Carrie Soto is Back by Taylor Jenkins Reid

Better late than never! Sorry this is so late but between 60 hour work weeks and sick kids, we had a hard time getting this one out this week!

We read Carrie Soto is Back by Taylor Jenkins Reid for book club! It is her brand new book and we were disappointed. You heard us.

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Carrie

Shanna: [00:00:00] hello everyone and welcome to the Best Book Club podcast. I'm Shanna,

Jen: And I'm Jen

Shanna: and also welcome to Book Club. Today we will be discussing Carrie Soto is back by Taylor Jenkins Reed. This is her newest book. It came out on August 30th of this year, which is 2022. Carrie Soto is one of the characters in her last book, Malibu Rising, which we actually just book clubbed in August. So go back and listen to that episode if you haven't already.

Jen: Taylor. Jenkins Reed is the best selling author of Malibu Rising Daisy Jones in the six And the seven husbands of Evelyn Hugo. She also has many other novels in her backlog, such as one True Loves and maybe in another life. Her older stuff is mostly romance. While her newer work is historical fiction, she grew up in Acton, Massachusetts, but now lives in Los Angeles with her husband and daughter, She didn't start [00:01:00] writing until she was an adult she actually started out going to film school and she wanted to be a casting director. And then she did that for a few years and she felt like it just wasn't really quite enough. So she was kind of playing around with writing with her friends and then one day thought maybe this is what I wanna do. And then she wrote a book and she was like, Oh yeah, this is it. This is what I wanna do.

Shanna: Nice. She, she's pretty good at it, so, uh that was a good choice on her part.

Jen: Yeah. Good choice. Who wants to be a casting director.

Shanna: I don't know. It's easier to just write all of the people exactly how you want them.

Jen: Rather than try to find someone to fit the role.

Shanna: Jenna, are you ready for a synopsis?

Jen: Oh, I'm ready.

Shanna: Carrie Soto is fierce and her determination to win at any cost has not made her popular. But by the time she retires from tennis, she is the best player the world has ever seen. She has shattered every record and claimed 20 grand [00:02:00] slam titles. And if you ask Carrie, she's entitled to every one. She sacrificed nearly everything to become the best with her father. As her coach, but six years after her retirement. Carrie finds herself sitting in the stands of the 1994 US Open, watching her record be taken from her by a brutal, stunning player named Nikki Chan. At 37 years old, Carrie makes the monumental decision to come out of retirement and be coached by her father for one last year in an attempt to claim her record even if the sports media says that they have never liked the battle acts. Even if her body doesn't move as fast as it did, and even if it means swallowing her pride to train with a man, she once almost opened her heart to bow Huntly her. He has something to prove before he gives up the game forever. In spite of it all. Carrie Soto his back for one Epic final season. So Jen, how do you feel? , what are your general thoughts and your rating of this book?

Jen: Oh [00:03:00] my God, you guys, I hated this book.

Shanna: I had a feeling you were going to hate

Jen: I hated every second of this book.

Shanna: Wow.

Jen: The only thing that got me through it, other than the fact that I knew I was gonna have to talk about it on this podcast was through the whole book. I had just pictured Carrie and Bo as Dana and Harrison from the L word. So

Shanna: That means actually

nothing to me. But

yes, continue.

Jen: Yeah. It might mean something to someone else. So basically I just saw them as a closeted gay and lesbian beard couple

So, and that made it slightly more enjoyable. But overall, I'm giving it two stars, but I really wanna give it one star. But I gave the Queen's gambit, one star, and I have to give this book more than the Queen's Gambit , [00:04:00] although it's close.

Shanna: yes, it has the exact same problem that the Queens gambit had for me. I am gonna give it like two, two and a half stars. I don't know cuz. Even her character work in this way was so much weaker. Um, I liked the dad,

Jen: Yep.

Shanna: but I only liked the dad. I kind of liked the agent.

Jen: Kind of. But she didn't matter enough. We didn't know enough about her.

Shanna: no. Um, and I mean, I guess there was character growth, but not enough, and not quickly enough for me because she just was very irritating.

Jen: It was not enough.

Shanna: No,

um,

Jen: not find her to be that different from the beginning to the

end.

Shanna: very, very little growth

Jen: It was like the last page. And even then it was like she's a monster. The entire book. And then the last page is like, and now she's just slightly better than a

Shanna: Right. So she was [00:05:00] very like, You can be just a rude, bitchy person.

Jen: Oh yeah. I do it all the time.

Shanna: like half of who I am.

Jen: But people still love me and I still contribute more than that to the world.

Shanna: Yes. Yes oh yeah. No, it was very much, what did I call it? The queen's tennis, cuz I

Jen: Yeah.

Shanna: funnier. yeah, it was just too much imaginary tennis and too much of like play by plays, which, and I like tennis, but I, like I said, when I read the Kuen gaba, I like chess too, but like I don't wanna read three pages worth of a tennis match.

Just like I didn't wanna read three pages worth of a chess game.

Jen: over and over and over again. It's like three pages of 50 tennis matches.

Shanna: Yes.

Jen: And I thought it was interesting at first, cuz I don't know anything about tennis and I'm not a tennis fan at all, so I didn't know anything. So [00:06:00] it's like, okay. It's kind of interesting to learn about like the point system and the different courts and the strategy that goes behind it.

Cool. I didn't need to hear it like 15

times.

Shanna: Yeah, it was incredibly repetitive. Um, yeah, not her best work, that is for sure, which is too bad. But I mean, Taylor, Jenkins, Reed has given me one stinker at a four, so I will still trust her next book, but, uh, come on, let's pick it up.

Jen: I I probably won't read it immediately. The next one that comes out, you know, this has turned me off just a little bit. Yeah, I will read it, but, uh, I won't be as excited cause I was excited about this. I thought, man, she's gonna make me love tennis

Shanna: Yeah.

