds"-Time
"Carrie Soto [Is Back] . . . is like other sports novels in which underdogs punch, volley, bat and birdie their way to victory or additional defeat, but it goes beyond this to explore sexism and racism in the tennis world in the 1990s. . . . This novel will grab you. You'll tear through blow-by-blow descriptions of championship matches on some of the most famous tennis courts in the world. . . ."-The Washington Post
"An epic story about bravery, endurance, but also the power of vulnerability."-BuzzFeed
"Reid . . . draws on the lives of actual tennis pros (think Serena, Sharapova) to build a world of believable rivalries and intrigue infused with the whiplash suspense of a nail-biting tennis match."-People (Book of the Week)
"Nearly every Taylor Jenkins Reid novel reads like a survey course in some flagrantly glamorous specialty and era. . . . Come for the King Richard–level attention to the art of the game; stay for the more personal soap operas unfolding off the court, and the final score."-Entertainment Weekly
"Taylor Jenkins Reid's latest is set in the world of the tennis elite, following a ruthless former champion who-after losing her record to a rising star-decides to come out of retirement at 37 in order to reclaim her title. It's seriously inspiring."-Cosmopolitan
"Reid writes about the game with suspense, transforming a tennis match into a page-turner even for readers who don't care about sports. . . . A compulsively readable look at female ambition."-Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"Carrie Soto [Is Back] . . . is like other sports novels in which underdogs punch, volley, bat and birdie their way to victory or additional defeat, but it goes beyond this to explore sexism and racism in the tennis world in the 1990s. . . . This novel will grab you. You'll tear through blow-by-blow descriptions of championship matches on some of the most famous tennis courts in the world. . . ."-The Washington Post
"An epic story about bravery, endurance, but also the power of vulnerability."-BuzzFeed
"Reid . . . draws on the lives of actual tennis pros (think Serena, Sharapova) to build a world of believable rivalries and intrigue infused with the whiplash suspense of a nail-biting tennis match."-People (Book of the Week)
"Nearly every Taylor Jenkins Reid novel reads like a survey course in some flagrantly glamorous specialty and era. . . . Come for the King Richard–level attention to the art of the game; stay for the more personal soap operas unfolding off the court, and the final score."-Entertainment Weekly
"Taylor Jenkins Reid's latest is set in the world of the tennis elite, following a ruthless former champion who-after losing her record to a rising star-decides to come out of retirement at 37 in order to reclaim her title. It's seriously inspiring."-Cosmopolitan
"Reid writes about the game with suspense, transforming a tennis match into a page-turner even for readers who don't care about sports. . . . A compulsively readable look at female ambition."-Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
Readers Top Reviews
Karmell ClarkMart
An absolutely amazing story of strength, perseverance, forgiveness, growth, and love, although some might think unconventional. Very well done! It makes you wonder what Kerry could do next.
I have loved everything Taylor Jenkins Reid, but this one took awhile to get into. I didn’t like Carrie for 40% of the book, then she started to turn for me. I ended up really liking it. Worth the read.
Sharron Dupree
This is a lovely book. It’s about what winning means, what it actually is and what it does to the winner. It is also about losing, comparing types of losses. It speaks of options, the personal devastation of loss and how to handle it. It sounds trite to say this, but it speaks of dealing with loss, and how to recognize that the opposite of loss is not always a win, but a gain. It taught me something valuable, as a good book should. I highly recommend it.
EmSharron Dupree
4.5 I’d say. I think partially because I know absolutely nothing about tennis but at times Carrie’s character can be a headache. But Taylor knows how to write for sure. She nailed the cocky arrogant mouthy BATTLE AXE character. If you like her other books I recommend this for sure.
switterbug/Betsey
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 co...
Short Excerpt Teaser
US Open
September 1994
My entire life's work rests on the outcome of this match.
