Tag Archive for: taylor jenkins reid

Review: CARRIE SOTO IS BACK by Taylor Jenkins Reid

August 29, 2022/16 Comments/by Suzanne

Carrie Soto Is Back by Taylor Jenkins Reid
Also by this author: One True Loves, Daisy Jones & The Six

Published by Ballantine Books on August 30, 2022
Genres: Fiction, Historical Fiction
Pages: 384
Source: Netgalley
Amazon | Barnes & Noble | The Book Depository | Bookshop
Goodreads

FTC Disclosure: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher via Netgalley. All opinions are my own.

Taylor Jenkins Reid is the master of creating flawed characters that will capture your heart. She did it with The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, she did it with Daisy Jones & the Six, and she has done it yet again with Carrie Soto is Back.

When an injury forced her into retirement at the age of 32, Carrie Soto had cemented her reputation as the best female tennis player in the world. She had broken numerous records and had won an incredible 20 Grand Slam titles. Becoming that great of a player has come with a cost for Carrie though. Not only did she completely isolate herself from anyone she could have possibly formed a relationship with (friendship or romantic), but she was also cold and pretty arrogant when it came to speaking to the media and even to her opponents on the WTA tour, earning herself the nicknames “The Battle Axe” and “The B*tch.”

Tennis is everything to Carrie and so when, five years after her retirement, another player is threatening to beat her 20 Grand Slams, Carrie becomes obsessed with making a comeback to defend her record. She decides to come out of retirement for one season to play the Grand Slam tournaments, and she asks her beloved father, who had coached her for much of her career, to coach her one last time.

I’m a sucker for an underdog story anyway, but there’s just something even more special about a legendary player trying to make a comeback and rise from the bottom back to the top. What especially got me about this story is with the way Carrie behaves, so cold and arrogant at times, she should have been completely unlikeable as a protagonist. But instead of hating her, I just loved her all the more. There was just so much more to Carrie than what she showed the world, as well as a well hidden vulnerability, and it really surprised me how invested I became in watching her take this journey and watching TJR peel back the layers of Carrie’s personality and let us in.

The tennis matches we witness are all adrenaline rushes that made for riveting reading, but I also think readers will fall in love with this story whether they are tennis fans or not. While Carrie’s comeback in the world of professional tennis is obviously front and center, Carrie Soto is Back is about so much more than tennis. It’s a story about never giving up but also about accepting yourself as you are, and it’s also about love and the importance of letting people into your life. My favorite scenes in the book are the ones between Carrie and her father as they train. We get to see those both in the past when Carrie was first rising to the top, and then again through her comeback, and it’s clear they have a special bond. Those scenes were incredibly moving and I adored her dad because of all the good he tried to instill in her and how he always believed in her no matter what. I found myself tearing up a few times as he was talking to Carrie. She was his world and it showed in every word and action.

I devoured Carrie Soto is Back in less than a day, and there is no doubt in my mind that this is going to be a book and a protagonist that will stick with me for years to come.

About Taylor Jenkins Reid

TAYLOR JENKINS REID lives in Los Angeles and is the acclaimed author of One True Loves, Maybe in Another Life, After I Do, and Forever, Interrupted. Her most recent novel, The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, came out June 13, 2017. Her novels have been named best books of summer by People, Cosmopolitan, Glamour, InStyle, PopSugar, BuzzFeed, Goodreads, and others.

In addition to her novels, Taylor’s essays have appeared in places such as the Los Angeles Times, The Huffington Post, and Money Magazine.

