“Sometimes reality comes crashing down on you. Other times reality simply waits, patiently, for you to run out of the energy it takes to deny it.”

The first Taylor Jenkins Reid book I consumed was Daisy Jones and the Six, as nudged by the Reese Witherspoon book club. I listened to the audio, and it was an amazing ride: with a star-studded cast (Judy Greer! Benjamin Bratt!). It felt like listening to an episode of Vh1 Behind the Music, and I greedily lapped up every second of it. My next TJR was Carrie Soto is Back, her latest book, published in 2022. This time around, Carrie Soto is the retired GOAT of tennis, but when a young phenom threatens her record, her legacy, and for her, her entire identity, she decides to come out of retirement and see if she still has what it takes to be the best. Where Daisy was interspersed with interviews, in this book Reid uses snippets from sports media to add context and commentary.

I have never read another fiction author who was able to make you forget that what you were reading wasn’t a memoir or biography. Something about her voice and writing transcends the genre and after each book, I am left shaking my head and reminding myself that these people are not actually real.

And then we’ve got Seven Husbands, the sleeper hit. Due to its popularity on BookTok, this 2017 book is all the rage now, even more so than Carrie Soto, with a TV adaptation due soon and people are HERE FOR IT. I am one of those people because I too loooooooooved this book. Evelyn Hugo, star of stage and screen, is in the twilight of her life and has decided she’s ready to tell the truth, the whole truth about her husbands, her scandals, and her life to a magazine reporter who is trying to climb the ladder to success. But why Monique? And why now? All will be revealed, in exactly the manner of Evelyn’s choosing. When you pick up this book, clear your calendar. You are not going to want to put it down. You will be hypnotized by this story.

Let me close this out by giving a plug for Carrie Soto. Like Evelyn, she sacrifices whatever it takes to be the best and is not a terribly likable heroine, but I for one think we need more characters like this: strong powerful women who know that being likable isn’t necessarily the most important thing about a life well lived.