Jen: cuz she makes me love everything. And I didn't love anything in this book.

Shanna: No, I thought it was okay. I, Yeah, I'd probably go like two and a half. It'd be an [00:07:00] incredibly generous three,

Jen: and this is different from all the other books that are five stars.

Shanna: yes.

Jen: Four or five stars. Right. It, yeah, it was incredibly disappointing. Carrie Soto is a terrible character. She is just rude flat and all she cares about is tennis and that's all the book is,

Shanna: Yeah.

Jen: else.

Shanna: Yeah. Even the relationship, I mean you know what? Let's talk about that later when we

get into spoilers. Um, but yeah, so that's, that's that. So I bet everybody's excited to hear the rest of this

Jen: Uh, somehow, I've just been having really bad luck with my books lately cuz whew.

Shanna: know.

Jen: I feel like this is the kind of book that made me feel like, do I like reading? I don't know. Cause I just never wanted to read again after reading it, it's like, is this what books are

Shanna: Yeah. I mean, I didn't speed it up. I didn't speed it up to three times. Like some people I.

Jen: By the end of the book I was like, Get me out of [00:08:00] here. Like the last pages was a tennis match and it was no different than the other 50 tennis matches in the whole book. And I was like, I can't listen to this. And yeah, three, three times speed. I couldn't.

Shanna: I think that this was slightly better than the Queen. Okay. No, the Queens camp had, it was significantly worse. I'd call these like they're in the same category for me because of just the, too much on the one thing, but at least with the tennis matches, I could visualize them in the way that I couldn't with matches

Jen: Yes, this is true, but I didn't wanna visualize them, so,

Shanna: No.

Jen: Okay. I guess if you like sports books, probably you might like this because I don't like sports. I don't like sports books. I don't like sports movies. I don't like it.

Shanna: That's not gonna

Yeah thats not gonna help

Jen: if you liked it. Yeah, maybe if you [00:09:00] like those things, this would be good. Cause I think even though I didn't like the tennis, I felt like from someone who doesn't know anything about tennis, That maybe it was written good, but I can't really tell. I don't know.

Shanna: I think also the fact that these aren't real players, at least I'm assuming that she didn't look up players from the eighties and find out their play styles.

Jen: I did, read that there was some real players mentioned, but I don't think like any of the actual characters

Shanna: Okay. Cause

I mean, it read a lot like a sports book, but I feel like if I'm gonna spend my time reading that much about an athlete, I would like them to be real.

Jen: yes. Right. Yeah. The biography. That would be better, although, yeah, still probably a no, but

Shanna: mm-hmm.

Jen: yeah.

Shanna: Anyways, guys, uh, we're gonna get into some spoilers from this point on. [00:10:00] So, uh, yeah, you've been warned.

Jen: All right, so let's just start off with our first discussion question. Out of all of the side characters she could have chosen to dedicate an entire book to, why do you think that Tjr chose Carrie Soto? What did you think of her as a character?

Shanna: Um, so the only thing I could imagine as to why she would choose Carrie Soto is she must have, while she was writing Malibu Rising, had a vision of that character and even the character in Malibu rising of Carrie Soto is different than the car Soto we got in this book in Malibu Rising. She comes and she starts freaking out at this party. The Carrie Soto that we know would not do that.

Jen: No, she would not give a crap.

Shanna: No. Um, if anything she'd be like, Oh, I always knew that he would leave,

Jen: Yeah.

Shanna: so, Yeah.

Jen: the tennis?

Shanna: Yeah. She would be way too busy playing tennis. [00:11:00] But yeah, so all I could think is that she must have just felt some weird pull and just like when she wrote the character already had an idea of her backstory, because I can't, Yeah. It's gotta be it.

Jen: Cuz I'm thinking of some of the other side characters and Somehow I can't really, well there's just none that really stand out to me. Side characters. Like, I feel like most of her books, all the characters are like, they're really fully formed characters. And Carrie Soto and Mallory Rising, we did get some scenes with her, but not enough to really know anything about her and. I think maybe she just really needed to push a book out in a year and it was the easy route. Maybe , I don't know. Cause it, it wasn't an interesting story she wasn't an interesting character and yeah, it's just such a different vibe from all her other books,

so,

Shanna: Um, [00:12:00] I've decided to add my own discussion question. We're gonna call this question one and a half. Who from this book do you think she would pick to write her next book about?

Jen: Oh

Shanna: to be what she's doing.

Jen: maybe. Um,

Shanna: I want the agent, I want the agent in her divorce and her like going off and, Or maybe the assistant cuz she seems really sweet.

Jen: yeah. yeah. I'd say the agent, what's her name, gwen, I think.

Shanna: Gwen, yeah.

Jen: But yeah. We could do like a pre before the dad's dead, but that's just more tennis cuz he was a tennis player

Shanna: He was obsessed with tennis.

Jen: and Everyone else in this book is a tennis player. So I don't want any of that. So yeah, go agent

Shanna: It's gotta be the agent.

Jen: or I would prefer throw this book out, all new characters in the next book.

Shanna: All new characters. Yes, actually that would also be good. Okay. Anyways, um, okay, so [00:13:00] in the beginning we go to her childhood. Her father was a pro tennis player and her mother taught dancing, and then her mother dies suddenly when she's pretty young. And that was sad. Her father always wanted her to play tennis. And after her mother died, her life was completely engulfed in it and she became the best. She'd be all the kids in town, Kids that were older than her, kids that were richer than her. So What did you think of her dad's tennis coaching? Did your opinion of him change over the course of the novel?

Jen: At first I thought, Man, cool it, this is a kid

Shanna: Hmm.

