Taylor Swift

by Louisa Jepson

As one of the biggest and brightest stars of the music industry today, Taylor Swift's rise to international superstardom is what childhood dreams are made of.

Growing up in Pennsylvania, Taylor was determined to be a country music singer and composed heartfelt songs and played her guitar until her fingers bled. Despite being bullied at school, her determination paid off; she was barely into her teens when she landed her first record deal. Instant success followed, as fans everywhere fell in love with her passionate and honest lyrics, her catchy tunes and her genuine, girl-next-door charm. Known for her confessional songs, many of her past boyfriends have featured in her music, including One Direction's Harry Styles, Jake Gyllenhaal, John Mayer and Joe Jonas.

After less than a decade in the music industry Taylor has smashed records, collected hundreds of awards - including seven Grammys - and completed three sell-out tours. She has sold more than 26 million albums and her most recent record, RED, topped the charts in 12 countries.

Genres: Biography, Nonfiction

304 pages, Kindle Edition

First published August 29, 2013

Reviews

[Danica · Rating 2 out of 5]

On account of my enormous Swiftie-ness, I found this book (naturaully) interesting and amusing. Although, I was really dissapointed in several parts of the book. A lot of the time, the author seemed to be more of a hater than a fan- she went on and on about all of the relationships Taylor had, even explicitly saying "this picture of Taylor shows her on the red carpet trying to put Harry out of her mind". The thing is, she probably wasn't. You're not Taylor. She was posing for a red carpet snap, not mentally crying her heart out over a certain One Direction band member. Also, a lot of the information was wrong. It mentions Taylor having green eyes, although they're DEFINITELY blue, and 'I Knew You Were Trouble' is referred to as several different... Uh, unique names such as 'Knew He Was Trouble' and even 'Here Comes Trouble'. Louisa Jepson tried, I guess, but this book might need a bit of a rewrite.

[Shanelle Robinson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Tell me something I don’t already know. But yay Taylor.

[Jessie Tottenham · Rating 3 out of 5]

⭐⭐⭐ It's not fantastic enough for 5-stars, but it's good enough for me not to rate it as rubbish. I'd say it's close to rubbish, as this is not a proper biography.


I read this book back when I was a Taylor Swift fan. I'll always love the old Taylor, as I'm more interested in her talent, rather than her appearance. I applaud Taylor for becoming famous for her music before making her music videos 18+ rated.
What bothered me was Jepson was focusing more on Swift's relationships, which I was not expecting to read about. Yes, her music is usually about a lover or breakup, but I thought it would focus more on her music career.
I found the top three reviews have stated Swift's eyes are blue not green. I actually didn't notice if Taylor has blue or green eyes, as I'm colourblind. But if Jepson is colourblind, then why couldn't she have done her research and asked around if she has blue eyes?
What I find very funny is that I have donated this book to my father, since he's more of a Taylor Swift fan than me.

[Tia Sherwell · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was meh. I didn’t hate it, but I didn’t love it. I really didn’t like the writing style, but it was easy to read.

[Mia · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really like Taylor Swift and I find her a very talented and inspirational person. Although I did find out things about her that I didn't know before, some of the biography's facts were inaccurate such as the colour of her eyes, her song titles and her age.

I realise that this is unauthorised but you can tell that the author didn't do enough research concerning those matters. You can see she was not very passionate and interested in her subject matter. I think the author also had more of a negative opinion about Taylor.

Nevertheless, I think it was well written (I have never read a biography/autobiography before) and I enjoyed learning a bit more about Taylor and her life leading up to 2013.

[Claire R · Rating 5 out of 5]

I thought the book was very informative and told me a few things about Taylor that I did not know even though I know a lot about her because she is my favourite singer.
The book starts of telling you about her childhood. Then it goes on to tell you about how she started her career at such a young age. Also it goes on about her love life and what the critics say about her. In the book it includes some photos from her early childhood up until about early 2014. Read the biography to find out more

[Georgia Collins · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not my favourite. I liked how it gave a timeline of events, mentioned how her albums/songs did on the charts and what awards she won etc because I didn't actually know just how successful she'd been in terms of accolades. However, made a lot of claims about Taylor’s thoughts and feelings despite the fact she wasn’t part of the creation of this book? I feel like it’s an example of how media takes advantage of a celebrity’s personal life in the interest of money despite perpetrating a potentially false narrative and I’m not about that. Always nothing but 100% love for my girl Taylor.

[. (not active on this account stop adding me) · Rating 2 out of 5]

Instead of wasting 300 pages of this, I would recommend watching Taylor's Journey to Fearless. This entire book seems to be based off of that documentary and it doesn't brag on and on about Taylor's love life.

There's no distinct missing between whether this author is bias or supporting Taylor. The entire book seems to be based on small parts of how Taylor built up her career and the rest just goes into detail about her relationships.

[Claire Reid · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is a great book to read if you are interested to find out more about Taylor
Swift. I found it very interesting and I love Taylor Swift and I thought I already knew a lot about her but I realised that there were a few things that I did not know. It talks about her childhood awards and a whole lot more.
I recommend this book from 8 years and up because I think it would be interesting for anyone to read.

[Emily Rose · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was enjoyable to read however on the SECOND page the author say something clearly incorrect, stating Taylor has green eyes when just by looking at the cover you can see they're blue which makes me question the validity of the rest of the book, especially considering how many unnamed sources and "close sources" were used. I wish she had focused on known facts over gossip and speculation– there's enough known facts out there about Taylor Swift to fill a book, speculation is not needed.

[Hannah Langworthy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Really interesting. I learnt new things even though I'm a swifty myself.

[Carli · Rating 1 out of 5]

I didn't bother reading past the first few pages because of incorrect information! If you're going to write a book, get the facts right!