A review by drunkbookclub
Carrie Soto Is Back, by Taylor Jenkins Reid

2.0

This is an easy and swift read, and I didn’t completely dislike it. The character of Carrie Soto is interesting, flawed, powerful, and I quickly got drawn into her world. I want to watch some tennis now (and I have never been interested in that). I appreciate the effort showing the struggles women, especially women of colour, face in the sports industry. But several things annoyed me. While the story was about Carrie Soto coming back from retirement, showing everybody what she can do if she wants to, and doesn’t need anyone - especially a man - to achieve her goals, in the end, it felt like a stereotypical story of a successful, powerful woman, being “so strong and hard on the outside, but lonely in the inside”, and is in the end just looking for real love. In general, the book felt too superficial and shallow, and the characters undergo no development. It also doesn’t sit well with me that she is a white woman writing about marginalised women of colour.
It would have been a far more interesting story if Carrie and Nicki had just ended up together.