emma lovewell book review

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Emma lovewell’s new book is a love letter to her wellness journey so far — & yours too.

by Katherine Speller

Katherine Speller

Health & Sex Editor

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“I’m a big believer in loving yourself to success, and that requires being kind and patient with yourself. You cannot hate yourself into change; you must love yourself into greatness,” Lovewell writes. “Give yourself the time and care you need to really blossom into the best version of you.”

There are a few stand-out parts of this book, but I kept coming back to how Lovewell uses her life-long love of gardening (inherited from her mother, a professional gardener) to help people better understand her self-care philosophy and all the valuable lessons she’s learned from that tactile, nurturing work. It gets to the root (pun not intended) of her approach to wellness and fitness: It takes time, love and attention to grow the things you love. (And your own self deserves to be considered one of those things!)

“We all need different things to reach new heights. I’ve learned over the years that being around other creative people is my very own version of sunshine, water, and good soil. I also require regular exercise, vegetables, my partner, Dave, meditation, laughter, cats, my family, dancing, art, visits to the ocean, traveling, music, and my entire Peloton community (you boost my spirits every day),” Lovewell writes. “… After years of cultivating my garden and my life, I do know the basics of what I really need to thrive. If you feel like something is standing between you and massive growth, it might be time to get dirty. Dig into the raw materials of your life.Make decisions about where you want to foster growth and what needs to be cut away. Be observant, look for places where the sun shines brightest in your life, and seek out what nurtures you. You can have many different gardens, but you only get one life to tend . Make it big, make it beautiful, but, most of all, enjoy your time in the dirt.” With encouragement like that, you can’t help but want to get a little dirty.

You can pick up your own copy of Live Learn Love Well: Lessons from a Life of Progress Not Perfection online and in book stores now!

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Simple, delicious, & balanced living.

Cultivating a well-balanced life through healthy food and an active lifestyle.

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Shop the lovewell collection, a hike to remember.

I’m happy to share some personal news: Dave and I got engaged 🙂 So we have been celebrating this milestone with each other, and with our closest friends and family. If you want a moment of lightness and love, then keep reading for our engagement story.

Live Learn Love Well: Lessons from a Life of Progress Not Perfection

A memoir chronicling Emma Lovewell’s incredible path to physical―and mental―fitness that traces her journey to becoming a beloved Peloton instructor and inspires readers to live, learn, and love well.

Fall Decorating Ideas

I’ve been using my garden as inspiration for my fall décor. I always love the concept of merging the inside and the outside, and by bringing pieces of my garden inside, it means I can enjoy all those benefits, with none of the frostbite.

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Professional writing profile of Marjorie Clayman

Book Review: Live Learn Love Well, by Emma Lovewell

by Margie Clayman

I joined Peloton I guess about two years ago? Three? Time is confusing ever since COVID. Anyway, I joined because my best friend was super into it and she wanted me to share in the experience, so I joined up for her birthday. Weird, perhaps, but she knew my motives were good. One of the first instructors I did a class with was Emma Lovewell. Based on good experiences I opted to do her Crush Your Core program, a semi-brutal core workout series that I hoped would result in me finally being able to do a sit-up unassisted. That didn’t happen, but I really came to admire Ms. Emma and her relaxed style (and her obvious addiction to Janet Jackson). When I started following Emma on Instagram I learned about her gardening, and I decided I want to be her when I grow up. Reading her book gave me a chance to get to know her better.

Overall Experience: Reading this book is like having one of those confessional lunches with a new friend, except it’s all one way – Emma sharing her life. The good and the bad are all in there. I was sad the chapters were so short, and I was sad when the book ended.

Big Take-Away: There are a lot of great messages in this book that could easily help you lift your chin up on a tough day. These include:

• Mark your goals in pencil. They’re things you can strive for, but life is life so adjustments may be necessary.

• Any day can be <one of> your best days. You don’t have to reserve “the best day of my life” for a big occasion.

• Breathing is good. Being in the moment is good. Whether you are exercising, gardening, reading, or doing nothing, be there with it.

• Don’t create a lumpy rug of held back emotions. Work them out and don’t give yourself something to trip over later.

