A note before I begin: the listing for this audiobook reflects the German-language edition of Taylor Jenkins Reid's Carrie Soto Is Back, narrated by Inka Löwendorf, with German reviews from the German Audible marketplace. I am reviewing the book itself, which I know in its English original, and noting the language context where relevant to the listening experience.
I encountered Carrie Soto for the first time during a flight delay at Charles de Gaulle, of all places, which gave me three uninterrupted hours with the opening section and made me miss the boarding call for a flight I was not, in retrospect, sorry to have missed. Reid's 2022 novel operates on a premise that is slightly audacious in its simplicity: what if we followed a retired tennis champion, known universally as the greatest of her era, as she comes out of retirement at thirty-seven to reclaim a record broken by a younger player? That is, structurally, a sports story. Reid turns it into something considerably more difficult to categorize.
Where This One Lands
Carrie Soto is not a sympathetic protagonist in the conventional sense. She is arrogant, often cruel in the precise way that driven people can be, and entirely clear-eyed about the fact that she has sacrificed relationships, warmth, and what other people might call a life in pursuit of a dominance that satisfies her on a level nothing else reaches. German reviewer Roxy, who described Carrie as "nicht Sympathieträgerin" but also as a great, ambitious woman with heart and discipline, captures the reader's experience accurately: you do not exactly like Carrie, but you cannot stop watching her.
This is where Reid's considerable craft reveals itself. She understands that the most interesting characters are not those we root for because they are good, but those we root for because their desire is so precisely rendered that we recognize something in it. Carrie's question, posed explicitly in the synopsis, is "who is she if she is not the best?" That question is not really about tennis. It is about identity constructed so completely around achievement that its removal leaves nothing standing, and Reid explores it with more honesty than the genre romance around Carrie's relationship with Bowe Huntley might suggest.
The novel's structure is its most underrated quality. Reid moves between Carrie's interior and the external drama of the Grand Slam season with a control that keeps both elements active without letting one crowd the other. The tennis scenes are technically credible without being insider knowledge; you do not need to know what a slice backhand is to understand what it costs Carrie to be out-positioned by a younger body. German reviewer Golden Letters, who detailed the Nicki Chan storyline and Carrie's comeback arc across the four Slams, captured the structural engine accurately: each tournament is a distinct chapter in Carrie's reclamation, and the cumulative tension is genuinely achieved.
German reviewer Dr. Inkognito's one-word description, "bittersweet," is the most compressed accurate reading of the novel's final register. Reid does not offer Carrie a triumphalist resolution or a conventional redemptive arc. She offers something more honest: a reckoning with what has been gained and what cannot be recovered, held in the same moment without the book flinching from either.
Things to Know Before Starting Carrie Soto Is Back
German reviewer Maria Welscher found it comparatively slow and recommended it primarily for tennis fans, which is a legitimate reading. This is a book in which the internal life of one character is the primary subject, and if that internal life does not engage you, the external plot provides insufficient compensation. Unlike The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, which generates momentum through its structural revelation, or Malibu Rising, which builds tension through its ensemble dynamics, Carrie Soto depends almost entirely on your investment in one extremely specific sensibility.
The Bowe Huntley relationship, which is the romantic element of the novel, is deliberately subordinated to Carrie's athletic ambition. Readers who come primarily for the romance will find it present but clearly secondary. Reid's interest is in the tennis, and more specifically in what the tennis means to Carrie, rather than in the relationship as a primary narrative driver.
Recommended For
Readers who loved Evelyn Hugo for its morally complicated central character and its willingness to withhold easy sympathy will find Carrie a comparable and perhaps even more uncompromising companion. Listeners interested in the psychology of elite performance, in what it means to build an identity around a singular capability, will find more here than the sports novel surface suggests.
Note for English-language listeners: this listing is the German edition. The English original, narrated by Julia Whelan, is widely available and is the version I would recommend to English-speaking audiences. Whelan's narration of Reid's work has been consistently strong. The German edition with Löwendorf is appropriate for German-language listeners and for those interested in Reid's international reach.
In Brief
- Performance: Inka Löwendorf narrates the German edition; this listing covers the German-language audiobook, not the English original narrated by Julia Whelan.
- What it covers: Athletic ambition and its costs, legacy vs. identity, fathers and daughters, reinvention at the edge of possibility
- Feel: Fierce and propulsive with a quietly aching emotional undertow
- Our call: Taylor Jenkins Reid at her most disciplined, built around a protagonist who is deliberately difficult to love and impossible to look away from.
This listing is the German edition. Where can English-speaking listeners find the original English audiobook?
The English edition of Carrie Soto Is Back is available through Audible and other major platforms, published by Random House Audio and narrated by Julia Whelan, who has narrated several of Taylor Jenkins Reid's novels. The German edition reviewed here, narrated by Inka Löwendorf, is specifically the German-language version.
Do I need to have read Taylor Jenkins Reid's other books, particularly Malibu Rising, before listening to Carrie Soto?
Carrie Soto Is Back is a standalone novel. However, German reviewer Magictimes_mit_Diana noted that a character from Malibu Rising appears in this book, and that reading Malibu Rising first provides additional resonance. It is not required, but readers who have done so will recognize the connection.
Is this a romance novel or a sports novel, and does the balance matter for my decision to listen?
It is more accurately a character study set within the world of professional tennis, with romantic and sports elements both present but subordinated to Carrie's inner life. The romantic relationship with Bowe Huntley is real and emotionally significant, but it is clearly secondary to Carrie's athletic mission. Listeners who want a romance-forward story should adjust their expectations accordingly.
