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A review by luluwoohoo
Carrie Soto Is Back by Taylor Jenkins Reid
informative
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.5
Carrie Soto Is Back by Taylor Jenkins Reid
☀️☀️⛅
This sports drama had potential, but the bland writing and unreachable characters left it feeling quite devoid of connection.
For starters, Carrie needed to be a special character to carry a book of this style, but she's glaringly one dimensional. In part I think this is kind of intentional - her schtick is being a tennis machine who has no life - but it wasn't softened enough by her external relationships to balance out the issue. This is further enhanced by there being only a few scenes that don't explicitly revolve around tennis; more would have definitely helped bring out better character development.
The structure and timeline feels too thinly stretched for me. Too much ground is covered so that every tennis match is left feeling repetitive, despite Jenkins Reid more often than not brushing over the play by play details. I somehow wanted more AND less tennis in these scenes, which is difficult to reconcile. Carrie's career is so long and varied that Jenkins Reid would have been better off selecting highlights to really dig into, rather than the broad strokes of a full career.
Supporting characters like Javier and Nicki were better developed, and the time spent with them were the best scenes of the book.
I wanted to like this story but the execution lacked finesse and ultimately left me disconnected from Carrie's journey to the detriment of the book.
☀️☀️⛅
This sports drama had potential, but the bland writing and unreachable characters left it feeling quite devoid of connection.
For starters, Carrie needed to be a special character to carry a book of this style, but she's glaringly one dimensional. In part I think this is kind of intentional - her schtick is being a tennis machine who has no life - but it wasn't softened enough by her external relationships to balance out the issue. This is further enhanced by there being only a few scenes that don't explicitly revolve around tennis; more would have definitely helped bring out better character development.
The structure and timeline feels too thinly stretched for me. Too much ground is covered so that every tennis match is left feeling repetitive, despite Jenkins Reid more often than not brushing over the play by play details. I somehow wanted more AND less tennis in these scenes, which is difficult to reconcile. Carrie's career is so long and varied that Jenkins Reid would have been better off selecting highlights to really dig into, rather than the broad strokes of a full career.
Supporting characters like Javier and Nicki were better developed, and the time spent with them were the best scenes of the book.
I wanted to like this story but the execution lacked finesse and ultimately left me disconnected from Carrie's journey to the detriment of the book.
"Maybe it’s a lie that you have to keep doing what you have always done. That you have to be able to draw a straight line from how you acted yesterday to how you’ll act tomorrow. You don’t have to be consistent. You can change. Just because you want to."