My father, Javier, and I sit front row center at Flushing Meadows, the sidelines just out of reach. The linesmen stand with their arms behind their backs on either side of the court. Straight in front of us, the umpire presides over the crowd high in his chair. The ball girls crouch low, ready to sprint at a moment's notice.
This is the third set. Nicki Chan took the first, and Ingrid Cortez squeaked out the second. This last one will determine the winner.
My father and I watch-along with the twenty thousand others in the stadium-as Nicki Chan approaches the baseline. She bends her knees and steadies herself. Then she rises onto her toes, tosses the ball in the air, and with a snap of her wrist sends a blistering serve at 126 miles per hour toward Ingrid Cortez's backhand.
Cortez returns it with startling power. It falls just inside the line. Nicki isn't able to get to it. Point Cortez.
I let my eyes close and exhale.
"Cuidado. The cameras are watching our reactions," my father says through gritted teeth. He's wearing one of his many panama hats, his curly silver hair creeping out the back.
"Dad, everyone's watching our reactions."
Nicki Chan has won two Slam titles this year already-the Australian Open and the French Open. If she wins this match, she'll tie my lifetime record of twenty Grand Slam singles titles. I set that record back in 1987, when I won Wimbledon for the ninth time and established myself as the greatest tennis player of all time.
Nicki's particular style of play-brash and loud, played almost exclusively from the baseline, with incredible violence to her serves and groundstrokes-has enabled her to dominate women's tennis over the past five years. But when she was starting out on the WTA tour back in the late eighties, I found her to be an unremarkable opponent. Good on a clay court, perhaps, but I could beat her handily on her home turf of London.
Things changed after I retired in 1989. Nicki began racking up Slams at an alarming rate. Now she's at my heels.
My jaw tenses as I watch her.
My father looks at me, his face placid. "I'm saying that the photographers are trying to get a shot of you looking angry, or rooting against her."
I am wearing a black sleeveless shirt and jeans. A pair of tortoiseshell Oliver Peoples sunglasses. My hair is down. At almost thirty-seven, I look as good as I've ever looked, in my opinion. So let them take as many pictures as they want.
"What did I always tell you in junior championships?"
"Don't let it show on your face."
"Exacto, hija."
Ingrid Cortez is a seventeen-year-old Spanish player who has surprised almost everyone with her quick ascent up the rankings. Her style is a bit like Nicki's-powerful, loud-but she plays her angles more. She's surprisingly emotional on the court. She hits a scorcher of an ace past Nicki and hollers with glee.
"You know, maybe it's Cortez who's going to stop her," I say.
My father shakes his head. "Lo dudo." He barely moves his lips when he talks, his eye consciously avoiding the camera. I have no doubt that tomorrow morning, my father will open the paper and scan the sports pages looking for his photo. He will smile to himself when he sees that he looks nothing short of handsome. Although he lost weight earlier this year from the rounds of chemo he endured, he is cancer-free now. His body has bounced back. His color looks good.
As the sun beats down on his face, I hand him a tube of sunscreen. He squints and shakes his head, as if it is an insult to us both.
"Cortez got one good one in," my father says. "But Nicki saves her power for the third set."
My pulse quickens. Nicki hits three winners in a row, takes the game. It's now 3–3 in the third set.
My father looks at me, lowering his glasses so I can see his eyes. "Entonces, what are you going to do?" he asks.
I look away. "I don't know."
He puts his glasses back on and looks at the court, giving me a small nod. "Well, if you do nothing, that is what you are doing. Nothing."
"Sí, papá, I got it."
Nicki serves wide. Cortez runs and scrambles to catch it on the rise, but it flies into the net.
I look at my father. He wears a slight frown.
In the players' box, Cortez's coach is hunched over in his seat, his hands cupping his face.
Nicki doesn't have a coach. She left her last one almost three years ago and has taken six Slams since then without anyone's guidance.
My dad makes a lot of cracks about players who don't have coaches. But with Nicki, he seems to withhold jud...
September 1994
My entire life's work rests on the outcome of this match.
