Like many Swifties, I made plans on Black Friday to grab the Official Eras Tour Book, which was set to release in stores first and online the following day. With the drop’s marketing having an air of exclusivity, I couldn’t handle the fear of missing out and had to get a copy of the book.
As nice as it is to have the written blurbs capture Taylor’s voice — one of the key selling points — it’s disappointing to see the book riddled with grammatical errors, blurry photos and graphic design flaws that made me question the $40 price tag.
Some sections, especially Reputation and Folklore, feature clunky phrasing and the issues range all the way to full-on forgotten letters. It feels like no one thoroughly reviewed the text before going to print.
In print, a couple of typos are always expected, especially in books, but the Official Eras Tour Book is only a few thousand words total. It’s odd to see that editing seems to have been entirely skipped, especially when each era only has a short paragraph introducing it.
The photo placement is also awkward in some spots. In some shots, Taylor’s face is completely cut off because the focal point is too close to the spine.
Some photos appear to be direct screenshots from the Eras Tour film, which feels a bit lazy since the book was marketed as having “never-before-seen performance photos from every era”.
Even the tour dates list, which should be error-free since it’s easily available online and in past marketing campaigns, is missing several dates from the tour.
However, not everything in the book is bad. The best part, in my opinion, is the behind-the-scenes section and the foreward written by Taylor herself. This section includes high-quality photos that fans have actually never seen before, and highlights how much the tour meant to her.
It’s clear that this tour meant a lot to her as she calls it the most wondrous tour of her life.
“At the time [of pitching The Eras Tour], I was working on the Midnights album… if we were to do what I’ve always done, I would’ve embarked on planning The Midnights Tour. But there’s nothing I hate more than doing what I’ve always done,” she wrote in the book’s introduction.
She explained how much work this tour took to even exist, so it’s really disappointing that the book doesn’t reflect that love and care.
It’s obvious that the book was rushed to meet the holiday release date. Don’t get me wrong, I still enjoyed what I got, but as a fan, I would’ve loved for its production to have taken longer so it could be a truly high-quality product.
