Trick Mirror

A lot of essays I read have a vaguely superficial feeling to them, like the writer is on the right track, but didn't pursue it far enough before publishing. Tolentino is a writer with whom you feel, oh, she went there. The few occasions when she doesn't (her parents' legal troubles, Hillary Clinton) stick out because she's doing it the rest of the time. She is especially strong when writing about the internet, social media, and sexual violence.

This is a collection of nine winding essays that center on the sociopolitical concerns of a complex, reflective, leftist feminist in the wake of the 2016 election.

The best essays, in my opinion, are the the first (“The I in Internet,” an exploration of identity and opinion in the age of social media, the internet's cultural shift from affinity to opposition, and the monolithic platforms that monetize identity and opposition), the third (“Always Be Optimizing,” on how the modern, intelligent woman is de facto subject to insufferable and unattainable beauty ideals), and the last (“I Thee Dread,” a meditation on the author's negative stance on weddings and marriage, through their history as anti-feminist and patriarchal traditions/institutions). I liked these because they reflect my own dissonances, reflections, and the complexity and nuances of feminism and identity generally. These essays resonated, and though I didn't always agree with her conclusions (too alarmist, but that makes sense in a Trump era), they made me think.

The rest felt intellectually over-wrought, too long, and explore well-known territory (at least, for me). I started to get bored as essays devolved more into anthologies of others' works of criticism than anything refreshingly her own.

Overall, this collection proves Tolentino as a respectable intellectual and wonderful writer, and for that, I enjoyed it.

One sentence synopsis... A sharp collection of essays examining millennial self-deception (and exploration) through drugs, religion, feminism, and reality tv.

Read it if you liked... other popular culture essayists like Chuck Klosterman. If you've ever taken a barre class, shopped at Outdoor Voices, or eaten at sweetgreens - this is for you.

Further reading... Emily Nussbaum, Jenny Odell, Chuck Klosterman, or all Jia's articles for The New Yorker.

I didn't like this as much as I thought I would. I felt most of the essays were very pessimistic, and I found myself either disagreeing with her premises, or confused about what she was trying to say. I also felt she relied too much on quotes from other works as examples instead of using her own writing.

Full disclosure: I love Jia Tolentino and I'll read anything with her name on it. This book consists of the kind of musing philosophical essays about random subjects that I write myself when I have time, wishing I had half of her eloquence and way with words. These aren't problem solving, solution presenting types of essays, but beautifully written verbal processing on topics I tend to think a lot about myself; the Internet, culture, feminism, social expectations etc. If you've read and enjoy her work online, definitely check out this book.

It's a confidently smart collection of essays informed by a lifetime on writing on the internet. Which is to say a traditional collection of literary essays feels a bit one directional, the author invoking their well-researched thesis and disseminating it outward. Mic drop and move on. But on the internet, especially I imagine for a woman of colour with an opinion, there's an almost immediate response. Mansplaining in the comments, hot takes, internet trolls, the occasional nuanced rebuttal, emojis, gifs and tangental conversations as a result. (Kidding, nuanced rebuttals don't exist online)

And so there's an understanding that it's a journey. That the essay isn't the end of the conversation and Tolentino is writing her discovery in the moment. She's building toward understanding. She's learned to, as she puts it, “suspend my desire for conclusion.”

Academic noodling shored up by personal experience working towards a better understanding and Tolentino is our guide hacking through the underbrush of the internet, scammers, barre classes, reality TV and the wedding industrial complex. It's writing acutely aware of the current moment we're living in.

3.5/5 stars. This book was a lot. Jia is incredibly talented and sound in her research. I appreciate such a delve into resources past and present to inform her opinion and feed into one another about the various topic she addresses in this book. “Reflections on self-delusion” is a correct title for this book because all of the essays address a surface level facade that an individual can put out into the world, but it is the tip of the iceberg and hides much trauma, self-absorption, scam and sadness. My take on this “Self-delusion” and the reason why I picked up this book was because I thought that the author was going to talk about all of the themes she did, but more clearly how they related to her life. While every chapter more or less did to a degree, I wanted more. More ‘I' and ‘me' and ‘my opinion' -s rather than a regurgitation of surgically constructed sentences strung together in a calculated “look at me I'm awesome at research” blanket. I listened to this book through the author's own narration. It fell flat for me because she did not even inflect her voice in those more analytical evidence based chapters, which led me to feel like I was sitting in a lecture class.

Overall this content is fantastic and Jia is an incredibly talented writer. But, to me, her arguments are more convincing when she brings more of her own life experiences into them (like the chapters on sexual assault and being a woman as opposed to say the internet {a chapter she should have not opened up with but rather worked up to... I would have preferred it at the end as a culmination of all discussed throughout the book, but I digress). For many chapters she referenced the same Peace corps abroad trip that she did. For themes of rape and sexual assault, her experience there was more convincing than when she threw it into other chapters. It made me feel like she chose from a select pool of self imagery that she wanted to project out for people to see her as rather than being totally vulnerable in her arguments. Was that on purpose? Yeah maybe. Was she entitled to do it as this is her book and her life she is exposing? Yes, totally. But did the selectiveness make for an unconvincing argument in a fair amount of places? Also, yes.

It is no joke that Jia's life is both colorful and abundant in her own right. I doubt that her experiences are limited to being on a reality show, attending UVA, Peace corps in the Middle East and Jezebel magazine. I really just wanted to hear about all the stuff in between. More of her parents, her partner's relationship with her, and the external things that shaped her and her views.