Website | Facebook | Goodreads | Amazon | Instagram

Reviews: MALIBU RISING & THE INVISIBLE HUSBAND OF FRICK ISLAND

May 31, 2021/28 Comments/by Suzanne

Sorry I disappeared off the blogosphere for a few days but man, it has been a week. We are short-staffed at work, as usual, so the universe decided this would be a great week for a trip to the ER with my son, followed by a fender bender this weekend when a teen driver decided to plow into the back of my car while we were stopped at a traffic light. We’re all fine thankfully, but if the universe could cut me a break for a bit, that would be fantastic. Anyway, my life drama aside, I do have two reviews to share today, one for Malibu Rising, one of my most anticipated reads of the year, and one for The Invisible Husband of Frick Island, which I was drawn to because of the island setting. When I read the synopsis, it reminded me of a little island off the coast of Virginia called Tangier Island and being from Virginia, I was intrigued.

Reviews: MALIBU RISING & THE INVISIBLE HUSBAND OF FRICK ISLAND

Malibu Rising Goodreads

Author: Taylor Jenkins Reid

Publication Date: June 1, 2021

Publisher: Ballantine Books

FTC Disclosure: I received a complimentary copy of this book from Netgalley. All opinions are my own.

Taylor Jenkins Reid became one of my favorite authors after I fell in love with her most recent novels, Daisy Jones & the Six and The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo. Her masterful storytelling and her ability to bring unforgettable characters to life just really won me over, so I couldn’t wait to get my hands on a copy of her new novel, Malibu Rising.

Malibu Rising is a story of love and loss, secrets and betrayals, and at the heart of it all is the Riva family, the parents Mick and June, and the four Riva children, Nina, Jay, Hud, and Kit. Those familiar with TJR’s books will probably recognize Mick Riva, who appears in the Daisy Jones and Evelyn Hugo novels. Mick is an iconic musician who can’t seem to break the cycle of infidelity that he falls into the moment he becomes successful as a musician. He waltzes in and out of June and their kids’ lives, leaving wreckage in his wake each time he decides family life isn’t for him. To say the Rivas are a dysfunctional family is probably putting it mildly.

Malibu Rising is told using a dual timeline, which I’m always a fan of if it’s done well, and TJR uses it effectively here to peel back the layers on the Riva family. One timeline is set in the past which explores Mick and June Riva’s life together, showing how they met and the dramatic ups and downs of their relationship and how it impacted their young children. The second timeline is set in the 1980s and focuses on the Riva children, Nina, Jay, Hud, and Kit, who are all adults now and are experiencing their own ups and downs.

This family’s journey is a wild and often heartbreaking one and because of that, I loved the modern timeline that shows the kids all grown up and trying to make their way in the world. I loved how tight their sibling bond has grown over the years, probably because they could only rely on each other. Nina, the eldest, was a particular favorite of mine in that she sacrificed everything to basically become a mother to her younger siblings. Their lives are full of ups and downs as well, but they are all there for each other in ways their parents weren’t there for them.

The only part of the novel I didn’t enjoy was actually the big end-of-summer party that is the focal point of the story. Yes, it’s most definitely a life-changing event as it brings many issues to a head and turns quite a few lives upside down. At the same time, however, I found it to be somewhat tedious at times. I guess the Hollywood life doesn’t appeal to me and I just got bored reading page after page of celebrity after celebrity showing up and behaving in utterly predictable ways. The drama surrounding the Riva siblings at that party is riveting and everything else just felt like it was in the way.

Even though I wasn’t the biggest fan of the party itself, everything else about the novel made for a very compelling read. If you enjoy family dramas and sibling stories, you’ll enjoy Malibu Rising. 4 STARS.

The Invisible Husband of Frick Island Goodreads

Author: Colleen Oakley

Publication Date: May 25, 2021

Publisher: Berkley

FTC Disclosure: I received a complimentary copy of this book from Netgalley. All opinions are my own.

