Into the Taylor-Verse: Taylor Swift's Songwriting Eras

This book covers Taylor's songwriting in an insightful, intelligent way and takes her seriously as an artist. I especially enjoyed the shout-out explorations of specific songs and thought the author seemed very knowledgeable. In my copy, Midnights did have its own chapter FWIW.

I'm a huge Taylor fan, but this book was a disaster. It jumped around all over the place and is full of huge paragraphs that fill entire pages. It's also frames everything that Taylor has done an excessively positive light that it comes off unnatural.Total waste of money. There are better books out there about her.

This was a cute but very surface-level exploration of Taylor’s eras from Debut to evermore (Midnights is only touched on, and not given its own dedicated chapter). I was hoping for a more in-depth analysis of the relationships, pop culture, and current events that inspired Taylor’s songs and albums. Also, while the author did allude to certain defining moments in Taylor’s life and discography, she did so with such brevity and just enough vagueness that unless you’re a fan of the singer, you won’t know what she’s talking about, which I found to be a disservice for anyone who was hoping to learn more about Taylor as they read this book. As it was, it was a fun nostalgic trip down memory lane, and it made me want to go back and listen to some of her earlier albums in a different light, but nothing ground-breaking. The illustrations were pretty and it was a quick read, certainly something I’ll keep in my collection.