For most of her career, Maisie Peters wrote looking over her shoulder. Her catalogue is defined by piercing heartbreak songs featuring what-ifs, revenge fantasies and the fear that real love might be a myth. Her past albums focused on relationships that had already ended. But in her latest project “Florescence,” released on May 22, she sings about her current relationship and something she has spent years writing about but never quite had before: healthy, lasting love.
After a decade of songwriting, Peters feels that she had grown a lot, and wants the “Floresence” album to reflect that. While making a significant change as an artist can risk isolating fans, a shift is inevitable upon finding real love for the first time. After all, it answers one of the burning questions in a pop star’s career: How does the search for love end?
Peters opens “Florescence” with strong songwriting. On “Mary Janes,” she comments on the intersection of love, fame and youth in her career path. She openly acknowledges not reaching superstardom. In the first verse, when she sings, “Sometimes when I sing, I get the big note wrong / The teenagers held onto that all summer long,” referencing an unfortunate moment of virality. In 2024, Peters marked many career milestones, including the incredible opportunity to open for Taylor Swift on the Eras Tour. However, her performance received a lot of hate from people who didn’t understand the purposely cringe bridge in her hit “Lost the Breakup” that serves as an inside joke to fans.
The backlash was hurtful and, along with other stressors from that year, inspired her to step away and retreat to the English countryside where she reflected on growing older and her relationship with fame.
With lyrics like “Cause I don’t really care about the fashion balls,” Peters rejects the culture of the ultra-rich and famous. Her ability to separate her self-worth from success and chart positions has been transformative. Given that fame and youth are inextricably connected, her rebellion extends to that issue as well. Peters is only 25, but in an industry like hers, the dread of getting older creeps in early. As the obsession with preventing aging grows larger, Peters proudly embraces herself.
The catalyst for her radical self-acceptance is love. She writes, “Yeah he loves my stretch marks and my baby face / So here’s to my buccal fat and looking my goddamn age.” Beyond delivering an important message, the song is a beautiful testament to how real love truly changes how someone sees themselves. It marks a major turning point for Peters, who has repeatedly mentioned unhealthy eating habits and body image issues across her work.
These themes continue on the next track, love song “Audrey Hepburn.” Its lyrics and music video highlight the countryside. The song juxtaposes the peace of rural life and her relationship with the chaos of celebrity culture, as Peters makes it clear she is choosing to place more value in her private life. Her healing is exemplified by lyrics like “I wanted to be immortal / Now I’m fine with growing old.” With Peters receiving one of the things she has wanted most throughout her life — and it replacing her need for validation from the music industry — “Audrey Hepburn” is one of the record’s truest love songs.
No. seven on the tracklist is “Vampire Time.” Without a doubt, it is one of the most remarkable songs on “Florescence.” Peters tells the story of returning to her hometown and reigniting an old love, going down the road not taken instead of mourning it in a beautiful reclamation of her past. The first line of the song reads “Back in ‘16 suburbia, you wore a chain crucifix.” This lyric seems to connect to a snippet of an unreleased song that was posted by Peters in 2021. Entitled “a song about coming home for Christmas,” Peters confesses in the song she is “still in love with the same Christian skateboarder” from when she was 16.
The lyrics in “Vampire Time” are the most beautiful the songwriter has ever penned. It takes us through the last 10 years that she has spent loving the boy she let go because she wasn’t ready. After trying on so many different versions of herself and trying to ignore the inescapable thoughts of him, she returned to correct her mistake. She turned their “almost first kiss” into the best relationship of her life. In the outro, she promises to love him until she dies. It’s another level of romance, and it’s stunning.
In an interview with Rolling Stone, Peters said she was nervous to make an album about happiness since she feels “That’s a harder emotion to write about.” However, it’s clear from “Vampire Time” that she is not just capable of writing about happiness, but excels at it. In fact, the unapologetic love songs are the best part of the album, and the trouble lies in the several songs that talk about exes and breakups. The songs “Say My Name In Your Sleep” and “Old Fashioned” rehash the revenge and anger-driven narratives of her previous albums but don’t execute it as well, feeling unnecessary and contradictory to this album’s mission statement.
However, “Flat Earther” does heartbreak more faithfully, with a fresh concept. Peters compares being a conspiracy theorist to the delusional belief she had in a past doomed relationship. The standout line is “Now I still believe in miracles and prophecies / Yeah, I just don’t believe in you anymore.” The song revisits the motifs of fate and prophecies that Peters has explored in songs such as “History of Man” with a new perspective, bringing closure.
The masterpiece of the record is “You, You, You” , reminding listeners of why they fell in love with Peters’ songwriting. It’s one of the few breakup songs that is written at the moment and does not try to resolve its pain. It admits that no matter how much one tries to move on, the past is a force that will shape them forever. The song asks “What if everything I do is full of / you, you, you,” seemingly questioning if writing about heartbreak is inescapable for an artist. Healing does not mean forgetting, and finding the right person does not erase all those who came before them. “You, You, You” is the album’s most honest song because it acknowledges this contradiction instead of trying to solve it.
Ultimately, “Florescence” is an imperfect yet defining album in Peters’ discography. Its biggest flaw is that it doesn’t fully commit to the theme of love and happiness. Peters is moving into a new phase of her life but has nothing to fear about transitioning her writing to focusing on joy — she has earned her fairy-tale ending. Not only is she an expert on writing heartbreak, but she’s also a master of love.
Ayiana Grana is an Arts & Entertainment Staff Writer for the spring 2026 quarter. She can be reached at angrana@uci.edu.
Edited by Avani Kumar and Joshua Gonzales.
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