Author Taylor Jenkins Reid discusses her novel Carrie Soto Is Back, character connections to Malibu Rising, and her background in Hollywood casting.
Uploaded by Virgin Media Television, 2022 · Watch on YouTube ·
Reid worked in Hollywood casting and originally planned to become a casting director before realizing she wanted to invent characters rather than cast them. She notes this background still helps her visualize characters when writing novels.
Despite also working in television and film, Reid tunes out potential screen adaptations while writing a novel. She maintains tunnel vision to craft the best possible book first before considering adaptations.
Reid appreciates videos of readers crying over her novels on BookTok. She says her fundamental goal as an author has always been to evoke deep emotion in her audience.
10 books; 5 reviewed on LuvemBooks. Dates and covers from Amazon.
4.6/5
reader rating · 280,666 ratingsTaylor Jenkins Reid's historical drama novel constructs a fictional Hollywood legend whose seven marriages serve as chapter markers for a life defined by ambition, survival, bisexuality, and a hidden great love — a compulsively structured narrative that has found enormous readership since its original publication by Atria Books in 2017.
Reviewed Feb 13, 2026
4.5/5
reader rating · 93,045 ratingsTaylor Jenkins Reid's Atmosphere: A Love Story follows Joan Goodwin and Vanessa Ford through NASA's 1980s shuttle program, cutting between their romance and a 1984 disaster. Kirkus Reviews found it "impossible to put down"; Bookmarks called it imperfect but floating.
Reviewed Oct 30, 2026
4.4/5
reader rating · 49,747 ratingsCarrie Soto Is Back is a 2022 historical fiction novel by Taylor Jenkins Reid in which retired tennis champion Carrie Soto, holder of twenty Grand Slam titles, comes out of retirement at 37 to reclaim her record after watching younger rival Nicki Chan surpass it at the 1994 US Open. The novel won the 2022 Goodreads Choice Award for best historical fiction and earned a place on year-end best-of lists at Time, NPR, and The Week.
Reviewed Oct 19, 2026
4.2/5
reader rating · 85,680 ratingsTaylor Jenkins Reid's Malibu Rising centers on the four famous Riva siblings — Nina, Jay, Hud, and Kit — and the single, explosive summer night at which their glamorous lives, and the legacy of the parents who made them, collide. Published by Ballantine Books, this paperback edition includes an author interview and book club discussion questions, and drew broad acclaim from outlets including The Washington Post, the Associated Press, and Oprah Daily. It is a novel built on propulsive dual timelines, vivid Malibu atmosphere, and the kind of generational family drama that Reid has become known for across her career as a #1 New York Times bestselling author.
Reviewed Jul 15, 2026
4.1/5
reader rating · 42,148 ratingsMaybe in Another Life is Taylor Jenkins Reid's third novel, published by Atria Books in July 2015, following twenty-nine-year-old Hannah Martin as a single night out in Los Angeles splits into two fully separate, alternating storylines — each tracing a radically different version of her life depending on one small choice. The novel uses its parallel-universe structure to explore questions of fate, chance, and whether happiness can be found down more than one road. Reader responses collected from published sources praise it as entertaining, unpredictable, and emotionally compelling, with particular admiration for how cleanly the two timelines remain distinct yet thematically intertwined.
Reviewed Aug 5, 2026
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