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I am going to make a controversial statement.
Hold tight to your pearls. Taylor Swift’s Reputation is her most romantic album and era. Lyrically, thematically, stylistically (is that a word? Whatever I stand by it.) I know. I know. Stick with me: The year is 2017. It's late summer. Taylor debuts Look What You Made Me Do. A hand bursts from a grave, and Zombie Taylor emerges to, indeed, tell us all what we made her do. I was days from giving birth, and thus, a distant Swiftie. My brain zoomed in about 700 other directions, and none of them had much time or energy to emulate Taylor’s sweet curly bangs or dig for clues on what this new album may contain. In her words, the old Taylor (was) dead. Okay, I said to TV Taylor. Let me know when the sparkles are back. Zombies and angry snakes aren’t my thing. Then I had a baby. And Swiftie-dom stretched farther away. (Though I did sing the baby to sleep borrowing a handful of Taylor songs, occasionally.) End Game didn’t make a blip on my radar, as much as I love a Taylor and Ed collab, but Delicate did elbow its way into my sleeplessness, mostly because I was desperately worried about Taylor’s bare feet in a subway. (Friends, I was a mom now. Obviously, I worry about disease everywhere.) Then the era was over, as far as I realized. I knew the tour happened, and if I’d thought of attending at all, the closest it got to South Dakota was Minneapolis…on my kid’s first birthday. Hard no-go. We all blinked, or at least I did, and we were scuttled into the Lover era. Taylor followed through on her promise to me the night Look What You Made Me Do debuted - she let me know when the sparkles were back: with a snake exploding into butterflies. I remember thinking: “you know, I’ll take it.” Through the Lover era and COVID, my kid started walking, talking, and sleeping mostly through the night. He developed a love for Taylor himself, and grew particularly fond of ME!, Shake It Off, and a handful of Folklore songs. As we adjusted to this New Normal (I hate that phrase), in more ways than one, I started my side-gig selling blind dates with a book, with a Taylor-twist: include a playlist of songs that add to the book’s plot, characters, pace. One day last March, a woman emailed me looking for a book dedicated just to Reputation. “It’s my best friend’s favorite,” she wrote. “I just want to make her happy with a really fun gift.” Of course, I typed back. No problem. Oh, friends, it was a problem. I was not, as they say, ‘ready for it’. I didn’t know a thing about Reputation, except that the fans named the giant snake Karen. So I did what all professionals do: I procrastinated for about a week, and finally late one night, I settled in with my headphones, and turned on Reputation. I had to find inspiration, or at least fake it. Right out of the gate, I hit the ceiling. Holy shit, the BRRRRM BRRRRM BRRRRM scared the crap outta me. Could we use more bass? Am I this old already? I’m only 36! What is happening? Then Taylor cleared her throat. Oh, I thought, relieved. There she is. Taylor wound her way to “And he can be my jailer, Burton to this Taylor,” and I snickered. I snickered. What a fun turn of phrase. So in her voice, so on brand, so … right. Fine, I allowed, as the song turned to End Game. Visions of the book I could create for my customer started to appear in vague visions: newspaper clippings, black stamps, dark emerald sparkles, hints of mauve, of the blackest black. I continued to let the album play: the forlornness of Delicate, the desperation of Getaway Car and Dancing with Our Hands Tied, the floaty fun of Gorgeous, and the sexy pop of Dress (which, by the way, contains one of Taylor’s best bridges, and I’ll stand by that until my own hand threatens to pop from the earth next to my gravestone). Holy crap, I thought. Reputation isn’t tragic or gritty, or even…heavy in a way I can’t carry. It's about falling in love. Those initial fears of commitment, when your sex drive is on high, and the other person can do no wrong, and you think you have every damn single thing in common and suddenly you’re in the back of a taxi squeezing their hand three times, because you…love them. It glows in the dark. That’s its whole point. Oh shit, I realized, about a month later, sitting at a stoplight next to a car wash, and while Dress and her bass reverberated through my seats. This is Taylor’s