Trick Mirror Trick Mirror

Trick Mirror

Reflections on Self-Delusion

    • 4.3 • 219 Ratings
    • $4.99

Publisher Description

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “From The New Yorker’s beloved cultural critic comes a bold, unflinching collection of essays about self-deception, examining everything from scammer culture to reality television.”—Esquire
 
Book Club Pick for Now Read This, from PBS NewsHour and The New York Times • “A whip-smart, challenging book.”—Zadie Smith • “Jia Tolentino could be the Joan Didion of our time.”—Vulture


FINALIST FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE’S JOHN LEONARD PRIZE FOR BEST FIRST BOOK • NAMED ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY AND HARVARD CRIMSON AND ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The New York Times Book Review • Time Chicago Tribune • The Washington Post • NPR • Variety • Esquire Vox • Elle • GlamourGQ • Good Housekeeping The Paris Review • Paste • Town & Country • BookPage Kirkus Reviews • BookRiot Shelf Awareness

Jia Tolentino is a peerless voice of her generation, tackling the conflicts, contradictions, and sea changes that define us and our time. Now, in this dazzling collection of nine entirely original essays, written with a rare combination of give and sharpness, wit and fearlessness, she delves into the forces that warp our vision, demonstrating an unparalleled stylistic potency and critical dexterity.

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 through a culture that revolves around the self. In each essay, Tolentino writes about a cultural prism: the rise of the nightmare social internet; the advent of scamming as the definitive millennial ethos; the literary heroine’s journey from brave to blank to bitter; the punitive dream of optimization, which insists that everything, including our bodies, should become more efficient and beautiful until we die. Gleaming with Tolentino’s sense of humor and capacity to elucidate the impossibly complex in an instant, and marked by her desire to treat the reader with profound honesty, Trick Mirror is an instant classic of the worst decade yet.

FINALIST FOR THE PEN/DIAMONSTEIN-SPIELVOGEL AWARD FOR THE ART OF THE ESSAY

GENRE
Fiction & Literature
RELEASED
2019
August 6
LANGUAGE
EN
English
LENGTH
320
Pages
PUBLISHER
Random House Publishing Group
SELLER
Penguin Random House LLC
SIZE
1.6
MB

Customer Reviews

deannagyoung ,

quick easy read

love the thoughts conveyed here. felt a detachment to the author that made her writing authoritative and trusted by default. I’d say the book just about lives up to its hype.

emory mcclard ,

technically 4.5, but that rounds up

A perfect series of essays that I heavily identified with, positing that shared life experience leads to similar beliefs and attitudes about the world. Can’t wait to read more Jia :)

s.cui ,

Incredibly sharp

Be careful— this book has reignited in me a rage for modern life. But in a good way

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