Jen: Um, but I really liked the dad and I thought he had a lot of really good advice. And I think at first he was just really grieving his wife's death and just kind of threw himself into tennis and pulled Carrie into it with him and that was how he kind of got through it. And then when he came outta [00:14:00] that, yeah, really good advice, really good dad, really supportive, and he just kind of got better and better. I really liked him.

Shanna: Yes, I agree. He was the bright spot in this book, but man, I know people grieve differently, but that was borderline abusive

Jen: Yeah, it started out really bad.

Shanna: and she was already playing tennis and Okay. Obviously, I thought. This was gonna be great because he kept using Achilles references, which always speaks to me. It's also probably why I'm giving it an extra half star , just because he said Achilles a bunch of times. But yeah, it was a lot. And then with the picture of her mom and taking it, but never, never, addressing any of this grief with his daughter or doing anything other than forcing her to play professional tennis. Um, even though it wasn't forcing her, but he, I mean, he [00:15:00] brainwashed her into believing that this is what she was meant to do with her life. Like none of this was, I think, her choice as a child. So I did not love that at all. Yeah, I see a lot of parents like that being in recreation. It's, Ooh man, they're not pleasant.

Jen: No. And he just kind of erased her mom from everything. Just took every picture of her out of the house kind of thing, and they just kind of never talked about her again. Yeah. Just took it all away and then, Yeah, took the last picture of her out from under her pillow, and then when she's just like screaming for it it was really, really upsetting. And he's just like, You have to look at the future, not the past, or whatever. And I'm like, Um, that's her mom. Like what?

Shanna: Maybe she should let her deal with the past

Jen: Yeah.

Shanna: she can grow as a [00:16:00] person at all.

Jen: Mm-hmm.

Shanna: Yeah, I was not thrilled with that, man.

Jen: No,

Shanna: No, that kid needed some damn therapy and fast.

Jen: And doesn't excuse all of that, but he does get better.

Shanna: He does get better. I don't think he was a bad person. I think that he was grieving and he did it wrong,

Jen: yep. I did like the Achilles references. He kept calling her, Achilles and telling her that she was the greatest Warrior Tennis has ever seen. but, By the time she's 17, she's won junior Wimbledon and has broken into the top 10 players in the world. She becomes obsessed with beating a player named Stepan Nova, who after injuring herself, asks for a delay in the game, but Carrie refuses and then uses the injury to her advantage, and she beats her.

After that, the media starts calling her at the battle acts and coldhearted Carrie and eventually the bitch. Uh, discussion Question number three. Carrie was given many [00:17:00] nicknames over her career, such as the battle acts and the bitch. Do you think that she lived up to those names or was she misunderstood?

Shanna: No, they were pretty accurate.

Jen: Yep.

Shanna: We got to listen to a bunch of her, um, like post game interviews and she, didn't she say she was gonna like, rip people's hearts out and eat them

Jen: something

that.

Yeah. Or the, the interviewers, Like what advice would you give to people starting out in tennis or that just lost a game or something and she's like, get better at tennis. Like what , and it wasn't like she was acting this way and then we were getting this inner monologue where she's just like I'm actually just misunderstood and just can't express myself outwardly. No, on the inside she was same.

Shanna: I guess is good that that's what she was like on the outside too,

Jen: Yeah,

Shanna: she's not lying to anyone.

Jen: no, she is putting a note there and [00:18:00] like, I have no problem. With people saying how it is or, you know, you don't have to be super happy all the time, but she was just one tone.

Shanna: Yes, she did not have the depth that I expected forever. Taylor, Jenkins Reed novel?

Jen: No, she writes unlikable characters like Evelyn Hugo was not a good person, but you loved her because she had, you know, different motivations and she had an inside consciousness, ,and I don't know if she had reasons for doing the things that she was doing, and I just didn't get that from this book at all.

Shanna: No. Usually her characters feel real and Carrie didn't feel real. And even if her persona had been a performance, like where she knew she's the battle act, she's the bitch and then she put that on for the [00:19:00] cameras would be one thing. But you know, that's not how it was. So I just had a hard time like sympathizing with her at all. But I mean, maybe I wasn't supposed to, but it didn't really give me anything to feel

Jen: Yeah. Now I felt absolutely nothing except for boredom and annoyance. ,

Shanna: Like I wasn't mad, I wasn't happy. I wasn't rooting for her. I wasn't rooting against her. I, it's nice to at least feel something one way or the other. I love a character that I can hate, but I didn't even hate her because it was just what she was so when she is number two in the world, she has no friends, no boyfriends, the least endorsements of any other professional player. She says that she needs to be number one before Step Nova retires. And her father admits that maybe her drive has exceeded his own and that maybe he told her too many times that she could do anything and that she could be the [00:20:00] best. So you watch Bluey with your children, right?

Have you, I'm sorry, Everybody who doesn't have small children? Um, there's an episode where Muffin, who's this one kid, uh, she gets told by her dad that you're the most special kid in the entire world. And then she takes that to mean that she can do anything to anyone any of the time because she's the most special in the whole world and she just takes it way, way over the top.

That's just what I thought of when he was telling her

Jen: Well, I haven't gone to watch all of season three yet, but can see it and yeah, you, you gotta be careful what you say to your kids, but I think most of the time they're like, Yeah, whatever. But Carrie, she took it to heart. She believed it to the extreme.

Shanna: he should have told her sooner because when Muffin's dad sees what a little monster she's being, he pulls her aside and he says, Honey, remember what I told you? You were the most special kid in the world. She's like, Yeah. It's like, You're not [00:21:00] She's like, Oh, okay.

Jen: Yeah.

