Emma’s Reviews > Taylor Swift by the Book: The Literature Behind the Lyrics, from Fairy Tales to Tortured Poets > Status Update

This is a weird hill to die on but I’m having a hard time getting past the book making no mention of Stevie Nicks in relation to TTPD and specially Clara Bow. She gave her blessing. She’s in the CD materials. She’s named in Clara Bow ffs. If you are mentioning patty smith in TTPD not mentioning Stevie nicks in Clara bow feels really sloppy and truly bizarre.

As an object the book is beautiful. Lots of fun layouts and illustrations.

I also didn’t love the cherry picking with the real life details. We get a mention (without main names) of the feud with Kanye but we don’t get a mention of thank you Aimee actually spelling out Kim? What?

One review (which did feel a little sour grapes) pointed out how it was an odd choice to do like by line analysis instead of looking at songs or even albums as a whole. I think that’s true in some cases. It felt piecemeal.

This felt like a crash course through swift and reminiscent of what I’d expect from any of the college courses cropping up about swifts work. I wish it had come out later to include showgirl as I’d be curious about the layers there.

Wait. Did the analysis of Clara Bow just skip over Stevie Nicks? What?????