most romantic album. And I blew it off. I turned to my followers on Instagram, and posed this question: What, in your opinion, is Taylor’s most romantic album/era. Consider it lyrically, aesthetically, stylistically. Overwhelmingly, the response leaned Speak Now and Lover. Speak Now’s flowy purple dress and daydreams about boys and the future - obviously. Lover, with her pink and butterflies and sparkles and a dress made of bubble paint from which Benjamin Button purrs from atop - obviously. And I don’t disagree. But one comment - one single little comment rolled in, and it delighted me to my very toes: Anyone with ears knows its Reputation. (I’m not even the one who left that comment - I swear.) Fast forward yet again: just last night, I sat at my kid’s desi Lego table as we played cops and robbers with his Lego City Bank. The robbers are crafty little fellas - you can tell because their chins are covered in painted scruff. The cops have all of the tools they need to catch the bad guys robbing this bank: a net, a helicopter, a drone, plus my kid’s endless ingenuity and energy to play this game. But the bad guys? They have a getaway car. “Did you know Taylor’s got a song called Getaway Car?” My kid didn’t bother to look up, but the tips of his ears tinged pink, his dead giveaway for investment even when he wishes no one to know. “She does? Can I hear it?” I pulled up the Reputation Tour video, as my kid sent his police force into only-win situations to get the bad guys, but by the time Taylor hit the second chorus, he hummed along. As Taylor waved her arms poetically in the air like a sparkly bird and hit her poses with such grace I (not for the first time) longed to actually be her, my kid looked at the bad guy, splayed over the hood of his own getaway car, and draped the police’s net over the bank robber with more flare for the dramatic than what’s fair. (He is a Swiftie, after all.) “I like that song,” he told me later. “I like how she stole the keys.” Listen: Reputation is romantic. It’s not obvious in its romance, and there will never, ever be heart to be found in anything that claims to be of that era. It’s the little touches, surrounded by synth and base and giant, reclaimed snakes. The microscopic moments of intimacy: candle wax on the floor. Up on the roof drinking beer out of plastic cups. Starry eyes sparking up her darkest night. How she woke up just in time. I’m glad I did too.
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Society as we know it, falls into one of two very clear, divisive categories. Everyone has an opinion. Depending on where you live, that opinion borders on a political statement. It even came up at dinner with my family recently. The gossip, the fallout. Who’s lying? Who’s not? Who has something to hide? What’s he hiding? (My mother: invested. My dad: less so. My brother: OVER it, and the news cycle needs to move on. Me: Here for the…*checks notes* tea.)
You have to pick a side. You just do. So you tell me: are you sick of the British Royals? I keep thinking I should be. I should have been sick of them a year ago. But I like mess. I like big messes. I like big, arching, generation-spanning family drama that I can sink my teeth into and lose hours on Wikipedia. And this, as we all know, is a big. Damn. Mess. In the interest of being candid, I have not yet finished Spare, as much as I want to. The spoilers have been minimal, and for that I am grateful, but there’s something about Harry’s voice (the written voice, not his actual voice, which is also quite pleasant) that makes me keep reaching for the book, despite its weight, in both printed pages and consequence. It’s his candidness, I think. All of this was intended to remain behind palace walls for the rest of eternity, and now it's out, and that itself is fascinating. And here I thought the Kardashians were the most dysfunctional. I digress. Because talking about Spare is like wading into a tub of alligators, or a daycare room with a fistful of suckers you have no intention of sharing, I’d rather talk about other royal-themed books. (They’re fiction, though they may rely on reality for both reference to jewels and parts of well-trod history.) In the event that you’re not sick of the Royals, and may even be hosting a lil’ itch to spend more time in such a fanciful, stuffy, golden-plated world, I got you. THE ROYAL WE: Bex travels to Oxford for her studies. She’s