Carrie Soto is back is a novel about a champion tennis player that comes out of retirement in her late 30’s to defend her title. 

Carrie Soto is a character that appeared in Taylor Jenkins Reid’s 2021 novel Malibu Rising. In that book Carrie was a tennis champ and the “other woman” in the main character’s high profile marriage (and split) so this reader wasn’t that sympathetic to her. Now it’s several years later (1994) and Carrie is so burned by that experience that she is no longer doing relationships. She’s retired from tennis, running a successful foundation and has the best selling celebrity endorsed sneaker when it’s announced that another female player is about to break her record. But Carrie can’t handle it and has only one choice...so she pulls her coach/father out of retirement and they are training to reenter the world of women’s tennis with her at the ripe old age of 37. 

Told in a mix of sport’s reporter’s transcripts, detailed accounts of Carrie’s matches and her first person POV of life outside the court the reader gets deep understanding of both the public and inner life of a champion. I never thought I’d be interested in sport’s fiction but Carrie’s journey is fascinating and it’s only through TJR’s skill that the reader is kept engrossed despite all the technical tennis terms. Carrie’s prickly nature, dry wit and inner drive made her even more real to me and I was rooting for her, her tennis partner Bowe (who is also staging his own comeback) and her father Javier as they all three try accomplish the impossible. I laughed a lot, cried a lot and basically went on a whole emotional journey with Carrie Soto. 

I highly recommend this novel about what it means to be the best and how a champion can find joy and fulfillment in the moments outside of wins. 

5 stars ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️