Stars Around My Scars: The Annotated Poetry of Taylor Swift

Amazing deep dive into some of Swifts best lyrics. From her early years to her most recent TTPD, the author covers songs from each Era, delivering new insights and ways to read deeper into the lyrics of our modern day Shakespeare or Plath.

Bought this after seeing someone else review it and I’m so happy I got it :) I love looking at Taylor lyrics from a new lens!!! This is a great gift for swifties

Nice

Interesting subject matter. I love TS and her music so this was a natural fit for me. The book was a little difficult to read digitally due to the size of the pages. It was also weird to zoom in and read it in pieces. The actual book is much easier to read. Enjoyed this one.

It would be a nice gift for the swifty fan in your life. I didn't really care too much for it. It's written in a journal style.

Excellent book. She shares Taylor’s lyrics and writes annotations on each song. 🎶 it is a great concept. All Swifties NEED this book. Throughly enjoyable.

Amazing and insightful read

As a long-time Taylor fan, unfortunately I found a lot of this analysis to be either very basic, or to be reading in to the text where it’s not warranted.An example of basic explanation, or what I might call “well, duh” moments:The annotation informing us that “He said the way my blue eyes shined put those Georgia stars to shame that night / I said that’s a lie” is a refusal to accept a compliment. I mean… yes? I think anyone who is physically capable of reading the lyric can understand that she is refusing the compliment. This type of annotation examines neither “poetic technique, literary references, [nor] creative throughlines”.An example of “reading in where it’s not warranted”:The author says that “I hope you think of me” in Tim McGraw foreshadows Wildest Dreams’ “say you’ll remember me” line. Is it really foreshadowing if the latter song was written ~6-8ish years later, and the lyrics to TMG were written without any concept of WD? To my somewhat-untrained eye, it doesn’t feel like foreshadowing at all. 😕I recognize that between myself and Dr. McCausland only one of us has a PhD in Literature, but idk… a lot of these “annotations” felt like filler or obvious explanations to cash in on Swiftie-mania, not the deep dive promised in the product description.