My father, Javier, and I sit front row center at Flushing Meadows, the sidelines just out of reach. The linesmen stand with their arms behind their backs on either side of the court. Straight in front of us, the umpire presides over the crowd high in his chair. The ball girls crouch low, ready to sprint at a moment's notice.
This is the third set. Nicki Chan took the first, and Ingrid Cortez squeaked out the second. This last one will determine the winner.
My father and I watch-along with the twenty thousand others in the stadium-as Nicki Chan approaches the baseline. She bends her knees and steadies herself. Then she rises onto her toes, tosses the ball in the air, and with a snap of her wrist sends a blistering serve at 126 miles per hour toward Ingrid Cortez's backhand.
Cortez returns it with startling power. It falls just inside the line. Nicki isn't able to get to it. Point Cortez.
I let my eyes close and exhale.
"Cuidado. The cameras are watching our reactions," my father says through gritted teeth. He's wearing one of his many panama hats, his curly silver hair creeping out the back.
"Dad, everyone's watching our reactions."
Nicki Chan has won two Slam titles this year already-the Australian Open and the French Open. If she wins this match, she'll tie my lifetime record of twenty Grand Slam singles titles. I set that record back in 1987, when I won Wimbledon for the ninth time and established myself as the greatest tennis player of all time.
Nicki's particular style of play-brash and loud, played almost exclusively from the baseline, with incredible violence to her serves and groundstrokes-has enabled her to dominate women's tennis over the past five years. But when she was starting out on the WTA tour back in the late eighties, I found her to be an unremarkable opponent. Good on a clay court, perhaps, but I could beat her handily on her home turf of London.
Things changed after I retired in 1989. Nicki began racking up Slams at an alarming rate. Now she's at my heels.
My jaw tenses as I watch her.
My father looks at me, his face placid. "I'm saying that the photographers are trying to get a shot of you looking angry, or rooting against her."
I am wearing a black sleeveless shirt and jeans. A pair of tortoiseshell Oliver Peoples sunglasses. My hair is down. At almost thirty-seven, I look as good as I've ever looked, in my opinion. So let them take as many pictures as they want.
"What did I always tell you in junior championships?"
"Don't let it show on your face."
"Exacto, hija."
Ingrid Cortez is a seventeen-year-old Spanish player who has surprised almost everyone with her quick ascent up the rankings. Her style is a bit like Nicki's-powerful, loud-but she plays her angles more. She's surprisingly emotional on the court. She hits a scorcher of an ace past Nicki and hollers with glee.
"You know, maybe it's Cortez who's going to stop her," I say.
My father shakes his head. "Lo dudo." He barely moves his lips when he talks, his eye consciously avoiding the camera. I have no doubt that tomorrow morning, my father will open the paper and scan the sports pages looking for his photo. He will smile to himself when he sees that he looks nothing short of handsome. Although he lost weight earlier this year from the rounds of chemo he endured, he is cancer-free now. His body has bounced back. His color looks good.
As the sun beats down on his face, I hand him a tube of sunscreen. He squints and shakes his head, as if it is an insult to us both.
"Cortez got one good one in," my father says. "But Nicki saves her power for the third set."
My pulse quickens. Nicki hits three winners in a row, takes the game. It's now 3–3 in the third set.
My father looks at me, lowering his glasses so I can see his eyes. "Entonces, what are you going to do?" he asks.
I look away. "I don't know."
He puts his glasses back on and looks at the court, giving me a small nod. "Well, if you do nothing, that is what you are doing. Nothing."
"Sí, papá, I got it."
Nicki serves wide. Cortez runs and scrambles to catch it on the rise, but it flies into the net.
I look at my father. He wears a slight frown.
In the players' box, Cortez's coach is hunched over in his seat, his hands cupping his face.
Nicki doesn't have a coach. She left her last one almost three years ago and has taken six Slams since then without anyone's guidance.
My dad makes a lot of cracks about players who don't have coaches. But with Nicki, he seems to withhold jud...
