Trick Mirror: Reflections on Self-Delusion
Books | Education / Essays
4.2
(58)
Jia Tolentino
A Times book of the year A Guardian book of the year ‘Magnificent’The Times ‘Dazzling’ New Statesman ‘It filled me with hope’ Zadie Smith We are living in the era of the self, in an era of malleable truth and widespread personal and political delusion. In these nine interlinked essays, Jia Tolentino, the New Yorker’s brightest young talent, explores her own coming of age in this warped and confusing landscape. From the rise of the internet to her own appearance on an early reality TV show; from her experiences of ecstasy – both religious and chemical – to her uneasy engagement with our culture’s endless drive towards ‘self-optimisation’; from the phenomenon of the successful American scammer to her generation’s obsession with extravagant weddings, Jia Tolentino writes with style, humour and a fierce clarity about these strangest of times. Following in the footsteps of American luminaries such as Susan Sontag, Joan Didion and Rebecca Solnit, yet with a voice and vision all her own, Jia Tolentino writes with a rare gift for elucidating nuance and complexity, coupled with a disarming warmth. This debut collection of her essays announces her exactly the sort of voice we need to hear from right now – and for many years to come.
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Author
Jia Tolentino
Pages
320
Publisher
HarperCollins Publishers
Published Date
2019-08-06
ISBN
0008294941 9780008294946
Community ReviewsSee all
"4/5 ⭐️ I’m trying to get into more nonfiction (including essay collections). This was one I had heard great things about, and I understand why! This covered the author’s reflections on her personal experiences, as well as various cultural, political, and social subjects. Though it did include quite a range of topics, it did still somehow feel like it had a continuing thread to it (even if I couldn’t articulate what it was - different facets of topics that shape her maybe?). It took me a little to get into, but I alternated between the audiobook and reading it physically, which helped. As with all collections, there were definitely ones I found more interesting than others, like the one about her reality TV experience, one about female literary characters, and about her religious background to name a couple. Some of the others were a bit forgettable or leaned more heavily into some political topics than I wanted to read about. I also didn’t always love the author’s commentary on some broader topics as I felt I wanted some more research (statistics or sources) to back up the conclusions she was drawing or phenomena she was talking about. However, all in all, I found this interesting and would like to continue to broaden my experience with essay collections."
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Emma Tang