Shanna: But anyways, , he thinks that she is as good as she can be, so she fires him as her coach, rude and kicks him out of her hotel room. Rude. That's your dad and she hires a new coach. Ugh. She trains loses weight, gains muscle gets stronger, leaner, and she starts to beat step in Nova every time. How was that? How are you like the second best in the world and still had? I don't know. I feel like her dad, the professional tennis player coach, didn't notice that she had weight to lose, to gain and like,

Jen: I did think that she could probably have trained a bit harder to begin with. Like she already trains like super hard. But I mean, if you wanna be number one, but one thing you have to consider is the dad trying to make sure that her career was long. And not just short and super hardcore, so you can kill your body and [00:22:00] have to retire really early, or you can take care of your body and play longer. So his goal was that she played longer. This new coach is like notorious for just destroying his client's bodies.

Shanna: That's true. She blow at her knee.

Jen: Yeah,

Shanna: Number four, What did you think about the tennis matches? Did it make you wanna pick up a racket or a remote?

Jen: no

Shanna: I 100000% always wanna play tennis.

Jen: I 100000% never wanna play tennis. And I almost, I almost wanted to maybe put on a match just to like see it. Cuz I, I mean, you know, I've seen it on the tv, but I've never really looked at the TV while it's on. So I was like, okay. Yeah. Like, I mean, even if I look, do I even know what's happening? No. But maybe I would know since I've listened to a step by step guide on how to play tennis. But

Shanna: I mean, I could put on the chess match and I would feel the same.

Jen: [00:23:00] yeah, it's true. But by the end of this book, I was like, no, never. I never ever will ever watch tennis or play tennis.

Shanna: Oh, it's so fun. It's more fun if you don't play by any rules and you just run like an idiot.

Jen: But I think it's, my personality is I can only do things if I'm good at them.

Shanna: Mm.

Jen: I am not good at tennis

Shanna: I okay. You have to run a lot. I hate running so much. you have to be in the sun. You know what I hate? The sun. Um, I am not good at tennis and I think, well, just because me and my husband are the only two who play tennis together and we just make each other laugh so hard the whole time cuz we both suck. So maybe that's why I've got such a soft spot for

Jen: Yes, probably.

Shanna: Yeah.

Jen: Yeah. I'm not silly enough for joke tennis, I'm only interested in serious sports.

Okay. [00:24:00]

Shanna: Okay. Carrie,

Jen: Yeah. Yeah. This is why I can't play cuz. It's too close to home. I'm too close to Carrie Soto.

Shanna: Do call you the the of the podcasting role, don't they?

Jen: uh, bitch of the coffee world for sure. and there were some times where I thought, Yeah, Carrie, that's what I would say. So she might just be kind of, uh, embodying some of the traits of my own self that I don't like,

Shanna: So when I see you walking down the street holding this book and entering a therapist's office, I'll know what's up,

Jen: Yeah. possible. Uh, okay. So she doesn't talk to her father for almost a year. Okay. Firing. Your dad

is just rude.

Shanna: especially like that.

Jen: Yeah, just cuz he doesn't. You know, think that you can be like the president. Come on bit extreme. But then she calls him at Christmas and they're okay. He is Obviously, [00:25:00] he's her dad, so he just forgives her. Doesn't even have to forgive her. He's just there waiting for her and he says he's proud of her. Uh, eventually he tells her that she needs to find a nice guy and forget all those jerks she's been seeing. He tells her that she should go with Brandon Randall, who is the nice guy of tennis, but there's one problem. He is married to Nina reva.

Shanna: Yeah. And I mean, come on dude. You follow these people, you know he's married.

Jen: Yeah, right. Why are you telling her to go out with him? But it's funny. He's like, Oh, Mick Reva's kid. I hate that guy,

Shanna: Yeah. It felt almost shoehorned in though, honest. Yeah. Carrie already knows that Brandon isn't as nice as he sees because she's already slept with him and he fed her some crap about his Nina's marriage being on the rocks because she doesn't understand him. Oh, poor misunderstood.

Jen: Boohoo. And actually, you know what? We read Malibu rising. Nina was wonderful so

Shanna: Nina was wonderful

Jen: Brandon was a [00:26:00] jerk.

Shanna: and smoking hot. Very, very good mom, sister.

Jen: Um, Carrie thought that no one would ever want her. So when Brandon kept calling her, she thought, This is it, and then she was number one, and then she thought she was getting everything she wanted. Carrie and Brandon got back together after the events in Malibu Rising, and then he left her for another woman a few months later. I really thought that we were gonna get. A unique perspective of this part of Malibu rising that this was gonna be a thing

Shanna: Mm-hmm.

Jen: it wasn't.

Shanna: No. It was like, don't forget this is where this character's from.

Jen: I think it was a very missed opportunity.

Shanna: And it was so much

more subtle in her other books, I feel like.

Jen: Yeah. I guess if you didn't read Malibu Rising, this wouldn't be anything. But, I don't know. It just was out of place and it didn't make sense. And,

Shanna: and we never [00:27:00] hear from him again.

Jen: Why, What's the point of this?

Shanna: Mm-hmm.

Jen: She didn't

Shanna: to mention it

Jen: didn't learn anything from. We didn't get any insight into her character. Nope. But that's no different from any other part of this book. No insight, no lessons.

Shanna: From what I've heard though, from people that we know, like the little bit that I've heard of them reading it, we may be outliers.

Jen: Honestly, everyone in the world loves this book for some reason.

Shanna: It's the same with the Queen Gambit.

Jen: Yeah. I've read a few reviews and people are saying, I think this is her best book yet. And I'm like, Are you on crack? What do you mean? Were you paid to say this? I don't understand.

Shanna: No. Her best book is Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo,

Jen: Yeah.

Shanna: I think.

Jen: This is the worst one.

Shanna: then her romance.

Jen: Yeah.

