I quite enjoyed this! I’ve been a Taylor Swift fan since ‘Tim McGraw’, so I don’t think I learned anything necessarily new but I really enjoyed everything in one place. I think it perfect for new and old fans alike, to either delve deeper or as a keepsake. You can tell how much love the authors put in and it’s lovely.

Thank you to NetGalley and Quirk Books for the eARC in exchange for an honest review.

A special thank you to Quirk books for the opportunity to review Taylor Swift by the Book!

This book was a refreshing take on literary interpretation for beginners. While I found a few of the claims to be logical but unjustified, I ultimately liked that this book took the time to guide young readers through making the connection.

Unfortunately, my ebook copy of the book did not include a copy of the index. I thought the repetitive intro signals were annoying, and found myself thinking that it would have been better if this book had just taken the time to teach the reader how to use an index while explaining the structure of the book instead of doing the work for them. The inclusion of the glossary, however, was unexpected and great. There were also some great brain scratchers in this as well. I didn’t know that Emily Dickinson mailed dead crickets with her poetry. Recommended!

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the eARC of this book. 4/5 stars.

As one of Taylor Swift's top 1% of listeners according to my Spotify Wrapped AND an English teacher, this was just a fun read. It doesn't go nearly as in-depth as I was expecting it to with some of the songs, but it was still such a unique way to look at her lyrics. It also divides the albums into different literary eras, which I also really enjoyed. And yes, my brain did start singing many of the lyrics used for the examples.

3* - decent, enjoyable
If you, like me, would enjoy reading a book that goes through Taylor's discography and points out possible literary references, then you will enjoy reading this book.

I think the audience for this is probably at least late teens, because you do need a general understanding of the literary movements referred to. I think this is also a great starting point for anyone wanting to go into further analysis or comparisons.

Thank you to netgalley and the publisher for the ARC in exchange for my honest review.

This nonfiction book is both more and less than I hoped.

What I wanted was a resource to connect English Language Arts to Taylor Swift songs and then be able to use it with my students.

What I received: In some ways the book meets my desire. There is an analysis (typically brief) and explanation (also, typically brief). There are some songs where a teacher could use the information as provided and run with it to develop a lesson. The vast majority of others provide just enough information to help a teacher continue with research to develop a lesson. What’s the difference? Between 15 minutes and an hour of lesson development time, I’m guessing.

Just an FYI, but the authors are not Taylor Swift and TS does not offer these explanations unless in a “this was said in an interview” sort of way.

A wish: A cross-reference/linked list of skills (the definitions of the skills are at the end) with the songs would be invaluable and make this so much easier to use as a teacher.

We’re always getting asked for Taylor swift books at my library and this book will make a lovely addition to our collection. With fun illustrations and interesting interpretations this book is perfect for any swiftie!

I hope this one is better in print than digital. Though not a huge swiftie was still excited as a regular fan and book lover. The actual book though felt disjointed and the topics muddled. I kept looking to see if I’d missed something. Not sure who the audience or overall theme was after reading.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book! Thank you to the publisher for my advanced digital copy! It was so fun & interesting to read about the origin/meaning of Taylor's songs/lyrics. This book is truly perfect for any die-hard Swiftie! Will for sure be recommending!

An amazing gift book for an Swiftie! Thank you to Quirk books and Net Galley for a digital review copy.

Taylor Swift by the Book by Rachel Feder and Tiffany Tatreau is an insightful and engaging exploration of Taylor Swift's lyrics through the lens of classic literature. The book cleverly pairs Swift's songs with literary works, offering a fresh perspective on her songwriting and demonstrating the depth of her storytelling. While the concept is innovative, the analysis sometimes feels forced, with some connections between the songs and books seeming tenuous or overly simplistic. Additionally, the tone can be overly celebratory, occasionally missing a more critical examination of Swift's career or the broader cultural context. Despite these minor drawbacks, the book remains a thoughtful and fun read for both Swift fans and literature enthusiasts alike, highlighting the creative synergy between music and literature.

The introduction prepares us: “we have vindication—proof that Taylor Swift doesn’t just write bops, she writes intellectual bops.” It’s not a textbook, but it’s written by an academic, and this close reading will satisfy English majors with detailed analysis of archetypes, literary devices (like the use of metonymy in Swift's lyrics), and cross-references (such as an idiom that first appeared in Shakespeare's “Othello”). Superfans and those new-to-the Swiftie-verse will be happy to find suggested playlists and era-by-era sectioning.

Thank you NetGalley the publisher and author for the ARC.

This was an interesting take on pop hits written and performed by the mega star. Not quite my normal genre but I found it worth the time. If you love TSwift maybe this is for you but if not I would pass this one by.

I apparently wished for this on Netgalley because I got an approved wish so I thought I'd better give it a go. It's interesting all the links made to her songs, but like other reviews I've read, I feel some observations are a bit far off the mark and confusing.

However, I like the idea and the illustrations work nicely

Thank you to Netgalley and the publishers for the ARC

A fun title, likely to make a popular gift for Christmas. Thèmes well explored, if a little repetitively in places, and a nice balance struck between humour and literary theory.

Oh this book was wonderfully done! Absolutely buying this for my daughter for Christmas! It was so well done. I was so intrigued by each page. Loved it!

I wanted to like this book so badly because I love any high-level review of popular culture. But this book felt much too disjointed and didn’t really seem to have any unifying point or thesis.