Where to Buy: You can purchase the book on Amazon (not an affiliate link). It is also available on Audible.

Who Should Read It: I would say the might may have more meaning for someone who has done some Peloton classes with Emma, just because you see a continuity between how she presents herself in her classes, online, and in the book. However, I think the book would be a great gift for someone having a rough time for whatever reason. You know the spoiler – it’s a happy ending. How Emma got there is inspirational though.

Give it a read or a listen and let me know what you think.

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Peloton Instructor Emma Lovewell Reveals How a $50 Craigslist Job Ad Changed Her Life (Exclusive)

In an exclusive excerpt from her upcoming memoir Live Learn Love Well , the fitness star reveals how taking a chance on a low-paying gig paved the way to her dream career

One of the key points in Emma Lovewell's new book Live Learn Love Well: Lessons From a Life of Progress Not Perfection is a simple concept — success is not linear.

"There [are] a lot of interesting ups and downs; I think some things that people might relate to," Lovewell told PEOPLE about her book in October 2022 while exclusively revealing its cover. "Coming from a pretty affluent town, but not coming from a lot of money, working my way through college and trying to make it in the big city."

It was while she was in her 20s, trying to find a career that would play to her strengths that she took a risk and answered the Craigslist ad – to pose for a personal trainer's website. She didn't take one giant leap from that to becoming a Peloton instructor , but the photographer from that shoot suggested that she become a fitness model. In 2011 she signed on to the Wilhelmina model agency, which led to her posing for brands like Under Armour and Athleta.

In 2012, she shot a Kickstarter commercial for Peloton, then a start-up company. Little did Lovewell know that, just five years later, she'd film her first ride as an instructor for the company. Though it would take a few years and twists and turns, that $50 little Craigslist gig set her on the path.

She says it was all about "meeting the right people, being in the right place at the right time." "Meeting the photographer there, who set me up with the next thing, the next thing and the next thing," Lovewell says.

"It all ties in. The fact that when I was a struggling dancer in New York City, I was working alongside some of my Peloton colleagues at the time. We didn't know 10 years later we'd all be working at a multi-billion-dollar company."

A week before its May 2 release, Lovewell shares an exclusive excerpt with PEOPLE from Live, Learn, Love Well , her catchphrase, brand and now memoir title. She says, "I think hearing some of my stories about taking sideways steps, or back steps, or failing, and then finding success, will be really helpful, I hope, to readers who might feel stuck."

As a fitness coach, I see how saying yes to small things leads to big results over time. Committing to the Crush Your Core program is like saying yes to being stronger. Eating vegetables with every meal is saying yes to a healthier body and digestive system! Of course, exercise and nutrition won't bring instant results, but over time the small changes can add up to something significant. Saying yes often means a leap of faith, because we can't always forecast what the results will be. I understand the desire to know how a choice might impact you down the road, but sometimes it's in the unknown where we find some of life's biggest wins. Magical things can happen when you say yes and open yourself up to new possibilities.

One of the many risky Craigslist ads that I responded to was for a gig as a model for a personal trainer's website. The ad was looking for a female athlete who was comfortable at the gym and willing to show their stomach and abs. It paid fifty dollars. But I responded anyway, thinking maybe it would pay for a nice dinner! I ended up booking the gig and showed up to the set in the photographer's apartment in Long Island City. Luckily the job was legit, and the personal trainer and the photographer were kind and professional. This shoot ended up changing my life.

The photographer was Jay Sullivan, the same photographer who shot the cover of this very book (life really does come full circle sometimes). He was mostly a lifestyle and headshot photographer at the time, but as we started talking, he admitted that he was trying to get more into fitness photography. He noticed that the fitness industry was really taking off and that there were tons of brands looking for fitness photos, from publications like Women's Health , Fitness Magazine , and Men's Journal to fitness and fashion brands like Tory Burch, Under Armour, and Athleta. I told him I was trained as a dancer, and he said to me, "Have you ever thought about being a model?" I thought, Me? Really? While I have plenty of confidence in my appearance, in a million years I would never have imagined myself as a model.