The character development in her romance, the one that I read, uh, I think it was one True [00:28:00] Loves was better and the story was more interesting. It was like a little bit over the top, but it was, I thought it was better than this. This is not just like my least favorite of her books. It's my least favorite of like almost any book

Shanna: Really? Oh my

Jen: Yeah. It's like Queen Scam it, Carrie Soto. I just, just, I hated it. I hated it.

Shanna: Oh wow. I mean, I would not read it again and I

Jen: No,

Shanna: recommend it,

but it doesn't go on like my hate list.

Jen: Oh well, it's fine. It's fine. I'm severely overworked right now and very, very busy, so I also

just don't have patience

Shanna: yeah Oh yeah. No,

Jen: so that could be a part of it, but I still believe that I didn't like this book. No matter, even if I was relaxing on a beach, I'd still be mad about it. So it's okay.

Shanna: Well, when Carrie is [00:29:00] 31, her body starts to break down, and because she cannot lose, she feels that she is forced to retire. Doesn't help that her coach won't work with her anymore if she's not at her best. Then five years later, Nikki Chan is about to break her record, so she decides to come out of retirement. She gets a new agent and she isn't, she gets her same agent.

Jen: I thought it was a

Shanna: I

Jen: agent.

Shanna: thought.

think

Jen: No,

Shanna: why did she

love her so much?

Jen: I don't know.

Shanna: Okay, well, we, we'll just have to agree to disagree on this one. her agent was lovely. Uh, she starts training again with her father and plans on getting right back into it, Okay. 31 Spring chicken, you got.

Jen: Uh, you know, I'm all for doing what you love doing and as she wanted to play tennis because she loved playing tennis. Cool. But to just see someone else being good at tennis and being so jealous and [00:30:00] deciding to go back just to take it from them. I just can't.

Shanna: There was no long game planning in that,

Jen: No.

Shanna: like

somebody will win again,

they're, they're younger than you,

Jen: And it's just felt like, like my two year old, anytime she sees anybody touching anything, No, that's my rug. No, that's my ceiling. like

Shanna: Kathy Snack

Jen: just stop. And I was just like, you are a grown woman. Be a better team player. My God.

Shanna: I mean, at least she was actually really good, I guess,

Jen: to, you know, make a good comeback in the end, but she had to work really hard.

Shanna: what else does she have going on though?

Jen: What was she doing for that five years? She was just doing guest spots on things and commercials and stuff. It's hard when you just dedicate your life to something that lasts for a very short period of time.

Shanna: Yeah, I [00:31:00] mean, athletes, that is a short career and it relies on so much hoping that nothing really bad happens to you.

Jen: Yeah. So she's coming back. She needs to find someone to hit with, but no one wants anything to do with her because she's been so terrible all along . So, but her agent finds one guy who is willing to play against her, but it's Bo Huntley, who she slept with years ago. And then according to her, he ghosted her. So that's awkward. He calls her up while she is watching er, and he is staying somewhere with no tv. So he wants her to tell him everything that happens in the episode because the rerun won't come out for a long time. And this was one of the, two cute parts of the book,

Shanna: yes, this was very cute and it really put it in its moment in time. I think more than just saying the dates throughout the whole thing did, [00:32:00] because tennis then is tennis now as far as I'm concerned, but missing an episode and not being able to see it until the summer. That's what it was really like.

Jen: Yeah. That was terrible. so when this happened, I was like, Okay, maybe, this is it. We're gonna start seeing some, you know, a little cracks in her tough exterior. We're gonna go a little bit deeper and see what's actually happening inside Carrie. And , she kind of breaks character for a second in these kinds of scenes, but we get nothing from it, Nothing actually happens. And then the next scene is tennis. All right, so close

Shanna: So she and Bo start working together. They become friends. She trains her butt off and at first match she crushes her opponent. Bo does too? He asked Carrie to let him come up to her room she [00:33:00] turns him down.

Jen: She's like, how dare he take my focus away from the game? But

Shanna: There are other

Jen: he he likes you. He is just trying to spend time with you

Shanna: just trying to play another

Jen: Yeah,

Shanna: Also fun.

come on.

Jen: Um, so Nikki Chan hurts herself and is outta the tournament, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Carrie is so happy because now she will win for sure, but then she loses in the 16th round and throws a complete tantrum about it. she got in a fight with Bo before the match and he still shows up to watch and apologize cuz he is a decent person. She's not.

Shanna: even though he had a reputation for being a bad boy.

Jen: Yeah. I didn't, see him as a bad boy character at all.

Shanna: Apparently he would like drink and everyone was like, don't go around Bo Huntley. And then everybody wanted to go around him because he was so bad.

Jen: [00:34:00] Then he said, I got arrested ones for being drunk, and it was just one time. That's all I needed to turn it around , Okay. I guess that's your deep character development

Shanna: yeah.

No, not a lot of depth in any of these people. Um, they win matches and we hear the entire matches. Don't worry. And, uh, then Bo asks her to go to Paris with him to train for the French open Here. Bo gets injured and can't finish the tournament. Carrie loses a game and is outta the tournament. And in the end, Nikki Chan wins it and takes her record

yeah.

Jen: I like, as I'm writing like what happened in this book, I was like, nothing. just like, who wins each match?

Shanna: Yeah.

Jen: it? I just it, I just did not care at all.

Shanna: descriptions of strategy for next matches against characters that we won't see again, or maybe we will in another match and don't [00:35:00] worry, we will also get

Jen: yeah, yeah.

Shanna: exact same rundown of their personalities in tennis.

Jen: Carrie reads a biography of Daisy Jones in the six

here and then even this, like, it felt,

Shanna: felt like a little bit

Jen: Yeah, it was felt force. It didn't feel natural cuz all , the other times everything was just woven in so. Seamlessly that it just felt, Yeah, natural. And here it was just like, Oh, gotta write in that she read this book or gotta write in something from Daisy Jones. And I just didn't think that she would read a biography of Jones in the six. She would read a biography of tennis.