from Chicago. A big ol’ Cubs fan, her dreams of seeing ‘em finally win are just as big dreams of finding herself overseas. Her family is of new money, and surprising absolutely no one, there ain’t much new money found at Oxford. In fact, most of her classmates come from very, very old money. Perhaps even from a nobler blood. Enter: Nick. He’s down to earth, and yeah, he’s got undercover bodyguards, but at university he’s so well insulated that they blend into the antique and well varnished woodwork. Nick has a little brother, a playboy, a dreamer, and a dad who’s pretty stuffy and hands-off, and a granny whose face is on printed currency. Whatever, Bex thinks. Life is short. Nick is chill. Nick is kind. Nick is easy to fall in love with. Nick is the heir to the British crown. And everything that goes with it. But the reality of dating the third in line is heavy on Bex’s head - much like a crown. Loving Nick comes with a price: relentless paps, flat-out wrong gossip, a list of ex-girlfriends that make much more sense on paper than Bex, the pressure of not ever stepping out of line, the panty hose and pumps and broaches the size of her face, the giving up of everything Bex has ever known. Bex agonizes: can she do it? Can she be herself, and be the future Queen? Of note: The Royal We was written by my two all-time favorite bloggers, Heather Cocks and Jessica Morgan, the Fug Girls, of Go Fug Yourself. They taught me that the Breton stripe has a name, a little lippy goes a long way (both on one’s lips and in sassiness) and that it’s entirely okay to still call Joshua Jackson “Pacey”. Also, they liked a tweet of mine once, and it knocked my socks right off. BUY HERE TAYLOR ERAS: Lover, Reputation + New Romantics THE HEIR AFFAIR: The sequel to The Royal We, without spoiling , picks right up in the days following the end of the first book. Family shenanigans evolve (Granny turns out to be quite the handful), secrets are uncovered, and Nick and Bex learn that there’s a timeline in place to produce yet another heir, but of course, it comes with difficulty. Bex continues to come to terms with more reality of thriving inside one of the world’s most famous institutions and businesses: what good is a family tree if the roots aren’t as tangled as the branches high above? BUY HERE TAYLOR ERAS: Folklore and Midnights AMERICAN ROYALS: The Revolutionary War happened. The colonies were freed. But rather than adopting the democracy we know today, George and Martha Washington were offered King and Queen, rather than President and First Lady. Today, the Washington family still rules America, and Princess Beatrice, a recent graduate of Kings College just down the road from the palace, finds herself preparing to become the country’s first Queen. Meanwhile, Bea’s siblings, Prince Jefferson and Princess Samantha run the royal roost, traveling, skipping class, falling in love, enjoying and questioning their lives - their freedom - as the heirs. While her siblings galavant all over, Princess Beatrice longs for freedom to marry the man she loves, who is absolutely not an option. When disaster hits the Washingtons, and America, Beatrice only then begins to appreciate what her father, the King, prepared her for. BUY HERE TAYLOR ERAS: 1989, Fearless (TV) + Long Live RED, WHITE, AND ROYAL BLUE: My favorite enemies-to-lovers novel of all time. I add Casey McQuisition’s book because it's so underground, so unheard of, so never-covered-on-TikTok, so not un-famous, so not mid-movie-filming, or special-edition-released, or so dearly beloved that it spawned many an Etsy shop with embroidered slogans from the book, that I wanted to be the first to tell you about this delightful underrated tale that no one's ever heard of. Wait, sorry? You’ve heard of it? History? Bet somebody made some. (Ifykyk.) BUY HERE TAYLOR ERAS: Midnights, Reputation, Red After Red, White, and Royal Blue exploded onto the scene - initially I couldn’t find a copy to save my life - I had a feeling a royal (sorry) onslaught of royal-themed books would come along. It happened. It wasn’t quite as intense as the vampire and supernatural teen love stories that bloomed overnight post Twilight, but take a walk through YA and some adult fiction aisles in bookstores now. If anything, Spare will rouse the royal-obsessed among us. Clearly, it sells. What’s your favorite book (fiction or not) featuring royals? I hate teenage heartbreak.
