megan’s Comments (group member since Jun 26, 2015)

megan’s comments from the Nothing But Reading Challenges group.

Do we think this is enough red on the cover? At what point do we check in with TinyEye?

I’ve got Our Man in Tokyo: An American Ambassador and the Countdown to Pearl Harbor for an O and Tokyo.

Am I allowed to use a location with a non-fiction book?

I'll cover the E

Ashley wrote: "Couple of housekeeping things....

megan!
If This Gets Out (Sophie Gonzales) - do you have a page/location for this quote? "There's also a bedazzled white piano on a crane..."

Lorna!
Finding My El..."

Bedazzled piano is on page 49

Done

Any idea how early we will get the details for the next round? I'm thinking of pushing the BOM to next round since it doesn't help us much in the Spell-It-Out

I’ve got some I’s and a Maas book to read as well (hopefully). It’s been a looong time since I read the first book, so I’m going to need to do some skimming to get my head back into it.

Hi everyone! I'm Megan. I'm in Indianapolis. Kind of a workaholic engineer. I read quite a bit of non-fiction, which can make spell-it-out tricky.
This will be my 5th Wheel-a-thon. I'm not a huge commenter (thanks crappy GR app), but I will be active over on the planning spreadsheet for sure.

I will take Wobble over Cut-Throat any day.

I just wanna play Battleship.

I finished Carrie Soto is Back, which should take care of all four needed for TT1 - Ladders.

DQs Day 3

9. Gwen sends Carrie a gift the start day of the Australian Open…a Discman! The first song it plays is ‘The Bitch is Back’…I love this album. I immediately went to play me some Elton John tunes😊 Do you have a song or routine that gets you revved up…sets a tone to put you in the right state of mind?
Mr Brightside by The Killers has been my GO! Song/running song since college. All On Black by Alkaline Trio is my pissed off song. Also since college.

10. Reflections-
Carrie thinks…I inhabit the silence of this moment with my father, when we are still asking questions and do not yet have to live with the answers. What do you think she means at this moment in time with that comment?
"Te quiero mucho, pichona," he says.
I open up my eyes, "I know. I love you too."
Javier and Carrie both have many reflective moments throughout these matches… Is this a premonition of what’s to come with the open or even more in the future?
Javier is a romantic through and through. My favorite kind of characters. They have the perfect quote for everything. In this instance, I think Carries throw away response is the most telling. The “I know” has been used a lot and makes the I love you that follows a throw away response. Javier lives in the moment because being with his daughter and enjoying the moment is who he is. He’s lost so much and lives so much that he appreciates the time. Carrie will have to get hurt some more to get there.

12. We hear from the media in various forms throughout. What are your thoughts about some of their comments so far? Do you believe any of them have affected Carrie or the game? I was thinking about this especially when Gwen indicates Elite Gold was pulling back some of their ads prior to the French Open. Gwen has a role in her job with managing all of this…what are your thoughts about the impact of media and advertising with sport?
If it was going to get to her, it would have gotten to her decades ago. Commentary from the media, especially when boundaries did exist. They still don’t, really, but maybe theres more empathy. Name, Image, Likeness is the way more athletes, at least the ones not in the top four sports, rely on it for income.

13. Carrie’s been doing some very smart training thanks to her father. She’s been practicing in recent weeks with Bowe on clay and Bowe has challenged her, calling her a ‘quitter’. And here at the end of this segment, she’s just had a challenge from Nikki Chan. Is she going to win? Is Nikki? What do you anticipate happening in Paris?
I don’t think she will win because we have so much book left. I don’t think she will win at all. TJR is a writer who is not afraid to make her flawed wonderfully flawed characters just miss out on their dream. Then they fall into another dream. Maybe Nikki won’t even win. But I hope it comes down to the two of them.

