I had a weird, unsatisfying, and not particularly restful weekend because of Colorado politics and post-exertional malaise. So, in between work, a short run, a long nap, a bunch of online Swedish death cleaning, and lying on the couch responding to endless text messages, I read Carrie Soto Is Back and The Big Gamble (Kevin Kerney Novels Series Book 7). And when I say “read”, imagine me on the coach, with my Kindle in one hand and my iPhone propped up on my leg so I could read what came in and respond when necessary.
The Big Gamble was good. I’m enjoying cruising through the Kevin Kerney novels after consuming the entire C.J. Box Joe Pickett series (all 25). But Carrie Soto Is Back was spectacular.
I was a serious tennis player from age 10 to 14. While football dominated Texas sports, well, forever, tennis was up there in the mid 1970s alongside soccer (anyone remember Kyle Rote Jr and the Dallas Tornados?) I stopped playing tennis when I discovered computers and girls (in that order) and started running instead. For my 30th birthday, Amy took me to Bollettieri Tennis Academy (RIP Nick Bollettieri), which rekindled a casual interest in tennis for me and a serious interest in tennis for Amy.
Today, Amy is a tennis superfan. Our default TV channel is the Tennis Channel (turn on the TV and it goes to the Tennis Channel). She always talks about Rafa and compares all the new up-and-comers to him.
While I’m also a tennis fan, I’ve grown to enjoy watching the women’s games more than the men’s. Coco Gauff is my current fave, but I almost always root for the underdog. And while I rarely cheer for Sabalenka, she is an amazing player.
Carrie Sota was the best (fictional) female tennis player in the 1980s, winning the most Grand Slams of any player (20). She hurt her knee in 1987 and retired in 1989. The book starts in 1994 with Carrie watching the new top female tennis player, Nicki Chan win the US Open and tie Carrie’s record.
In 1995, Carrie decides to come out of retirement and compete in all the majors. If you are a tennis fan and this sounds familiar, it is a recurring theme in real-life tennis that rarely ends well.
The drama is phenomenal, and the character development of Carrie, Chan, Carrie’s father, her love interest, and a few other minor characters is outstanding. The story moves quickly, and the tennis match sections keep up the drama and pace. Our protagonist has multiple moments of increasing difficulty that aren’t histronic or hard to believe, many of which deal with her changing reality of life as she gets a little older.
When I watched (and then read) Daisy Jones & the Six several years ago, I thought Taylor Jenkins Reid was a gifted storyteller. I don’t know why it took me so long to discover and read Carrie Soto Is Back, but The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo and Malibu Rising are now on my Kindle.