Hate it. So much. In reality, I get it. Everyone’s sixteen, hormones are raging, and statistically, if we all stayed with our OTPs from high school, 98% of us would be miserable. (I made up that stat, but I stand by it.) But I don’t YA read for reality. I read it for escape. To live the dream. And even more importantly, to avoid unnecessary heartache. And if teenagers do one thing reliably, it’s break their own hearts regularly. So if characters can manage to keep their hormones and their brains on (mostly) the same track, and not engage in truly Stupid Plot Anvils of Misunderstanding (trademark pending), I am intrigued. Ask my husband - my obsession with Riverdale Season 1 was…a lot. See: Betty and Jughead. In season one those two really nailed the whole Well, We’re Doing This, So Let’s Talk Through Our Shit and I ate it up. I was pregnant, calming my own erratic hormones with stories of teenage shenanigans and murder, and you know, in retrospect, it probably prepared me for motherhood on some warped level. (I jest. Kinda.) What I’m saying: inject that business into my veins because I can’t - I won’t - quit it. Consequently, I’m always on the hunt for fictional Communicating Teenagers Books. When I’m writing, I try to keep my characters talking effectively, because all I wanted when I was a teenager was to be recognized for how well I communicated and functioned within my relationships. (Spoiler, I didn’t, but I thought I did!) But well into adulthood, I continue to look for books that prove to me, if no one else, that I was that kid, that mini-adult who knew her own way around her thesaurus, as well as her heart. Here are a few of my favorite books, so far: Today, Tonight, Tomorrow, Rachel Lynn Solomon Know this: I love a Story-Within-24-Hours trope. People discover something deep within themselves, and bring it to light in less time than it takes for a day to pass? Bonus points if the bulk of the plot is overnight. AND on the last day of high school? With mortal enemies? I mean. Rowan and Neil have been at each other’s throats for all of high school, competing for Valedictorian, and just about everything else. After Neil is crowned, Rowan digs in and knows she absolutely must win Howl, a scavenger hunt dedicated to letting each senior class bid farewell to their childhood. Naturally, Neil is on her heels the entire time, and as the minutes tick by to sunrise, both Rowan and Neil begin to wonder if maybe they’ve had it wrong all along. Today, Tonight, Tomorrow is pitch perfect in terms of the main characters communicating. Even though they spend the first two thirds of the book bickering relentlessly, Rowan and Neil find their brand of bickering key to their communication style. (Sarcasm really should be declared a language.) Later, during a scene in which I will not spoil, but has stuck with me for a long time, there is very clear direction about what Rowan asks from Neil in her, uh, moment of need. And you know what - telling your partner what you need in the bedroom is crucial at every stage, and it's also incredibly impressive coming from an 18-year-old woman. TAYLOR SWIFT ERAS: Lover, with a side of 1989 BUY IT HERE Fangirl, Rainbow Rowell Woman after my own heart, Cath loves fanfiction. Every day, she has a new opportunity to not, oh, correct the source material, but fluff it up a bit. Dig in deeper on the Simon Snow world, and add meat to relationships where it's looking lean. She’s even got a LOT of followers online - while in high school, she accumulated nearly the readership of her beloved Simon Snow series…but now Cath is at college. And in real life, when she looks up from her ever-present laptop - fanfiction is pretty nerdy. (Or entirely unacceptable, according to her creative writing professor.) Also, Wren, her twin sister, is a mess. And her roommate might hate her? And her once-vanished mom is back in the picture? And there’s a boy interested in … her? Cath is a glorious writer, even though no one knows it because of her pen name. But when she’s gotta use her voice, man, that part’s killer. As the novel progresses, and we see why Cath’s twin is partying too hard, and why Cath over-corrected and shut herself in her room with Simon Snow and her fanfiction, it becomes clear why she best channels her voice through someone else’s story. The level of protection, of never having to entirely own yourself or anything you put into the world is cathartic. Dizzying. We watch Cath come into her own, and begin to not only hear her own voice, but understand the roots of what she’s capable of creating, if she simply lets herself. But also - back to the boy, and the romance hook. Levi is dreamy. He listens. He asks. What is with all of these new adults running around with confidence enough to tell their partners what they need? I am here for it. If I drug my knuckles on the sidewalk at seventeen so these girls could walk, so the next generation can run, godspeed, lovelies. You go get what you want. TAYLOR SWIFT ERAS: Fearless (TV) and