Shanna: Yeah. And yeah, whenever these were inserted, it kind of felt like you're supposed to look around and people are just like, Hey,

ooh. Like,

But that's not how it's supposed to feel.

Jen: Yeah. Just missed it here. Um, she also gets [00:36:00] into a fight with her dad after she loses a game. Now, she wants him to tell her that she's the worst tennis player, but he remembers the last time that he doubted her for even a second. And she totally cut him out of her life for a year.

So he gets pretty annoyed. And I was also pretty annoyed because I thought you are being the biggest baby. You are a grown woman,

Shanna: like almost old

Jen: and you're throwing a tantrum to your dad and just, I can't even,,

Shanna: Yeah. It was hard to remember that she's, Yeah. Almost 40, not 23.

Jen: felt, yeah, 23. Um, and here she blames him for this drive. She has to win. Um, because he told her it was what she was meant to do. And I do agree cuz he acted so strongly about her playing tennis, you know, in those really formative years. But, by the [00:37:00] time you're 40, you have the opportunity to get therapy on your own.

Shanna: She had therapy money.

Jen: Yeah, she could have done something about that, and her dad had been trying to make up for that and yeah, she, she needed to take some responsibility for her actions at this point.

Shanna: One time Carrie joked that Bo should learn Spanish so that he could understand what she and her dad are saying to each other. There was so much Spanish in this book, which I mean, I listened to your episode without me on, uh, the daughter of Dr. Morrow. And in that one I agree that the Spanish kind of bothered me because it felt not at a place, because obviously there was Spanish in the book, but just like the Spanish that she used as an English speaker, I was like, I don't know. Like it's all at a context for me. I don't know what

Jen: Mm-hmm.

Shanna: Whereas with this one, I didn't know what the heck they were saying for those long, long sentences, but I could like tell.

Jen: You could, get the gist of it.

Shanna: Mm-hmm.

Jen: I have [00:38:00] seen a ton of criticism for this. Some people who are native Spanish speakers say that the Spanish in this book was not good. .

Shanna: Oh, well, she should have had that with a Spanish speaker. That, that's just a mistake.

Jen: Yeah. But she said she did. So I don't know how that would happen. Um, also there's criticism that she wrote, a Latina character being a white woman, like I don't know what the right answer is I believe that the obvious solution is that people of color need to get the same deals as white people. They need to have their stories told. is the obvious solution, why this world is so sick that it can't make that happen. I don't know, but. As a white person, I feel like I can't [00:39:00] write stories about white people because then I'm wrong for not including any other races in my writing. But then if I write any other races, then I'm taking away the voice of marginalized characters.

Shanna: Yes, it's all trouble all the time. And like same with sexuality. You for some reason have to explicitly give your entire sexual background or like orientation

Jen: mm-hmm.

Shanna: and it's just. don't know. I just. wanna write a, write a story,

Jen: I just wanna know what the right thing to do is.

Shanna: I just wish I

had any idea,

don't know, and said I'm just scared and stuttering at all times and just don't say anything.

Jen: Yeah. Someone said with this book, Carrie Soto was written as being mixed race. Um, her dad was from Argentina. Um, mom was American, and while [00:40:00] they spoke Spanish to each other, that was kind of the only time that that came into her character at all. And there was one scene where she was talking to her agent who is black, and her agent was talking about how race Influences the way people react to her, I forget what the scene was, but Carrie never says, Oh, yeah, I feel that way too as a Latina woman

Shanna: Also, the character on the kind of looks very white,

Jen: Yeah.

Shanna: which I mean, I guess it's all in like

this weird gold tone, so.

Jen: It's hard to say, but yeah, it's just people are saying it's just another Whitewashed

Hispanic character and I can't say that that's not true.

Shanna: there wasn't like a whole lot of, There wasn't anything other than tennis Like we didn't see any of her heritage or her life or anything. We literally only saw her play tennis any of the time.

Jen: Yeah. Which I guess is the problem. They're kind of like, [00:41:00] well, why did you have to make her?

Shanna: Yeah. Make her boring and white if you're not gonna give her anything

Jen: Yeah. . All right. So, don't know. Yeah, this is something I've read quite a few, comments about,

Shanna: I'm sure we said everything perfectly and nobody's gonna have a problem with any of it, so let's move on. The Spanish thing was really cute is my point, was my longest way of saying

Jen: Back to the Spanish thing. .

Shanna: She tells him to learn Spanish so that he can understand what her dad and, uh, like a bunch of people who speak Spanish in the world or saying, And then one day he said something to her in Spanish and he didn't learn it, but he did get a woman in the hotel lobby to write down some phrases for him so he could practice something like, You are perfect even in your imperfections. the real thing this time I can't stop thinking about you. You're insufferable. then she kisses him [00:42:00]

Jen: Yeah. And this was really

Shanna: Yeah. Effort is so appealing.

Jen: yeah, just this tiny little bit of effort is just, it's good.

Shanna: Super hot. .Yeah.

Jen: Yeah. I mean, Carrie doesn't do anything back ever. He pretty much pursues her a hundred percent of the time. And then she goes, Okay, oh, she's just not in any way an attractive person. But whatever. Love is love. He's into it. I guess he likes tennis, so that's probably to him.

Shanna: If that's attraction, then yes. got a lot of that.

Jen: so then Carrie's, Dad collapses. Okay. Apparently he had chemo and I forgot about it.

Shanna: Yes, he did.

Jen: there's like, oh his heart is damage from the chemo. And I thought I blocked out some of this book cuz I do [00:43:00] not remember who having chemo

Shanna: I also forgot about it.