But when I thought more about it, I realized that, as a dancer, I already felt comfortable onstage and in front of a camera and knew that I took direction well. I had those skills. I also knew I was always filled with judgement when I would see an ad for a major brand with a "dancer" leaping in the photo with the same arm and leg forward, and a sickled foot. I would always shake my head and think, "Wow, they should have hired a real dancer for that shoot." I listened to Jay's words and took them very seriously. Yes, I should give this a try.

Jay invited me to come back to do a test shoot so we could create images for my first-ever portfolio. I showed up a few weeks later to Long Island City at five in the morning so we could shoot during the warm light of sunrise. Running along the boardwalk next to the water, and then stopping out of breath and sweaty, looking off into the distance: These were all "fitness-y" moves that I learned that day. These photos got printed on nine-by-eleven-inch photo paper at Adorama and then placed into the leather portfolio with my name emblazoned on it that I had purchased from the House of Portfolios.

I got signed by Wilhelmina Models within their fitness division (and ended up working with them for seven years). It was one of the most significant things that ever happened to me and really launched me into the fitness community in New York City. In just a few weeks with the agency, I was flying around the country doing photoshoots for Athleta and Under Armour, where I learned the minutiae of the job, like how to turn the left side of my abdomen a fraction of an inch so the photographer could get the most muscle definition for the shot. I made connections with brands, I learned about how the business works, and for the first time I felt confident that there was success in my future, even if I didn't know exactly what that looked like. I was starting to believe my world would consist of more than a long string of low-paying jobs; I could almost see an end to the hustle and stress. And in 2012, I did a Kickstarter commercial shoot for a fitness start-up company called Peloton. I did the job in a day, acting as a home rider who took a class on their new at-home stationary bike. The premise was "hop on your bike at home and then get completely transported into a live energetic in-studio class." I had no idea how important this shoot would be someday.

That yes to a fifty-dollar Craigslist ad led me to enormous opportunities. It's eventually what landed me where I am today. While it would be years (and many more jobs) before I would join the Peloton team as a cycling instructor, I was finally seeing how all the different parts of me could potentially fit together into a career where I would thrive.

The next and crucial piece came when I made a promise to myself that I would stop bartending and find a career that highlighted my strengths by the time I was twenty-eight. Just six months before that crucial birthday I got a call from a friend. "Emma, so I've been teaching cycling classes at this studio. They're looking for new people, and by the way, they offer health insurance." That was the YES moment that led to my very first job as a cycling instructor…promise to self – kept!

This excerpt was taken from Live Learn Love Well: Lessons from a Life of Progress Not Perfection by Emma Lovewell published by Ballantine Books.

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• Book Excerpt

Emma Lovewell Reflects on Navigating Friendships as a Mixed-Race Kid: "I Felt Self-Conscious"

Published on 5/3/2023 at 1:00 PM

Emma Lovewell is best known for her work as a Peloton instructor whose mantra, "Live, learn, love well," is a mainstay of her classes. Now, she has just released a memoir — "Live Learn Love Well: Lessons From a Life of Progress Not Perfection" — that reveals how she came to that ethos.

In this excerpt from her memoir, Lovewell talks about how her mixed-race identity has been a crucial part of her journey. Growing up biracial (she's half Taiwanese), Lovewell had a hard time navigating friendships — a common theme for many mixed-race kids. Read the excerpt ahead, and explore all of our APIA Heritage Month stories centered on friendship.

Walk around New York City for five minutes and you'll see that diversity is on full display everywhere. People move here from far-flung places all over the globe, and there's a comfort to seeing faces of every color. Here, being different because of my mixed-race heritage makes me fit right in. I'm just one of many. Growing up on the Vineyard I felt self-conscious about being Chinese. There weren't a lot of people who looked like me, and it was undeniable that culturally we were "different" in my house. As far as I knew, none of the other mothers had meditation pillows or Buddha statues on full display in the living room. None of my friends ever mentioned having fermented vegetables for dinner or hot pot for a celebration. Those same things that made me feel like our family was weird meditation, gardening, fixing things — those became the foundation of a balanced life and a successful career. The journey to embracing who I was at my core took years, and when I think about this period of my life it makes me realize the growth that can happen when you release the struggle to be like everyone else and recognize you are enough .