Colleen Oakley’s new novel The Invisible Husband of Frick Island is an emotional story about love, loss, and grief and the lengths people will go to in order to help those they love. The story centers on Piper Parrish, a young woman who lives on Frick Island, a tiny island located in the Chesapeake Bay and only accessible by ferry. The Frick Island community, cut off as they are from the mainland, are a tightknit group who look out for each other. When Piper’s husband Tom is lost at sea when his boat capsizes during a terrible storm, the community rallies together to help Piper cope with the loss. It’s the method in which they choose to rally that brings a bit of a whimsical element to the story. When they realize that Piper is hallucinating that Tom is still alive and by her side, the community decides to play along with it and pretend he’s still alive as well. When Anders Caldwell, an aspiring journalist, is sent to the island on assignment, he witnesses Piper and her hallucinations as well as the community going along with it, he can’t believe what he is seeing and decides he needs to investigate it further. He thinks this is a story that could make his career but has no idea how truly life changing it will end up being.

Overall, I really enjoyed this story. I especially loved the small town island setting and how they’re all practically one big family. I also loved all the quirky characters who live on the island. They were fun and I immediately liked them all just by virtue of what they were willing to do to keep from breaking Piper’s heart. Piper herself is of course an incredibly sympathetic character because of the loss she has suffered and it’s easy to see why her community loves her so much. I very much enjoyed watching her interact with Anders as he tried to piece together what was motivating the community to go along with Piper’s hallucinations rather than set her straight about Tom’s death. There were times when I wanted to shake him for using Piper’s tragedy to further his career, but he shows tremendous growth in this area as he and Piper grew closer and he starts to realize his own mistakes.

My only real issue with The Invisible Husband of Frick Island is that it felt a little slow at times. As much as I enjoyed it, I felt like the story got a little bogged down by Anders’ repetitive ferry rides back and forth to the island. I think I would have preferred either fewer trips or maybe less description of them each time.

If you enjoy small town settings, quirky characters, and reading about the things we do for love, you’ll want to check out The Invisible Husband of Frick Island. 3.5 STARS.

Review: DAISY JONES & THE SIX by Taylor Jenkins Reid

March 11, 2019/28 Comments/by Suzanne

Daisy Jones & The Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid
Also by this author: One True Loves, Carrie Soto Is Back

Published by Ballantine Books on March 5, 2019
Genres: Fiction, Historical Fiction
Pages: 368
Source: Netgalley
Amazon
Goodreads

FTC Disclosure: I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher via Netgalley. All opinions are my own.

DAISY JONES & THE SIX Review

I just recently started reading Taylor Jenkins Reid’s novels. After enjoying her popular book One True Loves and absolutely falling in love with The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, I couldn’t wait to get my hands on a copy of her latest, Daisy Jones & the Six, especially after learning that it’s about the rise and fall of a rock band in the 1970s. I’ve been a huge rock music fan all my life so I felt like this book really had my name written all over it.

The characters drew me in right away, every single one of them really, but especially Billy and Daisy, who are both just so incredibly compelling because of the inner demons they are both battling. Daisy is an ‘It’ girl on the rise. She’s gorgeous, almost ethereal, and she has a penchant for living like a wild child, drinking and doing drugs whenever the mood hits. She has adopted this party girl lifestyle after years of being neglected by her parents. It’s her way of never having to be alone. Deep down though, Daisy really just wants to focus on her music. Daisy has a gift for singing and songwriting, and her dream is to write and perform her own songs.

Billy Dunne is the lead singer of the Six, a rock band whose star is rising just as fast as Daisy’s. He is fighting similar demons, but is trying to get his act together because his girlfriend had just informed him she’s pregnant and he knows his baby deserves better than a drunken, drug-addicted father. As Billy and Daisy battled their demons, they weren’t always the most likeable characters and sometimes they did awful things, but I still found myself wholeheartedly cheering them on and hoping they could conquer their demons.

The other members of the band and the friends and family members who were interviewed were also very well developed. Daisy and Billy were the standouts for sure, but every single character in the book felt real as did all of the intricacies of their professional and personal relationships. The love-hate relationships, the thrill of the band’s success, coupled with the jealousy of some of the band members who felt they were being shoved into the background by Billy and Daisy, the subsequent tension as those feelings continued to fester – all of it just felt so authentic and I found myself emotionally invested in all of the characters because they were like a family, albeit a sometimes dysfunctional one.

