"Trick Mirror: Reflections on Self-Delusion" by Jia Tolentino Is This-Week's Must Read

"Trick Mirror" is an enlightening, unforgettable trip through the river of self-delusion that surges just beneath the surface of our lives. This is a book about the incentives that shape us, and about how hard it is to see ourselves clearly in a culture that revolves around the self.

Jia Tolentino is a genius at linking her own experiences to the wider world in order to illuminate the dark corners of our culture. In "Trick Mirror", she writes about women’s lives with such keen insight and wry humor that you may find yourself highlighting nearly every page.

It's a beautiful book

There is so much to love about this book, but I think what you should probably appreciate most is Tolentino's fearless honesty. She writes about her own life with such openness and vulnerability, yet she never comes across as self-indulgent or navel-gazing. Her observations about the world we live in are spot-on, and she has a unique way of looking at things that will make you see familiar things in a new light.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GdPqP_lp3HE

In each essay, Jia writes about the cultural prisms that have shaped her: the rise of the nightmare social internet; the American scammer as a millennial hero; the literary heroine’s journey from brave to blank to bitter; the mandate that everything, including our bodies, should always be getting more efficient and beautiful until we die.

This book has thematic cohesion that is nothing short of masterful. Tolentino weaves together her personal experiences with cultural commentary in a way that feels effortless, and the result is a book that feels like a much-needed breath of fresh air.

If you're looking for a book that will make you laugh, cry, and think, then "Trick Mirror" is highly recommended. And here's what others say about it:

Indeed, the book feels like a warm shower of wokeness. One whose steam still feels like it is wafting off my pores. In the collection there's old ideas interrogated with sharp wit, questioning of culturally held beliefs, and some serious callouts. I'm not saying that Tolentino and I see eye-to-eye on every single matter, but hers is an opinion that I respect and always enjoy hearing out. This type of challenge to rote cognition is exactly what I love in a good conversation and Tolentino packs in almost ten solid hours of good stuff.

[caption id="attachment_12738" align="aligncenter" width="567"] "Trick Mirror" is an enlightening, unforgettable trip through the river of self-delusion that surges just beneath the surface of our lives.[/caption]

Wowee this girl knows how to write! Articulate, insightful, intelligent and informative. A true voice of her generation.

With sensitivity and charm, a feat not as easy to achieve as she may make it look throughout, there's no doubt that Tolentino is a writer to watch and one I hope gets the recognition she deserves for this captivating anthology. At the very least a wide readership, but I feel this is very much "award-winning" material. It is a beautiful, emotional and often brutally honest collection that never failed to move me written by a twenty-first-century wordsmith akin to the majesty of Joan Didion and Zadie Smith's works. Her words are literal and metaphorical FIRE.