TAYLOR SWIFT

An unabashed panegyric for swooning fans of the pop singer.

Looking lit from within in Stone’s emblematic scenes, Taylor Swift certainly makes good on her surname as she goes from a barefoot child running through her family’s Christmas tree farm and “creating magical memories” to a 16-year-old recording artist and then on to near-instant pop deification. The illustrator depicts Swift serving cookies to a small diverse group of fans and writing songs in fountain, glitter, and quill pens. Swift performs her hits for millions of adoring fans, cradles an armful of Grammy Awards, cuddles a cat, and displays an “I voted” sticker on her cardigan as a rainbow banner flows behind her. Amid quick mentions of her family’s move to Nashville, where she was discovered, and her decision to re-record several early albums to regain control of her music, Wainer threads in meaningful observations about how her songs make “sparks fly,” reflect “the enchantment of first love, friends and bad blood,” and highlight the importance of “shaking off criticism.” Her tumultuous love life goes unexamined, to the likely disappointment of many, but the author does clearly lay out Swift’s proven credentials as a writer as well as performer and concludes with a suitably rapturous message: “There’s no stopping Taylor. She has so many stories left to tell.”

Haters gonna hate, but for the rest, here’s a real-life fairy tale in which our wildest dreams come true.