As a Taylor Swift fan, I was really excited about the concept of this book. Unfortunately I decided to DNF at 34%. I found a lot of the references too basic and just sticking to simple explanations of a line here and there instead of really getting into the context and meaning of songs. Ultimately this wasn’t for me but maybe it would be a fun holiday gift for the right Swiftie in your life. Thank you to the publisher, Netgalley and librofm for the free ebook and audiobook.

“The greatest story is the messy, nonlinear, deeply flawed, and complex tale of what it means to be human. And falling in love with our lives might be one of the greatest love stories we’ll ever know.”

*Thank you to NetGalley for providing me an advanced reader’s copy in exchange for an honest review.

Going into this, I knew I was biased in more ways than one. Not only am I a Taylor Swift fan but even more so, I’m a poet who LOVES literary devices. I’ve also been waiting ages for someone to finally annotate and reference Taylor Swift’s lyrics. Not only do the authors do this, but they also take us on a journey. They are our tour guide through the storytelling of Taylor Swift, complete with further readings and playlists for each album. They also include a glossary at the end with literary devices, which I absolutely loved and inspired my own writing.

As someone who could quite possibly spend all day talking about Taylor Swift and how incredibly clever she is, I will take any opportunity to overanalyze her work or read interesting takes on it. Unfortunately, I found this book to be a bit confusing, and at times, even frustrating. There are definitely some fun facts sprinkled throughout, as well as informative glimpses into historical references of Taylor’s (such as Emily Dickinson or The Great Gatsby). But I wouldn’t necessarily recommend this to someone who’s an established fan, simply because I think they would also be confused by the authors analyzing portions of lyrics without looking at the broader context of the work.

It feels unclear who the audience for this book is supposed to be, because there are tonal shifts in nearly every chapter. Is it for a younger audience? Longtime fans? Academics? The writing goes back and forth between attempted academic analysis, and breaking the fourth wall (so to speak) by speaking directly to the reader in a casual manner.

I think this book would have benefited from more perspectives, in addition to analyzing lyrics/songs in a greater context of Taylor’s work. I know there are both academics and culture writers who have written really in depth and thoughtful pieces about Taylor Swift, and those perspectives probably would have rounded it out more.

It’s a useful step on the way to establishing literary Taylor Swift studies to agree on all the places where Swift seems to be reworking other texts. We don’t all want to reinvent the wheel every time we try to write about Swift and literature. For example, “happiness” includes a collection of quotations from The Great Gatsby. So far, really, we don’t have a way to compile this information except through the annotations on Genius.com, which are… unreliable. As far as that goes, this book is useful.
I found it less useful in explaining why it matters that Swift is thinking about her relationship to (e.g.) Fitzgerald.
The book is organized around “eras” (probably the wrong word, but I see what they did there) assigned to different Swift albums: these are Bildungsroman (Taylor Swift), Fairy Tale (Fearless and Speak Now), Modernist (Red and 1989), Decadent (reputation), Sentimentalist (Lover), Romantic (folklore and evermore), Gothic (Midnights), and Postmodernist (TTPD). There are also explanations of the lives and work of different “tortured poets” including obvious ones like Lord Byron and Emily Dickinson and the more obscure Edna St Vincent Millay and Frances Ellen Watkins Harper as well as playlists of Swift songs built around different motifs.
The book is set up as a series of annotations, although sadly (at least in my ebook review copy) these are annotations without a text: the title of a song is given, followed by only individual lines of interest each accompanied by a note. These range from well researched explanations of how Cheshire cats came to be associated with grinning to what feels more like filler. The line “we’re all bored” from New Romantics bears the annotation that “ennui” is common in modernist writing - and earlier writing… … … … I think the organization of the book into dubious “eras” is to blame for this. A suggestion that “This Love” could be considered “The Great Gatsby” “fan fiction” because of a mention of a lantern burning in the night follows another suggestion that the same song echoes a line in Samuel Beckett. But it remains unclear to me exactly what it adds to read either allusion into the song except to prove that the song does in fact fit within Swift’s modernist era, which… isn’t a thing. As W. K. Wimsatt Jr. and M. C. Beardsley argued in their foundational article “The Intentional Fallacy,” you’re the person who gets to decide what you think a text means, which includes what it seems to be alluding to, as long as you have a compelling reason for reading it that way. And certainly, you could imagine someone explaining why these details matter.
This work that you can imagine someone doing has the effect of making this book feel like a worksheet, like you’re looking at the teaching materials for a really interesting lesson. The line “clink, clink” from “Slut!” is cited as an instance of “onomatopoeia.” It is not clear why this is noted, except to teach the reader what onomatopoeia is. You can imagine what you would do with this in class. Who knows what onomatopoeia is? What’s another example? Why do you think this song is trying to reproduce the sound of the world it exists in?
Of course, as founders of a new field, a lot of what we are doing is imaginary work, projecting the way forward - like the speaker of “happiness,” who hasn’t met the “new me” yet and isn’t even sure whether she means by that her ex’s new girlfriend or her own healed self. We don’t know what Swift Studies looks and feels like yet.
I will say in its defence that this book definitely feels intended to spur you to further effort. Lit crit words like “trope” and “onomatopoeia” are in bold to denote that you can flip forward to the glossary at the end to find their definitions. You have to actively look them up, like you have to find a text of each song’s lyrics (or listen to it or remember it). The book asks a lot of work of its reader. There’s even a list of recommended reading after each “era.” And I think there are readers who will find it inspiring in starting their study of Swift.