Book Recs for the Reputation Era!

Seeing as how Taylor Swift’s Reputation tour kicks off today I thought I’d do a recommendation list of books that go will with this particular album/era.

Some go well with the album overall. Some go well with certain songs on the album and others are just about women embracing their reputations but also writing their own stories and in some cases about how we only know so many people by their reputations or our ideas of them and never really know the whole true person.

Gone Girl

Amongst other things Amy Dunne cannot escape the shadow of the perfect daughter- stories her parents wrote about her childhood and spends much of her time trying to play the parts everyone wants her to, including her shadowy husband, until the day she disappears.

A Game of Thrones/Look What You Made Me Do

People have done Youtube videos about how the lyrics of this song apply so well to so many characters on the show. Especially the female characters.

“I got smarter, I got harder in the nick of time honey, I rose up from the dead I do it all the time…”

“I got a list of names and yours is in red underlined…”

The Lady in Red

An aristocratic woman with a much-talked about love life turned into shocking court case that kept the gossip rags in business and this was way back in the 18th century. People generally had more fun talking about and trashing Lady Worsley for what they thought they knew than anything else.

Big Little Lies

Another “appearances are everything” story about several female friends who reputations hide much larger or darker secrets and in Janes case, the reputation set for her by others colors her and her sons experiences after moving to this new place. Yet not even until the end do the friends really know the truth about each other.

Circe

In her youth she loves the wrong person lashes out (big time) and winds up banished by her father and Zeus doomed to spend eternity alone on this island. One of my favorite lines in Circe is when she calls out what the poets did because they have to have the women “crawling and weeping.”

Would be interesting to see what would be said about Circe in the time of social media? Probably oh, that man eating witch keeping Odysseys away from his poor sweet good-natured wife.

The Princess Diarist

A woman who has had quiet a lot written about her and then took over the narrative and began to write it herself. All the while sharing her mental health issues and helping other people understand they too can get through whatever life might throw at them.

Also a woman who was great with a quick comeback. Taylor Swift just waits a couple of years and puts hers into songs 🙂

The Cruel Prince

Jude would probably love it if her Instagram where lit up with snake icons because quiet frankly she would like to have a certain reputation. Prince Cardan has one that he very much lives up to in the beginning of the book- no excuses for his behavior- but it might be hiding darker things she never would have imagined.

Paper Towns

Margo Roth Spiegelman is our narrators dream girl. She’s got a reputation at school for being fun, wild and adventurous but when she disappears then it might come to pass that no one ever really knew or understood Margo- even those who were convinced they did. Even those who thought they saw everything.

#Girlboss

Well, Sophia Amoruso has had some issues since I read this book. But it’s still a good read about how to take a hobby of something you enjoy doing and turn it into a business beyond imagination. (While you have it.)