Every day in the school cafeteria I felt like my differences were on display for everyone to see.

Every day in the school cafeteria I felt like my differences were on display for everyone to see. I would open my lunch box with equal parts fear and anticipation. I always enjoyed what my mom packed me for lunch, but the truth was, being the only kid with a bento box full of traditional Chinese food could be embarrassing. My lunch was the polar opposite of what was contained in the Hello Kitty and Spider-Man lunch boxes of my peers. As I opened the box each day, the heads at my lunch table turned toward me, wondering, What freaky food does Emma have today? "Emma, what is that? A rotten egg? Why is it all brown and white? Gross. And is that a pile of dirt on your rice? Are you actually going to eat dirt?" I looked at my lunch, a tea egg, rice with rousong (also known as meat floss), and pickled vegetables, all foods I liked to eat, lovingly made from scratch by my mother. Tea eggs were a favorite of mine. They're soft-boiled eggs cracked just slightly, then boiled again in a mixture of tea, star anise, and soy sauce, which makes them look like big marbles (sometimes they are called marbled eggs). I knew how delicious the egg would taste and I wanted to eat it right away, but I felt too self-conscious. Powdered pork (a dried meat that's a light and fluffy topping for things like rice and tofu) was another common food in my house, but something about the fluorescent light of the cafeteria made it look like it was from outer space. Sitting there surrounded by Wonder Bread sandwiches and individual bags of neon-orange Cheetos, I wished I could transform my lunch into something more "normal." As I picked up my chopsticks, I knew my bento box and I stuck out like sore thumbs.

When a friend stayed for dinner, I felt a flush of anxiety before we sat at the table. I knew my mom's cooking was delicious, but I never knew how a friend would react when they realized dinner at my house wasn't going to be meatloaf or spaghetti and meatballs. When my friend Amanda stayed for dinner, I was happy to see that she didn't balk at the Chinese dishes my mother had set out. She looked intrigued. Amanda dug right in. "Wow, this is really good." She was happily chewing away when suddenly her face turned bright red. She started coughing and her eyes were watering like crazy. Then came the sweat, pouring right down her now inflamed face. "Amanda, are you okay?" She nodded awkwardly, waving her hand in front of her face like she had a mouthful of fire. Which, essentially, she did. A bell went off in my head, ding ding ding . I knew exactly what had happened. "Oh, no! Amanda! Did you eat one of the dried hot peppers?" Her face just got redder. "Mom, Amanda ate one of the dried peppers!" Mom rushed around getting her a cold glass of milk and a plain bowl of white rice, anything to quell the heat. The dried peppers were supposed to flavor the dish but weren't meant to be eaten. I had never actually eaten one, because I had been warned that they are hotter than the surface of the sun. Pushing those peppers off to the side was second nature to me, but it didn't occur to me to warn Amanda. Amanda's face turned back to its normal color soon enough, and she was a good sport about it. But I felt so embarrassed that this had happened. Things like this wouldn't happen if we ate spaghetti and meatballs like other people! No one ever set their mouth on fire eating meatloaf!

From the book LIVE LEARN LOVE WELL: Lessons from a Life of Progress Not Perfection by Emma Lovewell. Copyright © 2023 by Emma Lovewell. Published by Ballantine Books, an imprint of Random House, a division of Penguin Random House LLC. All rights reserved.

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Peloton instructor and wellness expert Emma Lovewell on new book, "Live Learn Love Well"

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Emma Lovewell Announces Book Tour for “Live Learn Lovewell: Lessons From a Life of Progress Not Perfection”

Peloton instructor Emma Lovewell is embarking on a book tour in celebration of the release of her memoir, Live Learn Lovewell: Lessons From a Life of Progress Not Perfection. She shared the news via Instagram :

BOOK EVENT INFO HERE! Missing from the flyer is Martha’s Vineyard July 25th at the Old Whaling Church. Hope you can make one of these events. Also May 2nd is VIRTUAL so if you’re not able to travel to any of these cities this is your event! Thank you all for your support during this very exciting and nerve-racking time ! Excited to share this book and my stories with you all. 💚 #livelearnlovewell