DQ DAY 2

5. Welcome back sports fans! If any of you have read other Taylor Jenkins Reid's novels, you know she loves looking back at interesting eras in time. The Golden Age of Hollywood! 70s rock and roll excess! Why do you think TJR chose to focus on 90s sports for this novel? Do you think it was only to bring Carrie back or do you think there was something special about sports during that time?
I think she chose the 90s because 90s fashion is back. If Carrie is going to have a clothing line while in her prime, 90s fashion would be the most fun. Regarding the choice of tennis, possibly because we’ve entered a new era of tennis without some of the legacy players who have dominated everything about the sport for the last two decades.

6. In this section we are introduced to Bowe. What do you think about him? Do you think he is a good match for Carrie (in sports or romantically)?
If he wasn’t a good match on the court, her father wouldn’t approve of them sparing. When it comes to romance, I don’t think Carrie wants anything to do with being in any sort of relationship at the moment. Or the foreseeable future.

7. In this section, there is a letter from the editor entitled "Why I'm Thankful for Carrie Soto" in which the author, Helene, says that Carrie was inspiring to her as a child. Do you find inspiration in any sports legends past or present? If so, who and why?
I don’t find inspiration in sports legends for their ability, but more for the dedication. Your life has to revolve around your sport. Everything from sleeping to wheat youre eating to when you consume it. It controls where you live and if you have a family. That dedication is inspirational. My sports legend that inspires me the most would be Mikaela Shiffrin. She came back for a last Olympics after losing her father and coach.

8. Up next is the Australian Open! Any predictions on what is going to happen in the next section of the book? Also how are you enjoying the book so far?
Carrie is going to be cocky and the bitch she wants everyone to think of her as. So far the book is going faster than I thought it would. For some reason I didn’t really want to read this – I wasn’t in the mood- so I’d push it back on my list of books to be read.

DQs Day 1 - Chan v Cortez & The First Time Around (26%)

1. The most popular releases by Taylor Jenkins Reid have been BOMs in this group before (Daisy Jones & The Six in 2019, The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo in 2021, and Malibu Rising last year). Have you read any of these books (or others) by TJR too or is Carrie Soto is Back your first book by the author? What are your expectations going in?
I’ve read all of them, so I know her style. I also expected to dislike the main character.

2. After the first chapter is set in 1994 and Carrie Soto decides to get back into the sport to get her record title back the next few chapters follow her early years up until she felt like she had to retire because of her knee injury (and because she felt humiliated lbr) somewhat 30 years later. Her dad always wanted her to be the greatest whereas her mother just wanted her to be kind and happy. It doesn't seem like Carrie is either at this point in her life, also not the greatest anymore. How do you feel about her as a character so far? What do you think (sort of) being forced into retirement by her own body has done to her, mentally and physically; do you think she's changed at all in the last 5 years?
The pressure sports parent put on their children never really changes, it just morphs into something else – something to take the place of the sport. In this instance, Carrie’s father never pressured her as much as she pressured herself. The single mindedness of sports has no place to go when you’re no longer competing. She hasn’t taken the time to reflect, both as a player and in retirement.


3. What we've learned about Carrie's childhood and teenage years has quickly started to remind me of 'King Richard' the movie about the Williams sisters' life and I'm seeing a lot of similarities between Carrie's dad Javier and the Williams' (movie) dad (as I'm sure is often the case when athletes' parents are involved in their kids' sports careers/futures).
Javier seemed to have good intentions and only ever wanted what (he at least thought) was best for his daughter, but they grew apart after going separate ways in 1979. As we know, they've found their way back together (does this sound weird seeing they're father and daughter??), but things definitely changed between them. How do you feel about Javier and about his and Carrie's relationship growing up vs now?
Javier doesn’t seem like that kind of sporting parent, It’s not about the win, but the performance. Their relationship has matured even though Carrie seems not to have matured mentally.

