Camp NetGalley was so fun and cute and I hope to see more experience building activities like it in the future!

I unfortunately did not get to finish this event. 😕 hoping for better luck next year if the event continues :)

I know that I didn't submit quick enough to get the badge, but camp netgalley was fun and I enjoyed the activities! I hope you all continue to do similar events in the future

This looked super fun but I wasn’t able to complete it in time. Hopefully it comes back next summer!

While I was unable to participate fully in Camp NetGalley this year, I really love the idea of a summer event for reviewers. Participating is easy, there are a lot of events and activities to choose from, and the graphics are super cute. I'm a sucker for reading challenges, so the bingo board really appealed to me. Next year, it would be fun to see a list of summer-appropriate reads from both the past and present for reviewers to indulge in. Overall, I think this is a great event, and I hope that next year I can do even more for it.

This was so much fun! I wish I would’ve had time to complete it, but it was a very cute challenge! I would definitely do this challenge again next year!

Although, I read the book it was to late for me to participate in some of the activities. I think the part that made me not want to participate is playing games and being at camp. I disliked being in the camps I was at.

What an interesting way to get people to become more interested in their books and providing feedback.. Getting awards and challenge are a great way to promote reading. Thanks NetGalley for a fun camp ;-)

I missed the deadline, but I think I would have loved the summer challenge. I'd love to see more of these throughout the year. I'll definitely check out more NetGalley challenges in the future.

Loved the concept of this. Unfortunately I didn't execute it as well as I probably could. I would love to see something like this again in the future. The bingo card was my favorite part of Camp TBR.

Loved the idea behind this, but life got in the way, and I had trouble keeping up with it. Maybe I will have more time to commit to doing this next year.

The NetGalley Camp was a really fun way to share our favorite reviews. And participate in fun activities like camp NetGalley bingo. I’m excited for future events like this!

So much fun! What a great idea and fun incentive to read more titles from my shelf. I can’t wait to see what you guys come up with next!

I didn't have as much time to participate in this as I had hoped, but this was a really cool idea and event. I hope you continue to hold this event and that I'll be better able to participate next year!

Didn't get to submit on time, but I love this summer challenge. I would like to see more of these throughout the year.

Very cute and fun for the summer. These challenges keep readers engaged and create a sense of community. Thank you!

Summer camp with Netgalley was so much fun! I loved participating on Instagram. It was such a fun way to interact with Netgalley, the We Are Bookish group and other Netgalley reviewers.

This was my first time participating in Camp NetGalley, and I will definitely be participating again in the future. This was a great way to get involved and make reading books into a "game."

Calling all Swifties! I was so excited to be approved to listen the the newest unofficial biography of Taylor Swift on Netgalley!! Thanks to Dreamscape Media for the opportunity, and what a great way to start off June’s Audiobook Month!

Taylor is two years older than me, so I’ve grown up with her music and her story. I wasn’t a huge fan when she first came out, but I loved “Our Song” and “Picture to Burn” off of her self-titled debut. “Love Story” off of her sophomore album “Fearless” was everywhere on the radio while I was in high school, and, like many teen girls, “You Belong With Me” was screamed very loudly on many a car trip with friends. I remember watching the famous incident at the VMA’s live in my college freshman dorm room with my best friend. Her third album, “Speak Now”, came while I was immersed in other artists, but then 2012’s “RED” arrived, and I went “NOW WAIT A SECOND”. It helped, of course, that I turned 22 in May of 2013, and all of us around that age were screaming along to “22”‘s “we’re happy, free, confused, and lonely at the same time” while we were graduating college and trying to enter the workforce. But I loved the title track “RED”, and “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together” and “I Knew You Were Trouble” both matched my love life at the time to a T. “1989” blew Taylor up to a higher sphere of celebrity, however that was possible, with “Shake It Off” and “Blank Space”, which I enjoyed, but didn’t hit me the way “RED” did.

And then Taylor disappeared. I was barely cognizant of what was happening because I’ve never been a Twitter girl, but between some foot-in-mouth moments of intersectionality and another incident with Kanye and, this time, Kim Kardashian, she disappeared from the spotlight. She came back with the single “Look What You Made Me Do” and the album “Reputation”. Again, I wasn’t an avid listener at the time, so I missed the hype on it. Follow that up with “Lover”, and the misstep with using “ME!” as the lead single for that album (“Cruel Summer”? “Death by a Thousand Cuts”? Taylor, please), and Taylor was in the background for me. That is, until, the pandemic hit. While we were all stuck inside, so was Taylor, and that gave us a huge gift in the form of two albums – “Folklore” and “Evermore”.

I can thank my students for introducing me to these albums. I was one year post divorce, living alone with my sweet Labrador in a condo right outside the city, and, because I was teaching hybridly, I was no longer seeing anyone outside of students and immediate coworkers due to fears of spreading the virus. That gave me a lot of time to nap, read, watch TV, finally unpack, and start my walking/jogging routine. I was the healthiest and happiest I had been in… years. When I was with people, it was mostly my students. I grew really close with those students, particularly the juniors and seniors, and they were constantly recommending things for me to watch/listen to/read. They turned me on to “Folklore” and “Evermore”, and I dove deep into the sounds and lyrics and stories Taylor wove.

The thing that turned me into a “Swiftie” beyond just an avid fan, was when Taylor decided to re-record her first six albums so that she could regain control of her masters. It was such a boss move – a middle finger to the establishment by “pop’s all American princess” – totally punk rock. It made me look at her as more than just a singer songwriter. I supported “Fearless (Taylor’s Version)” when it came out, and the vault songs made me really excited for what was to come. When she announced that the second rerecord would be “RED (Taylor’s Version)”, I became rabid.