One of my favorite parts of the book is how much attention Taylor Jenkins Reid devotes to the actual making of the Daisy Jones & the Six album. She leaves no detail unexplored and it felt like I truly was watching an album being crafted from start to finish. We get to see song writing sessions between Daisy and Billy, the rest of the band working on musical arrangements to fit Daisy and Billy’s lyrics, the actual mixing of the album, and even a photoshoot for the album cover. As a music lover, I flew through these pages, completely infatuated by the whole process, especially those song writing sessions. Billy and Daisy are both so strong-willed that the sessions often started with a lot of head-butting before something would finally click with them.

Finally, I loved the way the band’s story is presented. The premise is that they’re being interviewed years after the band has broken up, with each of them giving their perspective on what happened on their rise to the top and their subsequent break up. The closest comparison I can make is that it reminded me of VH1’s Behind the Music, a television program that takes an intimate look into the personal lives of some of the most influential musicians of our time. I loved the way the story unfolds because every band member tends to have their own version of what took place so the “truth” of what happened is definitely shaped by who happened to be telling the story at any given moment. I know I keep mentioning the word authentic, but it fits here as well. Taylor Jenkins Reid writes this format so well and infuses these characters with such life and such passion about what happens during their time in the band that I felt like I was reading an interview that had actually taken place. It didn’t feel like fiction at all. I even stopped reading at one point to Google the band and make sure they really were fictional because everything just felt that real.

My only issue is that I wish Daisy Jones & the Six was a real band because the whole time I was reading, I really wanted to hear their music. The songs Billy and Daisy were writing just sounded that good! Seriously though, no issues whatsoever.

I honestly didn’t think there was anyway Taylor Jenkins Reid could possibly top her phenomenal last novel, The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, but she really outdoes herself with Daisy Jones & the Six. The characters, the intimacy and complexity of the relationships, the story telling, the authenticity of this band’s journey, really just everything about this book is about as close to perfection as it gets for me. It’s only March and I can already tell you this book is going on my Best of 2019 list at the end of the year. It’s just that good. I think music fans in particular will love Daisy Jones & the Six, but I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend it to everyone else who just loves a well-crafted story.

GOODREADS SYNOPSIS:

Everyone knows Daisy Jones & The Six, but nobody knows the reason behind their split at the absolute height of their popularity . . . until now.

Daisy is a girl coming of age in L.A. in the late sixties, sneaking into clubs on the Sunset Strip, sleeping with rock stars, and dreaming of singing at the Whisky a Go Go. The sex and drugs are thrilling, but it’s the rock and roll she loves most. By the time she’s twenty, her voice is getting noticed, and she has the kind of heedless beauty that makes people do crazy things.

Also getting noticed is The Six, a band led by the brooding Billy Dunne. On the eve of their first tour, his girlfriend Camila finds out she’s pregnant, and with the pressure of impending fatherhood and fame, Billy goes a little wild on the road.

Daisy and Billy cross paths when a producer realizes that the key to supercharged success is to put the two together. What happens next will become the stuff of legend.

The making of that legend is chronicled in this riveting and unforgettable novel, written as an oral history of one of the biggest bands of the seventies. Taylor Jenkins Reid is a talented writer who takes her work to a new level with Daisy Jones & The Six, brilliantly capturing a place and time in an utterly distinctive voice.

About Taylor Jenkins Reid

In addition to her novels, Taylor’s essays have appeared in places such as the Los Angeles Times, The Huffington Post, and Money Magazine.

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Book Review: One True Loves by Taylor Jenkins Reid

June 26, 2017/10 Comments/by Suzanne

One True Loves by Taylor Jenkins Reid
Also by this author: Daisy Jones & The Six, Carrie Soto Is Back

Published by Washington Square Press on June 7th 2016
Genres: Contemporary Fiction, Chick Lit
Pages: 327
Source: Library
Amazon
Goodreads

Goodreads Synopsis: From the author of Maybe in Another Life—named a People Magazine pick and a “Best Book of the Summer” by Glamour and USA Today—comes a breathtaking new love story about a woman unexpectedly forced to choose between the husband she has long thought dead and the fiancé who has finally brought her back to life.