4. It seems like Carrie doesn't believe in love (or actually of being worthy of being loved imo). She's been having flings/ONS left and right apparently, and appearing in tabloids with random guys regularly. The one time she let herself finally believe this could be IT for the long run was with Brandon Randall (who some of us already knew from Malibu Rising) who was cheating on his then wife with her. No surprise he left her for (yet) another woman, but were you surprised Carrie took him back after he wanted to go back to his ex-wife and she rejected him? Do you think losing her mother at such a young age and only ever having her dad as a single parent in her life has influenced how she views love, relationships and generally a deeper bond with other people?
I don’t know if its losing her mother at such a young age, but more so the conversations she should have had that were usually fulfilled by the mother, especially in the 1970s and 80s. And that Javier didn’t date while she was growing up. She didn’t see healthy relationships. Her blinders were on tennis only, not allowing herself to see those emotions. I hate that so much about her was focused on relationships. Like women today, it can’t just be about the sport and the athlete. Tabloids can’t stand the boring life of a single woman mastering her craft.

Judith wrote: "We've been able to spin the wheel a few times this morning. We got Muses which I was able to fill with banked books.

Then Ladder to the Sky came back. I used 3 Carrie Soto's (Logan's, Lexi's, and ..."

I will be reading it as soon as my copy comes up from the library.

I still haven’t gotten my Carrie Soto, but I am the next person in line for the ebook. We will just have to be fashionable late to the BOM chat.

Looks like we will need a few Os. I’ll try to take care of a few of them.

I only got 7 books done for June, and I promised 8. 11/22/63 and Five Days in Memorial were long, and the second really got to me. But both were mega page points.

DQs Day 5
Chapters 12 - 13 or 41%

18. We're now leaving Derry behind and moving around the US a bit, from Tampa to a small town near Dallas. If you were in that time, what place or state in the US would you want to travel to? Would you in Jake's shoes also try to settle in one place or would you try and travel around the country first and see other places / live a little?
I’d want to see Disneyland in it’s infancy. And all of the Disney Studios. I’d set up exactly like Jake does, but maybe not get so involved in the lives of the locals. I’d want to blend in as much as possible.

19. When Jake got his new degree, this seemed oddly easy to me. As a non-american, I'm only vaguely familiar with the US education system. In my country getting teaching degrees is nowhere as simple as filling in an exam remotely and sending that in (also not 50 years ago), and this degree would not be accepted by possible employers. What are your thoughts on Jake's opportunity here to go back in time to teach again (even just as a substitute)? And do you think he'd have had it just as "easy" if it was less time in the past, let's say if he only traveled back 30 or 10 years?
Teachers in the US need a masters degree to teach. But, back then you could go to a specific teachers college like LBJ did. Taking a simple tests gets you a fake diploma, exactly what Jake needed. With no internet and reliance on connections I’m sure those schemes were easy to set up. Being an English/Literature teacher made it incredibly easy to not flub up. English hasn’t changed and you just teach the classics/what’s on the curriculum. As an engineer, there is no way I could blend in. Slide rule> No thanks.

20. Jake has now also started writing a book and a memoir. Did you know that Stephen King was also a teacher before he became a full time writer? Do you think he's characterizing Jake based on himself for any reason or is it just pure plot-relation that this main character shares his professions?
Being a Stephen King fan, I know he was an English teacher in the 70s. It also means I know how often King injects his personality and life into his characters. Stick with what you know. And it just to happens to work in nearly every scenario.

21. We meet Sadie, and to be honest, I didn't quite like the way Stephen King introduced and described her character, but then again I'm finding myself not liking his writing in multiple occasions. What is your first impression of Sadie and do you think she'll become an important part in Jake's future?
Meh. The situation could be more original. And the whole cupping the breast thing is weird. Of all the ways to describe it. His description of her is through the lens of someone in the 1960s. How women would be viewed physically then. And like the beauty standards that would have been thrust upon her as soon as she was over 5’5’’. It’s how my grandmother still thinks women should be and has spent the last 20 years letting me know. I like her and the character she becomes.