There are seven total events (note that Emma’s caption indicates one is missing from the flyer). The complete schedule of events is below:

• The Town Hall with Posman Books, moderated by Cody Rigsby
• Random House Studio Sessions with Garden District Book Shop, moderated by Phoebe Robinson
• John Adams Performing Arts Complex (JAMS) with pages: a bookstore, moderated by Judy Greer
• Book Passage – Signing Line
• Peloton Studios Invite Only (exclusive to Peloton Members), moderated by Ally Love
• Park West, moderator to be announced
• Old Whaling Church

Note that you must sign up for the events in advance and the ticket prices vary by event. A copy of Live Learn Lovewell is included in the ticket price for each event.

We also previously shared information about the special event with Emma at Peloton Studios New York (PSNY) on May 7 in celebration of her book, which is included in Emma’s list of tour stops. Peloton sent an email to select members inviting them to the private event.

Emma first announced her upcoming memoir Live Learn Lovewell: Lessons From a Life of Progress Not Perfection in October of 2022 . The book will be released on May 2, 2023, and you can pre-order it via Amazon (affiliate link).

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Taylor Swift's 'Tortured Poets' is written in blood

On Taylor Swift's 11th album, The Tortured Poets Department , her artistry is tangled up in the details of her private life and her deployment of celebrity. But Swift's lack of concern about whether these songs speak to and for anyone but herself is audible throughout the album. Beth Garrabrant /Courtesy of the artist hide caption

On Taylor Swift's 11th album, The Tortured Poets Department , her artistry is tangled up in the details of her private life and her deployment of celebrity. But Swift's lack of concern about whether these songs speak to and for anyone but herself is audible throughout the album.

For all of its fetishization of new sounds and stances, pop music was born and still thrives by asking fundamental questions. For example, what do you do with a broken heart? That's an awfully familiar one. Yet romantic failure does feel different every time. Its isolating sting produces a kind of obliterating possessiveness: my pain, my broken delusions, my hope for healing. A broken heart is a screaming baby demanding to be held and coddled and nurtured until it grows up and learns how to function properly. This is as true in the era of the one-percent glitz goddess as it was when blues queens and torch singers organized society's crying sessions. It's true of Taylor Swift , who's equated songwriting with the heart's recovery since she released " Teardrops on my Guitar " 18 years ago, and whose 11th album, The Tortured Poets Department , is as messy and confrontational as a good girl's work can get, blood on her pages in a classic shade of red.

Taylor Swift, Beyoncé and 50 more albums coming out this spring

Turning the Tables

Taylor swift is the 21st century's most disorienting pop star.

Back in her Lemonade days, when her broken heart turned her into a bearer of revolutionary spirit, Swift's counterpart and friendly rival, Beyoncé , got practical, advising her listeners that while feelings do need tending, a secured bank account is what counts. "Your best revenge is your paper," she sang .

For Swift, the best revenge is her pen. One of the first Tortured Poets songs revealed back in February (one of the album's many bonus tracks, it turns out, but a crucial framing device) is called " The Manuscript "; in it, a woman re-reads her own scripted account of a "torrid love affair." Screenwriting is one of a few literary ambitions Swift aligns with this project. At The Grove mall in Los Angeles, Swift partnered with Spotify to create a mini-library where new lyrics were inscribed in weathered books and on sheets of parchment in the days leading up to its release. The scene was a fans' photo op invoking high art and even scripture. In the photographs of the installation that I saw, every bound volume in the library bears Swift's name. The message is clear: When Taylor Swift makes music, she authors everything around her.

For years, Swift has been pop's leading writer of autofiction , her work exploring new dimensions of confessional songwriting, making it the foundation of a highly mediated public-private life. The standard line about her teasing lyrical disclosures (and it's correct on one level) is that they're all about fueling fan interest. But on Tortured Poets , she taps into a much more established and respected tradition. Using autobiography as a sword of justice is a move as ancient as the women saints who smote abusive fathers and priests in the name of an early Christian Jesus; in our own time, just among women, it's been made by confessional poets like Sylvia Plath, memoirists from Maya Angelou to Joyce Maynard and literary stars like the Nobel prize winner Annie Ernaux. And, of course, Swift's reluctant spiritual mother, Joni Mitchell .

