Released in 2006, Taylor Swift is where it all started. It was also the album that made me fall in love with Taylor Swift as a kid. It was hard to pick a book that I felt captured the feeling of this album. She’s a teenage girl falling in love and figuring out who she is, and there are so many books that could fit this idea. I landed on The Summer of Broken Rules because the main character, Meredith, gets dumped by her boyfriend and has to attend a week of wedding festivities. While coming to terms with her sister’s death and her breakup, Meredith rediscovers her spark and finds love along the way. From breakup songs like “Picture to Burn” to classic love songs like “Our Song” to the girlhood anthem that is “A Place in this World,” Taylor Swift is the perfect match for this book.
Fearless is, in my opinion, the quintessential high school romance album, and what better book to pair it with than the YA rom-com of all rom-coms, Better Than the Movies? I know most people might think of Lover for this book, but I feel that this album perfectly describes both the original book and the sequel. Liz and Wes are the epitome of songs like “Fearless” in the first book, and the breakup songs like “Breathe” sound like they were written for the sequel. Swift perfectly captures the lost, heartbroken feeling that Painter writes of at the beginning of Nothing Like the Movies. This album was truly written for Liz and Wes.
Speak Now was my favorite album when I was younger, and I thought I would struggle to match it with a book. However, after looking at the track list, I instantly knew I wanted to pair it with the Once Upon a Broken Heart series by Stephanie Garber. In the first few chapters alone, the main character, Evangeline, enlists Jacks’ help to stop the wedding of the man she loves to another girl, just like the song “Speak Now.” Evangeline and Jacks have a tumultuous relationship filled with obstacles, but they have such chemistry. Songs like “Sparks Fly” and “Enchanted” could be used to describe their love. At their lowest moments in the series, “Haunted” captures the raw emotion of loss felt by Jacks. In almost every song on this album, I can point to a part of this series that it connects to.
Red was the hardest album to match with a book for me. As the breakup album, it doesn’t quite fit a rom-com or the budding romance of a fantasy series. I landed on A Court of Thorns and Roses (and the beginning of A Court of Mist and Fury). While I know many consider the series to be new adult, I think the first book could still be considered young adult. Feyre goes through a horrible breakup with Tamlin, and so many of the songs from Red match the situation, like “Better Man,” “All Too Well (10 Minute Version),” and “We Are Never Getting Back Together.” On the other hand, her slowly forming romance with Rhysand reminds me of songs like “Treacherous” and “Begin Again.” I haven’t seen people make this connection, but I encourage everyone who has read this series to listen to “Treacherous” with Rhys and Feyre in mind. It’s as if it was written for them.
The Summer I Turned Pretty is all anyone can talk about right now, with the final season coming to an end in a few weeks. The TV show is closely associated with countless Taylor Swift songs, but a key moment in the first season used “This Love” from 1989. The book series itself is also such a great fit for this album. Because of the iconic album cover, most people associate this album with visuals of the beach, which is where The Summer I Turned Pretty takes place. Along with “This Love,” songs like “All You Had to Do Was Stay,” “I Wish You Would,” and “Clean” describe the feelings of characters like Conrad and Belly in emotional scenes from the series.
For me, the only option for reputation was the Throne of Glass series. This album was made for all of the strong female characters in fantasy and dystopian book series, fighting for their lives while finding love along the way. Aelin, much like Swift describes, has a big reputation that scares many people away. She’s strong and dangerous and independent, finding and losing love more than once in the series. When she least expects it, she finds Rowan, the king of her heart. From “King of My Heart” to “Dress” to “Don’t Blame Me,” just about every song on this album describes either Aelin, Rowan, or both. Just like reputation, Aelin is tough on the outside but a romantic on the inside.
While it might be a controversial opinion to not use Better Than the Movies for Lover, I’ve chosen another book by Lynn Painter, Betting On You. You could take almost any rom-com and compare it to Lover because it is the romance album. In many ways, Bailey and Charlie fit its track list. “It’s Nice to Have a Friend” was one of the first songs that came to mind when I thought about them. Bailey needed a friend more than anything as she struggled to come to terms with her mom’s new boyfriend, and Charlie was there for her. Songs like “Afterglow” also describe Charlie’s feelings after making mistakes before falling for Bailey. Betting on You is an underrated Lynn Painter book that captures the whirlwind of teenage love and fake dating, and it’s a perfect match for Lover.
It is no surprise that my favorite book series happened to be a perfect pairing for my favorite Taylor Swift album. The Infernal Devices and folklore are two peas in a pod, in my opinion. Not only do they both feature iconic love triangles, but many of the songs highlight how hard it can be to love. Lyrics like “Don’t want no other shade of blue but you” from “Hoax” sound as if they were written about Will Herondale and Tessa Gray. Will is not an easy man to love, and Tessa goes through a lot of heartbreak over him. Many of the songs that talk about personal struggles, such as “mirrorball” and “this is me trying,” remind me so much of Will. In “peace,” you can find both Will’s and Jem’s confessions of love for Tessa. In a purely aesthetic observation, the vibes of the album signal historical fiction to me, and the perpetually cloudy setting of 1878 London in The Infernal Devices matches the atmosphere of folklore.
I already established that folklore fits the historical fiction genre, so it’s no surprise that I would also pair evermore with more of Cassandra Clare’s historical fiction. In the same way that evermore is the sequel to folklore, The Last Hours is the sequel series to The Infernal Devices. There are so many characters in this series with intricate storylines, and they each fit different songs. Matthew Fairchild, who struggles with alcohol and unrequited love, is the epitome of the song “champagne problems.” There are instances of forbidden love, heartbreak, and being stuck with the wrong person. James Herondale could have written “long story short” himself based on his experiences. The overall feeling of the album just fits. So many stories are being told, and there is so much emotional turmoil, yet love still prevails.
In a land of witches, witch hunters, and a true enemies-to-lovers romance, Heartless Hunter is the perfect match for Midnights. The main character, Rune, is an actual vigilante who rescues witches from being killed by their government, making her the embodiment of “Vigilante S**t.” She is also doing this all with no family and almost no support system, and I see much of her in “You’re On Your Own, Kid.” Rune falls for Gideon Sharpe, a witch hunter, but they both start dating each other for the sake of an investigation. In many ways, they are the song “Mastermind.” They swap between enemies and lovers for most of the duology, and their romance is reminiscent of “Lavender Haze,” “The Great War,” and “Midnight Rain,” depending on what part of the book you’re at.
The Tortured Poets Department was not the easiest album to match to a book series because Taylor herself goes through multiple stages throughout the album. In the end, I landed on the Shatter Me series, a personal favorite of mine. Much like Taylor Swift, Juliette’s first relationship in the series is not her forever relationship. Her relationship with Adam can be compared to “Fortnight.” As the series continues and Juliette grows and becomes stronger, she starts developing feelings for Aaron Warner instead, reminding me of “Guilty as Sin?” While her relationship with Warner can be described with songs like “My Boy Only Breaks His Favorite Toys,” “Down Bad,” and “Fresh Out the Slammer,” Juliette’s character development and strength are reminiscent of “Who’s Afraid of Little Old Me?”. The girl who starts the series locked in a cage eventually topples the entire empire that tried to contain her, and what’s more fitting for that song than an underestimated woman on a mission?
I hope you all enjoyed my comparisons between Taylor Swift’s albums and some of my favorite books and series. I know there are countless books that could be compared to her albums, so I encourage everyone to think about what bookish relationships remind them of Taylor Swift as she ends her search for the one.
Sam Yanis, Pine Reads Review Lead Writer