Review: Carrie Soto is Back (by Taylor Jenkins Reid)

My Rating: 4 stars

The first Taylor Jenkins Reid book I read was last year's Malibu Rising. Overall, it was an entertaining book and I did appreciate what TJR was trying to accomplish with it, but unfortunately, I couldn't stand most of the characters (it wouldn't be a stretch to say I hated most of them), plus "the party" storyline (which I felt was written too OTT for my tastes) nearly derailed the entire story for me.  Not surprisingly, given this experience, I was definitely more than a little wary going into TJR's latest work, Carrie Soto is Back. We were first introduced to Carrie in Malibu Rising and while she was only in a few scenes in that book, her brash behavior and outsized attitude were enough to make her stand out (not necessarily in a good way, in my opinion).  I certainly didn't have the best impression of Carrie after that book, and for the first half of this one, I actually liked her even less (if that's even possible).  To me, Carrie was the epitome of the type of entitled, arrogant, self-absorbed character that never ceases to frustrate me — and yes, there were quite a few scenes where she was downright mean (and that's putting it nicely). To be honest, throughout most of the first half, there were so many moments when I was tempted to just throw in the towel and call it a day (it also didn't help that I'm not into sports at all, so all the tennis lingo and references went completely over my head) — what kept me going though was the writing, which flowed beautifully into a well-crafted, emotional story (with a satisfying ending).

I definitely was able to connect more with this story than TJR's previous one (even though I know absolutely nothing about tennis or the elite world of professional sports). I think the reason for that is because, in this case, there wasn't a huge, revolving door of annoying characters that detracted from the main story.  Instead, we actually get to see Carrie grow and evolve in different areas — from her oftentimes fraught relationship with her father/coach, to her romance with Bowe Huntley, to her business relationship with her agent Gwen, and most importantly, her attitude toward her sport as a whole as well as her fellow competitors.  These are the types of stories I enjoy the most:  where the characters are well-developed, often flawed and far from perfect, even largely unlikable throughout most of the story, but they grow in subtle ways that are most meaningful when we as readers get to journey with them from the beginning of the story to the end.  

This book made me excited to read TJR again, and while I look forward to her next book, I should probably also get cracking on her backlist works as well (almost all of which have been on my TBR for while already).  Hopefully I'll be able to get to at least one of her other books before the next new one comes out!

Received ARC from Ballantine Books via NetGalley.

Review: Malibu Rising (by Taylor Jenkins Reid)

My Rating: 3 stars

I've been wanting to read a Taylor Jenkins Reid book for a while now and actually have several of her previous works on my shelf, it's just that I haven't had time to get to them yet (which I intend to at some point) -- so of course, I was excited when I was able to get my hands on an ARC of Reid's newest novel Malibu Rising (which is scheduled to release on June 1st).  Reading the premise of the book, I originally thought this would be right up my alley, with a story revolving around the evolution of a family over several generations (I love family stories) against the backdrop of a setting (Southern California) and timeframe (1980s era) that I'm more than familiar with having myself grown up in Los Angeles in the 1980s.  Based on these reasons, I thought I would be able to connect with the story at least somewhat – unfortunately, that did not turn out to be the case.

 

Before I go into what didn't work for me though, I do have to say that I actually didn't have much issue with the writing.  In fact, given the unique structure of the story, the descriptive language, the vivid imagery, as well as the use of allusion and foreshadowing woven so seamlessly throughout the narrative, I have no doubt in Reid's abilities as a writer and a gifted storyteller. For me, the problems I had with this book had more to do with it perhaps being not the right book for me, and also going into this with certain expectations and being disappointed by the outcome.

In terms of the story, the first half of this book was actually pretty solid (even though, admittedly, I couldn't stand a few of the characters – but more on that later) and if the trajectory of the rest of the book had continued on in a similar vein, I'm sure this would've been a solid 4+ star read for me.  But instead, the second half of the book — which started with the first hour of the party and covered the entire timeframe though to the end — unraveled to the point that I almost didn't want to bother finishing the book, except that I was already so close to the ending and didn't want to feel like I had wasted my time reading up to that point. Ironically, in the end, even after finishing the entire book, I still felt like I wasted my time because most of the Riva family's story arc (which had been so well developed in the first half and I had been looking forward to in the second half) got lost in the shuffle of the wild and crazy, over-the-top play-by-play of the party (which I honestly felt was wasted plot space and highly unnecessary).  I mean, yes, I knew from the beginning that the party would be an important part of the plot and I was expecting a few pages, perhaps even a few chapters, to be dedicated to the party — what I wasn't expecting was for nearly every aspect of the party to be painstakingly detailed and drawn out over the course of 150+ pages. (Disclaimer:  I didn't actually count the pages, but part 2 started around the 53% mark on my Kindle and with the book clocking in at 384 pages, I figured 150 is a close enough midway page count).  I'm sorry, but there is only so much of "the rich and famous behaving badly" that I am able to stomach (especially when that "behavior" consists of getting drunk, having sex, doing drugs, destroying things, etc., then rinse and repeat on overdrive every 2 pages or so) before I feel like I want to vomit.  Given how the party concluded in the end, I honestly wasn't sure what the point of including all those scenes was.

As for the characters, I honestly didn't like any of them (especially the parents, whose horrible decisions caused so much unnecessary pain and difficulty in their children's lives).  Probably the only character that I felt a little bit of sympathy for was Nina…everyone else was downright annoying, frustrating, and, in the case of Mick Riva, a disgusting piece of trash!   The second half of the book consisted of a ridiculous parade of characters that I found exhausting to read about — after awhile, I just ended up skipping pages because I figured I wasn't missing anything anyway…

Obviously, I didn't enjoy this book much and under normal circumstances, would've probably rated this way lower than I did — but I thought the first part was truly well done and the second part would've worked if not for the overload of irrelevant party scenes that overshadowed the main story line.  Instead of being the powerful, moving story about love, loss, the bonds of family, resilience in the face of sacrifice, etc., that it could've (should've) been, this turned into a frustrating-to-read story about a rich and famous family whining about their messed up lives and their messed up relationships — a family that, by the end of the book, I could no longer bring myself to care about.

Received ARC from Ballantine Books via NetGalley.