Even in today's blather-saturated cultural environment, a woman speaking out after silence can feel revolutionary; that this is an honorable act is a fundamental principle within many writers' circles. "I write out of hurt and how to make hurt okay, how to make myself strong and come home, and it may be the only home I ever have," Natalie Goldberg declares in Writing Down the Bones , the most popular writing manual of the 20th century. When on this album's title track, Swift sings, "I think some things I never say," she's making an offhand joke; but this is the album where she does say all the things she thinks, about love at least, going deeper into the personal zone that is her métier than ever before. Sharing her darkest impulses and most mortifying delusions, she fills in the blank spaces in the story of several much-mediated affairs and declares this an act of liberation that has changed and ultimately strengthened her. She spares no one, including herself; often in these songs, she considers her naiveté and wishfulness through a grown woman's lens and admits she's made a fool of herself. But she owns her heartbreak now. She alone will have the last word on its shape and its effects.

This includes other people's sides of her stories. The songs on Tortured Poets , most of which are mid- or up-tempo ballads spun out in the gossamer style that's defined Swift's confessional mode since Folklore , build a closed universe of private and even stolen moments, inhabited by only two people: Swift and a man. With a few illuminating exceptions that stray from the album's plot, she rarely looks beyond their interactions. The point is not to observe the world, but to disclose the details of one sometimes-shared life, to lay bare what others haven't seen. Tortured Poets is the culmination of a catalog full of songs in which Swift has taken us into the bedrooms where men pleasured or misled her, the bars where they charmed her, the empty playgrounds where they sat on swings with her and promised something they couldn't give. When she sings repeatedly that one of the most suspect characters on the album told her she was the love of her life, she's sharing something nobody else heard. That's the point. She's testifying under her own oath.

Swift's musical approach has always been enthusiastic and absorbent. She's created her own sounds by blending country's sturdy song structures with R&B's vibes, rap's cadences and pop's glitz; as a personality and a performer, she's all arms, hugging the world. The sound of Tortured Poets offers that familiar embrace, with pop tracks that sparkle with intelligence, and meditative ones that wrap tons of comforting aura around Swift's ruminations. Beyond a virtually undetectable Post Malone appearance and a Florence Welch duet that also serves as an homage to Swift's current exemplar/best friendly rival, Lana Del Rey , the album alternates between co-writes with Jack Antonoff and Aaron Dessner, the producers who have helped Swift find her mature sound, which blends all of her previous approaches without favoring any prevailing trend. There are the rap-like, conversational verses, the reaching choruses, the delicate piano meditations, the swooning synth beats. Antonoff's songs come closest to her post- 1989 chart toppers; Dessner's fulfill her plans to remain an album artist. Swift has also written two songs on her own, a rarity for her; both come as close to ferocity as she gets. As a sustained listen, Tortured Poets harkens back to high points throughout Swift's career, creating a comforting environment that both supports and balances the intensity of her storytelling.

It's with her pen that Swift executes her battle plans. As always, especially when she dwells on the work and play of emotional intimacy, her lyrics are hyper-focused, spilling over with detail, editing the mess of desire, projection, communion and pain that constitutes romance into one sharp perspective: her own. She renders this view so intensely that it goes beyond confession and becomes a form of writing that can't be disputed. Remember that parchment and her quill pen; her songs are her new testaments. It's a power play, but for many fans, especially women, this ambition to be definitive feels like a necessary corrective to the misrepresentations or silence they face from ill-intentioned or cluelessly entitled men.