Speak Now BUY IT HERE My Life Next Door, Huntley Fitzpatrick Samantha understands that the grass is always greener - particularly as she watches the Garretts next door from her bedroom window. Sure, the Garretts always let their grass get too long and trampled from the basketball team-sized family they have. With that many people coming and going every day, it's a miracle they have grass at all. And yet…Samantha cannot get enough of daydreaming she’s in their family. She’d never eat dinner alone. Yeah, the WiFi would run slower, and the water heater would probably never be as hot as prefers, but the pure silence of her house would never overwhelm her either. It helps that Jase, the boy closest to her age, is also the dreamiest. When Samantha and Jase do connect, and fall in love (hardly a spoiler, I promise), her welcoming into the family is real and warm and right. She doesn't just love Jase - she loves all of them. So when Samantha’s own mother - who by the way is running for political office - accidentally yanks the Garretts and her daughter into her a scandal big enough to swallow lives whole, Samantha has two choices: use that voice her mom gave her and ruin their lives, or keep her mother’s secret, and ruin the Garrett family. The back third of this book is addicting. I feared blinking. I drank it in like a coconut vanilla latte. I swear it swam through my veins for a few hours. I had to know how Samantha and Jase would solve this. I needed them to talk their way to their happily ever after, and I needed them to start that happily ever after before the book’s climax, because I swear - there is nothing better than a couple figuring out the family secrets together, being aghast together…and then fixing it together. That shit is balm to the part of my heart that’s still 17, and watching his red sports car swirl up orange and brown leaves in the gutters, as the taillights grow fuzzy and disappear in a veil of dust. I wasn’t disappointed. (In My Life Next Door, that is.) TAYLOR SWIFT ERAS: Red (TV), with a sprinkling of Folklore and a dab of Sweet Nothing and Lavender Haze. BUY IT HERE. In short - what's the point of writing a novel, if you're going to avoid the characters' very real need to discuss what's going on in their minds? Teenagers especially are prone to voicing their ongoing thoughts with those they trust deeply, and those people tend to be their friends and partners. The most unreliable thing I find in YA literature is when a character - a person - doesn't use their voice, and the plot keeps toiling away without them. Teenagers talk. They analyze, dive deep, look for deeper meaning in everything. Why stop them for the sake of the plot? Move the plot with the character. It'll make me happy, anyway. What do you think? Have you read any of these books? What’s your favorite YA romance? Hi. It’s me.
Oh, wait. I don’t have the Cher-Madonna-Taylor effect. I guess that makes sense. I’ll try again. Hi. I’m Stephanie. I own The World All Around Book Shoppe and opened my Etsy-hosted doors in November, 2021. The shop, and my business plan, launched as a Blind Date with a Book service - I offered a few genres, mostly stuff I read, or had intended to read, but never jumped off my TBR into my hands. My product came from everything I stress bought during the various quarantines we endured, laying low at home. I’m a stress-shopper, particularly when it comes to books. New, well-loved, paperback, hard cover, weird, slightly water-rippled, ripped, perfect condition - I’m there. (It continues to be an ongoing problem, but at least now, I have the outlet!) But I had to do something with all of these books I wasn’t going to read. I may not be a pureist about the condition of my books, (hello, library binding, welcome to my personal stash), but I do care that the books go to people who will love them. I swear they have souls. I just swear it. So, Etsy it was. I wrapped the books up in brown paper, scribbled hints in black Sharpie, and mailed them out. And it was a lot of fun. So much fun that my brain - which never stills, I must warn you - started turning over new ideas with this cute little shop. How to grow. How to make my time investment worth it, if you will. So here’s how I sold over 500 books in a year. All my research was telling me I needed a niche. (Btw - how do you pronounce it? Neesh? NiCH? Inquiring minds shall never settle, or agree.) Regardless of pronunciation, I needed one. It played in my head as often as my highly curated Taylor Swift playlist drums through my earbuds and car speakers and kitchen radio. It’s obvious now. Both with my business model crafted, and after analyzing the numbers and gauging excitement, particularly after the holiday rush this year. But in January, 2022, going mostly-Inspired-By Taylor was a little bit of a gamble. Would I alienate my customers who are not as, er… Swift-tacularr? Would anyone get it when I call her TSwizzle in copy? Would I be judged because I really hate Bad Blood, but I didn’t hate