In her twenties, Emma Blair marries her high school sweetheart, Jesse. They build a life for themselves, far away from the expectations of their parents and the people of their hometown in Massachusetts. They travel the world together, living life to the fullest and seizing every opportunity for adventure.

On their first wedding anniversary, Jesse is on a helicopter over the Pacific when it goes missing. Just like that, Jesse is gone forever.

Emma quits her job and moves home in an effort to put her life back together. Years later, now in her thirties, Emma runs into an old friend, Sam, and finds herself falling in love again. When Emma and Sam get engaged, it feels like Emma’s second chance at happiness.

That is, until Jesse is found. He’s alive, and he’s been trying all these years to come home to her. With a husband and a fiancé, Emma has to now figure out who she is and what she wants, while trying to protect the ones she loves.

Who is her one true love? What does it mean to love truly?

Emma knows she has to listen to her heart. She’s just not sure what it’s saying.

MY REVIEW

A book with a love triangle I actually enjoyed? As much as I usually rage against them, I totally did not see that one coming, but in One True Loves the main character Emma finds herself at the center of what I’d consider to be a pretty realistic love triangle. When her husband and high school sweetheart, Jesse, is lost at sea in a helicopter crash, Emma is devastated. His body is never found and after months and months of hoping he’ll return to her, Emma finally decides that she needs to face the fact that he’s gone and move on with her life. She moves back home and starts working in her parents’ bookstore and runs into one of her good friends from high school, Sam. Sam was in love with Emma in high school, and even after all these years, he still feels the same way so he asks her out. They take things very slowly, because Sam really wants to make sure Emma has finished grieving for Jesse before they move forward as a couple. Emma does fall in love with Sam and, over the next couple of years, starts to build a life with him. They’re in the midst of planning their wedding when Emma gets an unexpected phone call – it turns out Jesse is still alive and is on his way home to her.

The rest of the novel follows Emma as she tries to figure out what to do. Does she break Sam’s heart and go back to Jesse, who she always said was the love of her life? Or does she break Jesse’s heart and tell him that she has moved on without him?

LIKES

It’s truly an impossible situation to be in and what I enjoyed most about the book was how well Taylor Jenkins Reid captures all of the conflicting emotions that not only Emma is feeling, but also those of both Jesse and Sam. Both men know how difficult this is for Emma, yet both of them are also completely devoted her to and want a future with her. Sam even goes so far as to remove himself from the equation for a while to give Emma the space she needs to really think through what she wants. If she’s going to choose Sam, Sam wants it to be because she truly chooses him, not because she would feel too guilty to dump him and go back to her husband.

I also liked the way Reid structures the novel. We start out in the present with Emma getting the phone call letting her know Jesse is still alive, but then we go back in time to when they were all in high school and watch Sam and Emma meet and become good friends, and we also watch Emma and Jesse meet and fall in love. As we work our way back toward the present and see each of these relationships develop over time, it becomes all the more gut wrenching to think about having to choose between these two men because they’re both so great and because both relationships are such healthy ones for Emma and she’s truly happy and deeply in love with each of them.

DISLIKES

The only thing I didn’t care for in One True Loves was that I thought the ending wrapped up a bit too quickly. It was like once Emma made her choices, we hit fast forward and zoomed to the ending. I was still happy with the ending; I just would have liked a little more.

FINAL THOUGHTS

Even with my issue about the ending feeling rushed, I still thought this was a wonderful read. Being a married woman myself, I found it very easy to put myself in Emma’s shoes and wonder how I would handle being put in the same situation that she found herself in. That allowed me to get so absorbed in the story that I devoured the book in a day. That said, I’d highly recommend One True Loves as a great vacation or beach read. It’s an engaging read that you won’t want to put down until you find out who Emma chooses.