"A great writer can be a dangerous creature, however gentle and nice in person," the biographer Hermione Lee once wrote . Swift has occasionally taken this idea to heart before, especially on her once-scorned, now revered hip-hop experiment, Reputation . But now she's screaming from the hilltop, sparing no one, including herself as she tries to prop up one man's flagging interest and then falls for others' duplicity. "I know my pain is such an imposition," Swift sang in last year's " You're Losing Me ," a prequel to the explosive confessional mode of Tortured Poets , where that pain grows nearly suicidal, feeds romantic obsession, and drives her to become a "functional alcoholic" and a madwoman who finds strength in chaos in a way that recalls her friend Emma Stone's cathartic performance as Bella in Poor Things . (Bella, remember, comes into self-possession by learning to read and write.) " Who's afraid of little old me? " Swift wails in the album's window-smashing centerpiece bearing that title; in " But Daddy I Love Him ," she runs around screaming with her dress unbuttoned and threatens to burn down her whole world. These accounts of unhinged behavior reinforce the message that everybody had better be scared of this album — especially her exes, but also her business associates, the media and, yes, her fans, who are not spared in her dissection of just who's made her miserable over the past few years.

Listen to the album

I'm not getting into the dirty details; those who crave them can listen to Tortured Poets themselves and easily uncover them. They're laid out so clearly that anyone who's followed Swift's overly documented life will instantly comprehend who's who: the depressive on the heath, the tattooed golden retriever in her dressing room. Here's my reading of her album-as-novel — others' interpretations may vary: Swift's first-person protagonist (let's call her "Taylor") begins in a memory of a long-ago love affair that left her melancholy but on civil terms, then has an early meeting with a tempting rogue, who declares he's the Dylan Thomas to her Patti Smith; no, she says, though she's sorely tempted, we're "modern idiots," and she leaves him behind for a while. Then we get scenes from a stifling marriage to a despondent and distracted child-man. "So long, London," she declares, fleeing that dead end. From then on, it's the rogue on all cylinders. They connect, defy the daddy figures who think they're bad for each other, speak of rings and baby carriages. Those daddies continue to meddle in this newfound freedom.

In this main story arc, Swift writes about erotic desire as she never has before: She's "fresh out the slammer" (ouch, the rhetoric) and her bedsheets are on fire. She cannot stop rhapsodizing about this new love object and her commitment to their outlaw hunger for each other. It's " Love Story ," updated and supersized, with a proper Romeo at its center — a forbidden, tragic soulmate, a perfect match who's also a disastrous one. Swift peppers this section of Tortured Poets with name-drops ("Jack" we know, " Lucy " might be a tricky slap at Romeo, hard to tell) and instantly searchable references; he sends her a song by The Blue Nile and traces hearts on her face but tells revolting jokes in the bar and eventually reveals himself as a cad, a liar, a coward. She recovers, but not really. In the end, she does move on but still dreams of him hearing one of their songs on a jukebox and dolefully realizing the young girl he's now with has never heard it before.

Insert the names yourself. They do matter, because her backstories are key to Swift's appeal; they both keep her human-sized and amplify her fame. Swift's artistry is tied up in her deployment of celebrity, a slippery state in which a real life becomes emblematic. Like no one before, she's turned her spotlit day-to-day into a conceptual project commenting on women's freedom, artistic ambition and the place of the personal in the public sphere. As a celebrity, Swift partners with others: her model and musician friends, her actor/musician/athlete consorts, brands, even (warily) political causes. And with her fans, the co-creators of her stardom.

Her songs stand apart, though. They remain the main vehicle through which, negotiating unimaginable levels of renown, Swift continually insists on speaking only for herself. A listener has to work to find the "we" in her soliloquies. There are plenty of songs on Tortured Poets in which others will find their own experiences, from the sultry blue eroticism of " Down Bad " to the click of recognition in " I Can Fix Him (No Really I Can) ." But Swift's lack of concern about whether these songs speak for and to anyone besides herself is audible throughout the album. It's the sound of her freedom.

