Rachel L's Reviews > Carrie Soto Is Back

4 stars

Thorough her career as a professional tennis player, Carrie Soto shattered every record set by those before her. Deemed the "Battle-Axe" by commentators, Carrie was ruthless and made no friends along the path to greatness. Now, six years after her retirement, Carrie watches new player Nicki Chan become close to taking away all of her accomplishments. So, working with her father and coach, Carrie makes a plan to come out of retirement and reclaim her titles.

First of all, reading a book about tennis is not usually something I would choose to do, sports and me? Not a good mix. But this is Taylor Jenkins Reid, so of course I am going to read it. And the way TJR writes, even though I don't know much about tennis I was able to follow along and enjoy the story easily.

I really loved Carrie as a main character, I've always been a sucker for an "unlikeable" heroine. I felt that was TJR's intention with this character was to show how women who aren't nice or kind yet successful are treated with derision or scorn and it was a focal point in this book. To me there's nothing wrong with a confident woman knowing what she's capable of and not being afraid to use it/show it.

There's a smidge of romance in this book and I really enjoyed those parts and Carrie's love interest, I think they were perfect for each other. The real love story of this book is the love between a father and daughter and how strong that bond could be. My favorite parts of this book were the moments between Carrie and her father, sweet or not. There was a lot of emotion packed into small moments between them and I feel their relationship was the true heart of this book.

I have lots of thoughts and feelings about this being a book about a Latina woman written by a white woman, I definitely feel like this should not be checking the diversity box for anyone reading it. I don't really feel it's a white woman's place to be writing the stories of marginalized people and I did wonder why she chose to do this when she even said herself in an article that we need to be boosting minority writers. I think her intention is to use her power and spotlight to highlight minority voices, but I'm not sure if it's the right path. I'll be very curious to read opinions by non-white reviewers who read this book and see how they feel.

ARC provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review. I also received an ALC through the libro fm librarian program. Neither of these affected my thoughts or opinions on this book or my review