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Jia Tolentino on Trick Mirror
Tolentino discusses self-delusion, the internet, and the essays behind Trick Mirror at Politics and Prose.
Quick facts
EssaysOn my shelf
Trick Mirror: Reflections on Self-Delusion
Nine essays examining the forces that distort how we see ourselves: the internet as an engine of constant self-performance, the rise of scamming as a defining ethos, the ‘women’s optimization’ industry sold through athleisure and chopped salad, religion, ecstasy, marriage, and the literary heroine’s arc from brave to blank to bitter. Tolentino selected and ordered the essays so each builds on the one before it.
Trick Mirror was a National Book Critics Circle John Leonard Prize finalist and one of Barack Obama’s favorite books of the year, and it’s easy to see why critics reached for comparisons to Joan Didion and Susan Sontag: Tolentino writes about internet-era self-delusion from inside it, implicating herself as thoroughly as anyone else. It’s dense, funny, and genuinely hard to summarize, which is part of the point.
Frequently asked questions about Jia Tolentino’s books
From the bookshelf
“It's much harder to think for yourself, with the minimum of self-delusion.”
— Jia Tolentino, Trick Mirror
For more essayists who implicate themselves as thoroughly as their subjects, browse the full shelf.