Taylor Swift: Tiny Desk Concert

She also confronts the way fame has cost her, fully exploring questions she raised on Reputation and in " Anti-Hero ." There are hints, more than hints, that her romance with the rogue was derailed partly because her business associates found it problematic, a danger to her precious reputation. And when she steps away from the man-woman predicament, Swift ponders the ephemeral reality of the success that has made private decisions nearly impossible. A lovely minuet co-written with Dessner, " Clara Bow " stages a time-lapsed conversation between Swift and the power players who've helped orchestrate her rise even as she knows they won't be concerned with her eventual obsolescence. "You look like Clara Bow ," they say, and later, "You look like Stevie Nicks in '75." Then, a turn: "You look like Taylor Swift," the suits (or is it the public, the audience?) declare. "You've got edge she never did." The song ends abruptly — lights out. This scene, redolent of All About Eve , reveals anxieties that all of Swift's love songs rarely touch upon.

One reason Swift went from being a normal-level pop star to sharing space with Beyoncé as the era's defining spirit is because she is so good at making the personal huge, without fussing over its translation into universals. In two decades of talking back to heartbreakers, Swift has called out gaslighting, belittling, neglect, false promises — all the hidden injuries that lovers inflict on each other, and that a sexist society often overlooks or forgives more easily from men. In "The Manuscript," which calls back to a romantic trauma outside the Tortured Poets frame, she sings of being a young woman with an older man making "coffee in a French press" and then "only eating kids cereal" and sleeping in her mother's bed when he dumps her; any informed Swift fan's mind will race to songs and headlines about cads she's previously called out in fan favorites like "Dear John" and "All Too Well" — the beginnings of the mission Tortured Poets fulfills.

Reviews of more Taylor Swift albums on NPR

In the haze of 'Midnights,' Taylor Swift softens into an expanded sound

Let's Talk About Taylor Swift's 'Folklore'

Show And Tell: On 'Lover,' Taylor Swift Lets Listeners In On Her Own Terms

The Old Taylor's Not Dead

The Many New Voices Of Taylor Swift

Taylor Swift Leaps Into Pop With 'Red'

Swift's pop side (and perhaps her co-writers' influence) shows in the way she balances the claustrophobic referentiality of her writing with sparkly wordplay and well-crafted sentimental gestures. On Tortured Poets , she's less strategic than usual. She lets the details fall the way they would in a confession session among besties, not trying to change them from painful memories into points of connection. She's just sharing. Swift bares every crack in her broken heart as a way of challenging power structures, of arguing that emotional work that men can sidestep is still expected from women who seem to own the world.

Throughout Tortured Poets, Swift is trying to work out how emotional violence occurs: how men inflict it on women and women cultivate it within themselves. It's worth asking how useful such a brutal evisceration of one privileged private life can be in a larger social or political sense; critics, including NPR's Leah Donnella in an excellent 2018 essay on the limits of the songwriter's reach, have posed that question about Swift's work for years. But we should ask why Swift's work feels so powerful to so many — why she has become, in the eyes of millions, a standard-bearer and a freedom fighter. Unlike Beyoncé, who loves a good emblem and is always thinking about history and serving the culture and communities she claims, Swift is making an ongoing argument about smaller stories still making a difference. Her callouts can be viewed as petty, reflecting entitlement or even narcissism. But they're also part of her wrestling with the very notion of significance and challenging hierarchies that have proven to be so stubborn they can feel intractable. That Swift has reached such a peak of influence in the wake of the #MeToo movement isn't an accident; even as that chapter in feminism's history can seem to be closing, she insists on saying, "believe me." That isn't the same as saying "believe all women," but by laying claim to disputed storylines and fighting against silence, she at the very least reminds listeners that such actions matter.

Listening to Tortured Poets , I often thought of "The Last Day of Our Acquaintance," a song that Sinéad O'Connor recorded when she was in her young prime, not yet banished from the mainstream for her insistence on speaking politically. Like Swift's best work, its lyrics are very specific — allegedly about a former manager and lover — yet her directness and conviction expand their reach. In 1990, that a woman in her mid-20s would address a belittling man in this way felt startling and new. Taylor Swift came to prominence in a culture already changing to make room for such testimonies, if not — still — fully able to honor them. She has made it more possible for them to be heard. "I talk and you won't listen to me," O'Connor wailed . "I know your answer already." Swift doesn't have to worry about whether people will listen. But she knows that this could change. That's why she is writing it all down.

• Taylor Swift