I think I’d had a string of so-so books and was very much waiting for this one to come out. If there’s one thing you can be certain of, it’s that Reid puts out solid books that you’ll enjoy—and true to form, that’s what she does here as well.
A sidebar that it’s not only comic books that come with built in universes. There’s also a Reidverse! Carrie is the tennis star that had an affair with the husband of Nina Riva (of Malibu Rising). Carrie also reads a book on Daisy Jones and the Six (which could very well be Daisy Jones & The Six) at some point during the book. I almost wished that she’d also stumbled onto one of Evelyn Hugo’s movies one night while flipping through channels and landing on TCM or something, but of course idly channel surfing is not a very Carrie like thing to do…
While I know this was a pandemic novel, it was very odd to pick this up just as Serena Williams, the GOAT, had just taken her final bow (for now???) on the world tennis stage. This is definitely not the story of Serena, but it’s also not? It’s the story of all female athletes, sure, but it’s also the age old story of female exceptionalism and the attitude that comes with it. You can be arrogant and male but heaven forbid you’re female and demand the same respect.
So did I like this book? Yes! But at times I really did dislike it for reasons that have nothing to do with the novel. Here, at the end of Reid’s “Famous Four” quartet, I found the character I most empathized with. Carrie has made her entire career out of being the best and “not being here to make friends,” and that latter attitude is the one that I found myself being frustrated with. Isn’t it possible? Maybe that’s where the parallels break down, in that you can’t have friends on the tour if you’re trying to beat them and make it to the top. TO BE CLEAR I’m not saying that I didn’t like Carrie as a fictional character or the book as a story because of the disagreements I had with her character, morally speaking.
What I’m most curious about, of course, is whether people want her to beat the record by the end of the novel. Seeing if she does it drives the novel forward and also, oddly, doesn’t? Carrie never stops wanting to win (and she does win) but the entire book revolves around her learning about what her worth is outside of the system she’s been in control of and in thrall to her entire life.
