Carrie Soto is Back Review

REVIEW

An e-copy of the book has been provided by the publisher, Penguin Random House International, in exchange for an honest review.

“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.”

I would argue that the better title for this book would have been “Carrie Soto is Dead,” and you’ll know why when you read the book.

It is quite difficult to say how frustrated I was with reading this book. The story follows Carrie Soto, an aggressive tennis player with a gargantuan ego. It isn’t without the capacity of support; however, it does get into your nerves how much her pride eats her up and turns into such a toxic personality.

The beauty of the story lies within its illumination of the effect of environment on who people becomes when they grow up. Javier Soto was a proud father, but what his confidence gave him was a personality he wasn’t expecting.

A fascinating show, it was intriguing to see the father and daughter relationship crumble as Mr. Soto soon realize that his daughter is becoming overly consumed by her complexity with winning. She became more than what he wanted — a winner and a brassy woman.

“You were born to become that person. And that is why you must best yourself every time you get on the court. Not so that you beat the other person but so that I become more myself.”

The journey towards the end of the story is quite predictable. Despite that, I did not lose my footing. My interest in finishing the story was ever so strong. Perhaps part of it was the placement of the tennis tournament — it was such a huge part of the story and an effective way to keep the readers engaged.

I am in love with how the story slowly transforms Carrie — showing a person’s capacity to change and allowing us light on the kindness in ones heart. It is difficult to see something in a bird’s eye view when your first instinctive reaction is to judge someone, but if you give room for breath and allow yourself to get to know people better, you’d see that there is more to someone than what you see.