My students were just as excited as me, and we had a countdown on the whiteboard until “RED (TV)”‘s release. It coincided with a Saturday costume work day for our musical, so we all got the special “Taylor’s Version” Starbucks drinks (grande nonfat caramel latte) and binged the album while I taught them how to cut and measure pattern pieces (we were doing “Singin’ in the Rain” at the time). The vault tracks were everything I could’ve dreamed of. I went to list a couple here, and I ended up listing all but two of them, so just trust me – they’re all good.

When I was finally alone in my car, I allowed myself to experience “All Too Well (10 Minute)” – the final, ultimate, unedited track that “Swifties” and critics alike have dubbed Taylor Swift’s best work. I sobbed. Ugly. Loudly. Wordless. Breathless. It was every heartbreak I’d ever experience. It was the beginning of trying to pick up the pieces every time I felt betrayed. It was the bitterness of looking back with aged eyes and seeing the patterns continue. It was, and is, a song that understood my life at the soul.

So, a new Swiftie was born. I started following the fan accounts on Instagram. I started to learn all of the lore and the traditions. I listened to “Midnights” at midnight, and then stayed awake the rest of the night when the “Midnights: 3am Edition” bonus tracks launched. My friends were becoming Swifties as well, and we (and my students) shared theories on easter eggs and what could be coming next. We went to The Era’s Tour live when it came to my city, and it was one of the best concert experiences of my life. We continued (I should say continue, lol) to watch the livestreams from all of her other tour stops to see what she would do for the surprise song section or for new costumes. We threw a “Speak Now TV” release party at my friend’s house, and I created word searches to doodle on while we listened, reminisced, and ate as many strange purple foods as we could find. We got a big group together to go to see The Eras Tour Film, and my friends made us bracelets with our favorite songs or lines. I had “1989 TV” on repeat in one earbud at work the whole day that it came out, hoping no one would pass by my doorway and catch me dancing and lip syncing. I lost my crap when the marketing for “The Tortured Poet’s Department” came out – the gothic typewriter asylum documentation aesthetic had me losing my mind, AND we were getting collabs with Florence Welch and Post Malone?? I had to turn “TTPD” off and put it aside for a week because, oof, it was so sad! And now the question remains – when are we getting “Reputation TV” so I can appreciate the hype I missed? Will her self-titled debut be the last to get re-recorded, as I’m predicting? When that is over, is that when we’ll get TS12? I didn’t have TS10 or TS11 on my bingo sheet, so who knows?!

That’s a lot of backstory, so, TL;DR: Though this has evolved over my lifetime, I really love Taylor Swift’s music, and I appreciate her as an artist. Now back to the audiobook!

“Taylor: Era by Era” tells the story of Taylor Swift’s career from her very first ideas as a child all the way to the release of “The Tortured Poet’s Department”. I knew a lot of the events that happened throughout the book, but the beginning was really interesting to me because I had no idea that Taylor wrote most of the songs on her debut between the ages of 12-15! I was writing bad fanfiction at the time, not writing songs for a seven time certified platinum album! After the release of her debut, each chapter is titled after one of her eleven albums with each sharing what was happening around the creation of each album all the way through reception and touring. I enjoyed learning more about the business side of Taylor – she clearly is a smart businesswoman, and it sounds like she has been since she got her start. The end of the book touches on the release of “TTPD” and Taylor’s romance with NFL tight end, Travis Kelce, so this must’ve just wrapped up for publication in the last few weeks.

Something I enjoyed about the book is that her various boyfriends across the years were barely mentioned. Mostly, they were brought up in connection to other things such as meeting John Mayer when he tweeted at her to work on a duet with him, or writing music under a pseudonym like she did with Calvin Harris and Joe Alwyn. In fact, even though we briefly mention the all important red scarf of “All Too Well”, Jake Gyllenhaal’s name isn’t even mentioned. These men are part of Taylor’s story, but it is Taylor’s story. By not focusing on the hype or the speculation about which songs are about which people, we get to focus on Taylor’s songwriting, evolution, and business acumen.

It is easy to tell that the author, Caroline Sullivan, also likes Taylor Swift. She writes about her accomplishments with praise, and, there were even some times where I felt she let Taylor off the hook about some of her missteps. However, because Sullivan is also a fan, it made listening to this book feel just like a conversation with a friend about Taylor, her songs, and her story. Even the bits with quotes from the industry, good and bad, or facts and figures were easy to digest and connect narratively.

The audiobook is narrated by Katelyn Levering, and she had a tone that sounded like a combination of a girl you’d meet in line at the bathroom before The Era’s Tour meets Ms. Mojo (and I mean that as a compliment!) She was very engaging, and she helped keep the pace swift (pun intended). Just a note to future listeners – Levering reads this book with an American accent, but the dates (and some verbiage) were clearly written in a British vernacular. It threw me the first few times, but I did get used to it.

Overall, this is a great book for those that are interested in learning more about the history of Taylor’s Swift’s career through the lens of her musical eras. Whether you’re a full fledged, friendship bracelet trading Swiftie or just a casual fan, you’ll find something to like with this audiobook.

“Taylor: Era by Era” comes out on June 6th (while Taylor herself is performing The Eras Tour in Milan!), and you can get your copy in print or audio wherever books are sold!

I do enjoy a Netgalley community activity! I find the PDF format means I often forget about this, but I liked the variety of activities included in here.