Trick Mirror is an enlightening, unforgettable trip through the river of self-delusion that surges just beneath the surface of our lives. Our own biases and desires often blind us, but Jia Tolentino tracks us down with sass, intelligence and a riveting eye for the absurdities we enact on ourselves. Trick Mirror rejects cynicism in favor of truthfulness—and it does so beautifully.
Jia Tolentino, a writer and cultural critic, explores the ways that our culture shapes our self-image and how we perceive ourselves. In this thought-provoking book on the incentives that shape us, she reveals the mechanisms underpinning our society’s obsession with promoting the self—from advertising to diets to social media —and illuminates how hard it can be to see ourselves clearly, even within ourselves.
Trick Mirror is a deeply personal and expansive reflection on the forces that shape us. Jia Tolentino explores our past and present tendencies to delude ourselves with nearly 700 short essays examining race, class, gender, and other forms of bias and privilege. A writer who has climbed the ranks from blogger to open mic comic to staff writer for the New Yorker, Tolentino uses Trick Mirror as a case study for how critical thinking can lead us to see a wider world around us.
Jia Tolentino is a journalist who writes about culture and politics for the New York Times and other publications. She examines how we see ourselves, our motivations and desires, in this gripping collection of stories from her years as a writer on America’s most effective weekend supplement.
About Trick Mirror Book
Trick Mirror is an enlightening, unforgettable trip through the river of self-delusion that surges just beneath the surface of our lives. This book is about the incentives that shape us and how hard it is to see ourselves clearly in a culture that revolves around the self. 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.