the whole Spelling is Fun fiasco?) QUESTIONS. I had ‘em. My worries were for nought. The Bookish Taylor niche fit. The audience is there. They call themselves Bookish Swifties, for the most part, and I’m hesitant to step on the hashtag because I worry about becoming an infomercial, but the audience, it’s there. You’re there. Here. You’re here. And I'm basically the embodiment of Taylor and her 765 dancers in ME! in pastel suits and swinging briefcases. (See. Told you. Niche.) But I couldn’t go Full-Taylor right away. I had to scale it. (I’m still scaling it. Scaling it is your friend as an entrepreneur.) Burnout is REAL, and as a victim of burn out in my twenties, I gotta warn you - small business ownership isn’t for the faint of heart. Once the floodgates open for ideas, be ready, because they’re going to crash like a waterfall. When you start seeing ideas, it's hard to turn them off. And you’re (probably) only one person or have a small staff. Protect your time, and your energy, and almost most importantly - that excitement. It's what carries you through the harder times. Plus - why blow all your good ideas at once? Curate that shit, make it as amazing (and profitable!) as possible before you release it to the world. Which leads me to: those good ideas? Those flashes of inspiration when you’re picking your kid up from daycare or pumping gas or waiting for the guy tucking your groceries into your trunk to slam the lid and give you the thumbs up in the rearview mirror? Write that shit down. Try to get context down too. My most intriguing thoughts are usually rooted in sleep deprivation (which is gigantically unfortunate), but I strive to record my harebrained ideas in my Notes app. Google Docs is amazing, basic, and it's embarrassing how late I am to the Google Docs party. (The raging introvert that I am knows that in some ways, it's better to be late to the party, because then no one notices you’re here, and you can eavesdrop to your heart’s content.) Heading into small business ownership, I was convinced by my (very incorrect) assumption that entrepreneurs are mostly extroverted. How else do businesses grow than for people to march out into the world and Sell Their Wares, you know? I was super wrong, as first pointed out to me in Why Introverts Make Successful Entrepreneurs by Caroline Castrillon at Forbes, published in January, 2022. (Do me a favor and ignore the Elon Musk, shout out please.) How is this possible, I questioned. Alas - and I know this intimately - introverts are creative. They tend not to act on impulse. They listen and have passion. And those tendencies are absolutely key to business ownership. Impulse-control is real. (Don’t ask Elon Musk now, or anyone still at Twitter.) But it's crucial, no matter your place on the Myers-Briggs Personality Type Indicator, to know your resources, your village, your safe space. Close your eyes. You know who will help you lock the door, shut your computer off, hand you a chestnut-praline latte with a huge bag of peanut butter M&Ms and binge Bridgerton Season 2 (again) with you when you’re too overwhelmed, right? (Was that too specific? Let’s just say my safe people are legendary in their support.) Know who can - and will - help you. And ask for it. And finally - do regular self check-ins. Do you need a break? Where are you carrying the stress in your body? Are you snapping at your support system? Is your mental health suffering? Where can you pull back for a minute? Is there anyone else who can carry a load you feel like you may be dropping externally? People want to help. Let them. So, hi. It’s me. Stephanie, small business owner, massive Swiftie, copywriter, novelist, reader, millennial mom, former 90’s kid. I hope I’m not the problem, and moreover, I hope I’m a solution for your gift giving needs, or at least a damn good book recommendation, with, most likely, an Inspired-By Taylor playlist. Follow along at: Instagram: @worldallaroundbooks TikTok: @worldallaroundbooks Etsy: https://www.etsy.com/shop/WorldAllAroundBooks Hi! In the true tradition of very part-time blogging from just about every millennial human ever: it's been a hot minute since I hopped on here! There was a pandemic, there was life, there was a ton of excuses and blah blah whatever-blah.
Long, pointless story short: I've been up to a lot! I opened an Etsy store! I finished my second book! I started book reviewing for Net Galley! I started a new 8-5! I finally got the COVID (in June, 2022, so take that!) And now, I'm in the process of figuring out how to put this all together, under one banner. The creative writing. The copywriting. The book reviews. The Etsy. Oh, the Etsy of it all. Moving forward, you'll mostly find book reviews here, with miscellaneous announcements and blog posts from me, when things get extra interesting. In the sage words of the one and only Taylor Swift: long story short, I survived. And I'll be back again, and this time - I promise. |
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