Jen: cannot

Shanna: Yeah,

Jen: pinpoint. anytime in the book where they talked about him having cancer, but

Shanna: yeah. No, they did. Cause I, I completely forgot about it until this line, and I was like, oh yeah, that's right. Okay.

Jen: It was totally brand new to me. But he gets surgery and gets a pacemaker. He wants Carrie to go to London without him. for Wimbledon, I think. And Bo stays behind to take care of him, which was really nice of him. And, uh, in London she hangs out with Nikki Chan. They aren't friends, but kind of. And, she wins

Woo.

Now she's got another record. Most Wimbledon wins of anyone.

Shanna: And she's old.

Jen: Okay, discussion question number five. you think about the relationship between Carrie and Nikki Chan?

Shanna: I loved Nikki Chan. I wanted more Nikki Chan. I would take a nick Chan book. Actually,[00:44:00]

Jen: Okay, this isn't anything do with the character, but her voice in the audio book was really irritating.

Shanna: You don't like Australian

people? Let's just be

Jen: I don't like Australian accents,

Shanna: not Australian people. Sorry. Australian accents,

Jen: I don't know. I found all of her parts to be super annoying and I tried to just not hear the voice, but

Shanna: She was a little yeah. Wait, was she Australian?

Jen: I don't know, cuz I thought she was, But then,

Shanna: Maybe she was English actually, she was like, This is my home.

Jen: I couldn't tell sometimes and then I was like, No, she is British. And then it was like, is she, I don't know. Not sure.

Shanna: No, you're right. I'm, I'm full of crap. I just outed you for hating australians for no reason. I'm hate

Jen: It's rude.

Shanna: know why I'm saying this. It's it's just mean for no reason. you told me you didn't like Liam or you already One

Jen: Yeah. Okay. What I, what I said was that I didn't like books set in Australia, even though I've never read a book set in Australia. So I have no reason to not like [00:45:00] books in, in Australia. I don't know why, that's a thing. I don't know. I think I watched too much Outback Jack when I was a kid.

Shanna: I didn't, so that must be the difference between you and i,

Jen: Oh, must be. But yeah, the relationship, , it was almost interesting, but Carrie was there.

Shanna: Carrie needed a Nicky Chan like way earlier,

Jen: Yeah. If Carrie wasn't in the relationship, it would've been much. But

Shanna: and Nicky chan was the only thing that prompted any growth in her character.

Jen: yeah. Yeah.

Shanna: even Bo, not that much.

Jen: No nothing.

Shanna: Actually. Bo and her dad's relationship prompted growth in Carrie more than any character interacting with Carrie.

Jen: Yes.

Shanna: Um, Everyone is happy. Bo and Carrie are spending lots of romantic time together, but then just as she's getting ready for the US Open, her dad has a heart attack and dies, which I thought that's rude.

Jen: [00:46:00] Yeah. It's pretty rude.

Shanna: I mean, not of her dad, but of the author. Come on. But that was one of those things that during the book, I was like, Is he gonna die or is he not gonna die? Like obviously that's always one of two things that can happen to any character. But

Jen: Yeah.

Shanna: it was gonna be him.

Jen: At least he just dies, like in his chair watching

tv.

Shanna: Yeah. They had a whole moment of like, Oh, I know you guys are together and here's my blessing. And then he died over it.

Jen: then he could go in

Shanna: Yes.

Jen: Yeah.

Shanna: Um, Nikki calls her up and says that if she isn't gonna play that she'll drop out as well. But then Carrie finds a notebook with all her father's thoughts on the games and she goes into the game with his advice playing in her head. I don't know how long was this? Because that's a lot of grief,

Jen: Mm-hmm.

Shanna: to then go and be like, You know what, I'm just gonna go win the US Open

Jen: I think it was like pretty immediately [00:47:00] after.

Shanna: I mean, she couldn't even wash her hair, which is fair. I mean, grief sucks.

Jen: But then you're gonna go and like slay tennis,

Shanna: all she did was drink blueberry smoothies. But to be fair, that's all she ever did. And unsalted

Jen: But this is also how her father dealt with grief when her mom. Was just like throw everything into tennis, into Carrie's game and the show must go on. You know? But I did like, Nikki,, I thought it was really good that she was like, If you're not gonna play, then neither of am I, cuz she didn't wanna win on a technicality. You shouldn't wanna win just because carrie wasn't there. whereas Carrie would be like, Yes, Nikki Chans out, her dad's dead.

Shanna: Right.

Jen: I'm gonna go and slay this game, So I think, yeah, Carrie kind of realized that, Oh, I'm a terrible person.

Shanna: I could be better.

Jen: Yeah.

Shanna: Um, discussion question number six. How [00:48:00] did her father's death affect her tennis game?

Jen: I guess finally she thought, doesn't matter. now. I like tennis now it's just for fun.

Shanna: And like that's one of the last things that her dad. Saying to her was like, Just remember that. It's fun. You know, and then during the game, it's the best match ever that she's ever played. And she just remembers how fun tennis is and too little, too late

Jen: Mm-hmm.

Shanna: Tjr. I just didn't

care at that point.

Jen: No.

Shanna: I needed way more growth throughout the book. Not all in one match.

Jen: Yeah. At the very, very end. I just look at this book and I could see what it could have been.

Shanna: Mm-hmm.

Jen: And that is a book that I'm still excited about and it's just never going, It's just gone.

Shanna: Yeah.

Jen: this whole part of the book could have been condensed. Into two chapters, and then this is where the [00:49:00] story should actually start.

Shanna: Yeah. Carrie Soto could have been a great short story when you took all the tennis matches out.

Jen: Yeah. So, the Game is delayed because of weather, and during that time, Nikki and Carrie have a bit of a heated discussion, blah, blah, blah. Then they go back and finish the game. Nikki wins and Carrie is fine with it because she can finally just play tennis and love

it. Have

fun.

