Carrie Soto Is Back by Taylor Jenkins Reid
Carrie Soto is tenacious and unpopular due to her desire to win at all costs. Yet when she finally decides to give up playing tennis, she is the best ever. She has twenty Grand Slam titles and has broken every record. And Carrie will tell you that she has a right to each one. With her father Javier serving as her coach, she gave almost everything up to become the best. Javier, a former champion himself, has been instructing her since she was two years old.
But six years after she had retired, Carrie found herself watching from the stands at the 1994 US Open as Nicki Chan, a harsh and impressive player, broke her record.
At the age of 37, Carrie makes the momentous choice to come out of retirement and receive one final year of coaching from her father in an effort to recapture her record. Even though “the Battle-Axe” has supposedly never been a favourite of the sports media. even if her body isn’t moving as quickly. Even if it means swallowing her pride to train with Bowe Huntley, a guy with whom she previously came dangerously close to falling in love. Similar to her, he has to succeed before permanently giving up the game.
Despite everything, Carrie Soto is back for one final, dramatic season. Taylor Jenkins Reid recounts her most openly emotional story ever in this gripping and unforgettable book.
Carrie Soto Is Back by Taylor Jenkins Reid
40 used from $3.34
Free shipping
Amazon.com
Tennis is the main sport in CARRIE SOTO, but it’s also a volley for TJR’s thoughts about the human condition. And the Battle Axe of tennis, Carrie Soto, is so colourful, dramatic, and three-dimensional. Carrie is ruthless and single-minded on the court. Her personal life is filled with the kind of love you can only find in tennis, which is a downside to her stubborn temperament.
1994 comes with Carrie being 37 and six years into retirement. She is still single and only trusts her agency Gwen and her father Javier, who raised her, enough to develop a close relationship with her (her mother died when she was very young). Javier was quite the tennis star in his native Argentina before suffering an injury. He then started mentoring his daughter. When she turned two, he began instructing her in the game.
Keeping the rest of humanity at arm’s length, Carrie is tightly wound. Her solitary existence doesn’t allow for much laughter. Until the new It-girl Nicki Chan beats Carrie’s Slam record in ’94, Soto was the only woman in history to have won more Slams than any other player. Soto won Wimbledon ten times. To protect her record and demonstrate that she is still the top tennis player in the world, Carrie decides to enter the match again. The backdrop time gaps are gradually filled up by the book so that the reader can understand what makes Carrie tick. She was a tennis prodigy and a ticking time bomb.
Carrie was completely obsessed with tennis. The reader alternately dares to understand and occasionally wants to trample Reid’s austere nature. Soto’s fanaticism is also what makes her unique, ties her together, and inevitably risks making her blind. She keeps her life private and guards her feelings. Training and competing require interaction with the outside world, but on whose terms?
