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4.4
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Carrie Soto Is Back
Carrie Soto Is Back by Taylor Jenkins Reid Review: A Fierce, Award-Winning Return to the Court
Carrie 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.
LuvemBooks Verdict
Best for
Readers who loved Reid's earlier novels about iconic women — particularly The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo or Malibu Rising — and want to see that same blend of propulsive plotting and intimate character study applied to professional sport and a driven, morally complex female protagonist.
Worth it if
Worth reading if you're drawn to stories about female ambition, legacy, and the cost of greatness, and can invest in a prickly, win-at-all-costs protagonist whose vulnerability is earned slowly rather than offered upfront.
Skip if
Skip it if you need either an immediately warm and sympathetic lead or a richly reconstructed 1990s period backdrop, since the novel uses Carrie's abrasiveness as a deliberate feature and treats its historical setting as emotional atmosphere rather than detailed reconstruction.
What readers & critics say
Kirkus Reviews (starred) called it "a compulsively readable look at female ambition," while longfellowbooks.com aggregates further starred notices from critics, with one review declaring Reid "has written another knockout of a book." The novel debuted at #1 on the New York Times bestseller list, won the 2022 Goodreads Choice Award for best historical fiction, and was named a best book of the year by Time and NPR, among others, per en.wikipedia.org.
“A compulsively readable look at female ambition.”
— Kirkus ReviewsAsk LuvemBooks
1 user found this summary helpful
- Is it worth reading?
- For readers open to a prickly, driven protagonist, Carrie Soto Is Back makes a strong case as one of Taylor Jenkins Reid's most affecting novels. It earned a #1 New York Times bestseller debut, the 2022 Goodreads Choice Award for best historical fiction, and year-end best-of recognition from Time, NPR, Glamour, PopSugar, and The Week — an unusually broad sweep for a single title. Emily Henry described it as 'the kind of sharp, smart, potent book you have to set aside every few pages just to catch your breath,' and Elle highlighted its momentum and emotional intensity as defining strengths. The key caveat: readers seeking deep 1990s period immersion or a warmer, immediately sympathetic lead may find the book less immediately engaging.
- Similar books
- Readers drawn to Carrie Soto Is Back will find natural next reads among the titles curated below. Taylor Jenkins Reid's own The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo shares the same propulsive plotting, an iconic and morally complex female protagonist, and the same interconnected fictional universe. Maybe in Another Life, also by Reid, offers the same intimate character study and emotional intensity in a more contemporary setting. For readers drawn to the themes of female ambition and perseverance in a specific historical era, The Lion Women of Tehran by Marjan Kamali provides a similarly emotionally rich portrait. Outside the catalogue, We Ride Upon Sticks by Quan Barry and Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus are frequently recommended alongside this novel for their sharp, driven female leads navigating worlds that underestimate them.
- Who should read this?
- Carrie Soto Is Back is best suited to fans of women's fiction and literary historical fiction who enjoy propulsive, emotionally driven storytelling centered on a complex female protagonist. Existing Taylor Jenkins Reid readers will recognize the same architecture of intimate character study and sharp plotting she applied in The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo and Malibu Rising, now transposed to the world of professional sport. Readers with an interest in the real-world parallel to Serena Williams's retirement will find an added layer of resonance. Those seeking deep 1990s period reconstruction or a warm, immediately likeable lead are less likely to find what they're looking for here.
- About Taylor Jenkins Reid
- Taylor Jenkins Reid is an American author best known for her novels The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, Daisy Jones & the Six, One True Loves, Malibu Rising, Carrie Soto Is Back, and Atmosphere.
- What are the main themes?
- At its core, Carrie Soto Is Back is about ambition, legacy, and the cost of greatness — what a woman sacrifices, and what she risks, in the pursuit of being the best. The novel also explores identity and the body: what it means to be defined by a sport and to return to it when the world has decided your time has passed. The father-daughter relationship between Carrie and Javier threads through all of these themes, giving the competitive stakes a deeply personal emotional dimension. USA Today framed it as 'a perfectly timed ode to Serena Williams,' suggesting the novel also engages with how women athletes are perceived, dismissed, and remembered.
- Is this a good book club pick?
- Carrie Soto Is Back is well-suited to book clubs, offering a rich set of discussion threads: Carrie's deliberately abrasive personality and what it costs her, the emotional father-daughter bond with Javier, the real-world resonance of Serena Williams's retirement, and the novel's central question of what a woman owes her legacy versus herself. Its propulsive pacing — Emily Henry described it as the kind of book you 'have to set aside every few pages just to catch your breath' — makes it a relatively quick and engrossing group read. The question of whether Carrie's win-at-all-costs ethos is a flaw or a feature is likely to generate lively disagreement.
- How does this compare to Reid's other books?
- Carrie Soto Is Back is described by many accounts as Reid's most emotionally exposed novel, applying the same architecture she used in The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo and Malibu Rising — propulsive plotting combined with an intimate portrait of an iconic woman — to the world of professional sport rather than Hollywood or the music industry. Where Evelyn Hugo and Daisy Jones & the Six are set in the entertainment world, Carrie Soto Is Back draws its emotional charge from competitive tennis and the real-world parallel to Serena Williams. Readers who found Reid's earlier work compelling for its combination of momentum and character depth will find the same qualities here, with the father-daughter relationship between Carrie and Javier offering a particularly distinctive emotional throughline.
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What the Novel Is About
The Inspiration Behind It — and Why the Timing Mattered
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What the Story Does Well
Who It's For — and One Genuine Caveat
Sources & Further Reading
The key facts and claims in this review are grounded in the retrieved, verified sources listed below.
- Cited in this review
- 1
- Further reading
- 2
Taylor Jenkins Reid, Wikipedia
- 3
en.wikipedia.org
- 4
taylorjenkinsreid.com
- 5
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coffeebooksandcake.com
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readingwithdelaney.com
- 8
longfellowbooks.com
- 9
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thefilthyfolio.com
- 11
parnassusbooks.net
- 12
Age & Reading Level
Recommended age
Adult
Heat level
Mild · rated 2/5 spice (behind closed doors) by readers
Tropes
From how readers and romance sites describe it, not our own reading.
who it suits
Skip if you want deep 1990s period immersion or a warm, immediately likeable protagonist
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