Shanna: She finally learned that other people work hard and also deserve things that they've worked for.

Jen: You don't have to just tear everybody

Shanna: That was a weird thing, to have to learn over an entire book.

Jen: by the time you're 40

Shanna: Yeah. I knew it when I started the book, so I was like, Oh, what a surprising place to get to. It wasn't it? Everyone else was already here. Carrie grow up

Jen: Uh, yeah.

Shanna: but I guess she's a rich. Famous tennis star. So what do I know?

I've never done that.

Jen: Yeah. All right.

Shanna: Oh, and then the Epilog, I did like the Carrie became [00:50:00] Nikki's coach. I thought that was nice. I think that that would've been a better story. They should have put that in the book. Not the epilog,

Jen: Exactly. This is where the book should have started.

Shanna: Yes.

Jen: whole book should have been the prologue,

Shanna: Yeah.

Jen: The epilogue should have been the

book,

Shanna: Yeah. Yes. Uh, the end

Jen: The End

Shanna: discussion, question number seven, What did you think

about the ending

Jen: Um, it was, didn't really care by this point. I

was just glad it was over

Shanna: Yeah, I know it was fine.

Jen: three times speed. The end.

Shanna: I wish her dad didn't die.

Jen: Yeah, he could have just stayed

alive.

Shanna: Yeah.

Jen: Someone doesn't always have to die. The mom already died.

Shanna: She didn't have to go through that. He was just, he was the only character who I felt had any,

fun to them. So having him gone, I was like,

Jen: And imagine she win the match. He's waiting on the sidelines. goes and hugs him and [00:51:00] they have a nice time. Nice moment. That would've been so much nicer than him just being dead. And then he is gone.

Shanna: Yeah. I mean, and then if you believe in heaven and whatever, like I just chose to believe like,

oh, he is probably looking down on her and smiling, but like,

Jen: Yeah.

Shanna: I don't know. I shouldn't have to insert that into the story to make it enjoyable,

Jen: Final thoughts? Um,

Shanna: eh. It's not what I wanted and I was so excited about New Taylor Jenkins

novel.

Jen: know. I thought it was gonna make me feel so many things.

Shanna: I thought I was gonna cry

Jen: thought I

was gonna cry

Yeah.

Shanna: out of love. not

Jen: Yeah.

I super disappointed. I feel grief over the book that I thought this was gonna be

Shanna: Mm-hmm.

Jen: actual sadness because I was really excited. So, But ala I'll

forgive it. [00:52:00] You can't win

'em all.

Shanna: Can't Em all. Yeah.

Oh, well okay, well I hope y'all, uh, enjoyed that. Tell us what you thought of Carrie Soto is back. Tell us that we were wrong or don't because we weren't. I dunno. We might have been.

Jen: we do wanna hear what you thought,

Shanna: you thought,

Jen: but we're pretty sure we're right.

Shanna: Yes, because I mean, Queens gambit

based on

the world we are.

but I do not feel

like I am

wrong.

Jen: I feel in my heart of hearts that the queens gambit is

Shanna: Yeah,

Jen: and that this was the queen gambit of

Shanna: Yeah.

Jen: So, yeah.

Shanna: Um, but guess what, since this is the book club episode, that means we get to announce next month's book for book club, which is, [00:53:00]

I'm not a very good folly artist. Sorry, that was supposed to be a drummer Roll.

Jen: that's

terrible.

Shanna: Thank you

Jen: Um, it is Mary by Nat Cassidy

Shanna: Yes, Mary. It sounds really good, guys. Horror is a genre that doesn't have a bunch of big buzzy books, really, as far as I can tell. So we just looked at what's new and picked what we thought we'd wanna read.

Dun dun. Okay. Here is the synopsis for. The October book Club book, Mary, An Awakening of Terror. Mary is a quiet, middle-aged woman doing her best to blend into the background, unremarkable, invisible, unknown, even to herself. But lately, things have been changing inside Mary, along with the hot flashes and body aches. She can't look in a mirror without passing out, and the voices in her head have [00:54:00] been urging her to do unspeakable things. Fired from her job in New York, she moves back to her hometown, hoping to reconnect with her past and in herself. Instead, visions of terrifying mutilated specs overwhelm her with increasing regularity, she begins auto writing strange thoughts and phrases. Mary discovers that these experiences are echoes of an infamous serial killer. Then the killings begin again. Mary's definitely going to find herself.

Jen: Yeah, it sounds good. I'm excited.

Shanna: I thought it sounded good.

Jen: Um, speaking of book club, you guys may have noticed that we have not been doing our Instagram book club because we were just finding that participation and it was a little bit lower over the last few months. So rather than doing a whole bunch of work that no one wanted to join in on, we thought maybe we'd ask you guys if you have any ideas as to what you would be willing to do for book club. Like, I don't know, like a scheduled something.

Shanna: Yeah. Maybe like an Instagram [00:55:00] live or something like that.

Jen: I kind of thought that the way we had it set up where you could just kind of jump onto Instagram and join in anytime over the course of the week was easier for people's schedules, but maybe scheduled time where we meet up would be better. Or, a. Kind of chat idea or, I mean, I don't know.,

Shanna: We love talking to you guys about books, so let us know what on

earth you think would be fun and what you guys want to do.

Jen: yeah, cause I'm definitely missing the aspect where we talk more to you guys than just to each other. Not that it's

Shanna: excuse me, Jen. You love talking to me. You love it.

Jen: yeah, I wanna, I wanna talk to you guys too, so let us know what you're in for.

Shanna: Yeah, but I mean otherwise,

We will see you next week for what we're reading and other stuff. Bye.

In Her Good Books

Carrie Soto is Back by Taylor Jenkins Reid - September Book Club

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